The news of the day (well, yesterday) was the Spanish president’s slip-up at a press conference with the Russian president. ZP accidently used the F-word (which happens to also be an F-word in Spanish) instead of a similarly pronounced word meaning “to support.” It was clearly a slip of the tongue and no real controversy has arisen. But the video/audio clip is all over the place – on the news, on the satire shows, on the radio. And it cracks me up every time I see/hear it. But what really surprises me is that ZP doesn’t even crack a smile. I think I would have lost my cool had I let such a thing slip…
Show Me Spain 
Dear Amy,First of all, I apologize for using your comment area to contact you, but I could not find an e-mail address on your blog.My name is John Wilpers. I am the Global Blog Coordinator for GlobalPost, a new international news organization that launched on Jan. 12. We were featured in the New York Times last month. We have also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, MSNBC, MediaShift on PBS, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Online Journalism Review, and many more.My job is to build a list of blogs that will appear on GlobalPost where we have approximately 65 correspondents in some 46 countries plus high-profile correspondents writing about major themes.We are looking for enlightening, informative posts from bloggers writing (in English) about the countries they live in or care deeply about. And we were very pleased and excited to find your blog about Spain. Your wonderful, through-the-eyes-of-an-American “angle” on life in Spain is a delightful window into the culture, events, and issues in Spain (I loved your reaction to the “pants down” comment! Ditto the driving test.). You have a wonderful conversational writing style that is easy and pleasurable to read.After reviewing thousands of blogs worldwide, we think “Show Me … Spain” is one of the best and provides a unique insight into Madrid and Spain. It is a wonderful respite from all the hard news (usually bad news) we get from too many countries these days. And as we’re really looking to expand our audience’s understanding of the culture of countries around the world, not just the breaking news from those countries, your blog aids in that effort in a big way. Great work!So, I would like to extend an invitation to you to have the most recent post of “Show Me … Spain” included on the Spain page of GlobalPost.com as part of our “Global Blogs” service.The way it would work if you accept our invitation is that we would use your RSS full-text feed to place your most recent post on your personal page on GlobalPost.com. We would point back to your actual blog for comments and for archives, hopefully driving lots of traffic to your site. Each time you write a new post, it would replace the older one so only one post would appear on GlobalPost.com at any one time.By appearing on Global Post’s exciting new international news website, your words, viewpoints, and pictures would gain worldwide exposure. In barely two months, we have had 250,000 unique visitors and 1.1 million page views. Our readers have come from every country in the world except North Korea, Chad, and Eritrea!Your posts would not only appear instantly on globalpost.com but also possibly on the sites of our partners, including the Huffington Post (7.8 million U.S. and 9.7 million global monthly unique visitors) and other news and information websites.You do not need to do anything differently. We do request that you point back to us from your blog (we will send out the code for our badge if you accept). We also ask that you use our GlobalPost headlines widget, but that’s not a requirement.You should know that we have a few guidelines that we observe here at Global Post (looking at your work, these rules hardly apply, but I have to send them anyway!):1) We do not publish racist, sexist, or misogynist comments (unless those comments are the subject of the post).2) We do not publish obscene language or photos. While we recognize that obscenity can be difficult to define, we know it when we see it and we will let you know if we think you have crossed our line.3) We do not permit plagiarism. Any work taken from another source must be attributed to that source.4) We do not publish libelous or slanderous language.5) We do not tolerate repeated errors of fact or misrepresentations of facts or quotes.6) We do not publish work inciting violence.Failure to observe these guidelines would result in the removal of your blog from GlobalPost. We would contact you, of course, to discuss the post in question.Because we have a broad multicultural audience holding every conceivable political and religious viewpoint, we want to respect their views while also possibly challenging them. We will host controversial work. We will encourage robust debate of the hottest topics. We will not stifle discussion, only abuse of people, belief systems, and laws.We hope these guidelines are acceptable to you.I look forward getting your permission to put your full-text RSS feed on our site. Please reply to: jwilpers@globalpost.com. Thank you!Sincerely,John WilpersPS If you choose to accept our invitation and would like a photo and short biography to appear on GlobalPost, please send both to me with your confirmation e-mail or at some time shortly thereafter.JohnJOHN WILPERSGlobal Blog CoordinatorThe Pilot HouseLewis WharfBoston, MA 02110617-688-0137