The Sky Also Belongs to the Beggars
Sometimes, an entire country’s truth fits into a single bus bench:
fractured dignity, the chill of the morning, and the quiet persistence of those who keep rolling with nowhere to stop.
Today I understood that the sky also belongs to the homeless, because the earth —at least this earth— seems to belong to them less and less.
A Planetary Choreography: Each Tragedy Serves as a Screen to Hide Another
We live in a planetary choreography where every tragedy hides behind another. From Gaza to Ukraine, from Washington to Beijing, global power turns suffering into spectacle, and words into a fragile border between justice and silence.
Habeas Corpus and the Stigmatization of Immigrants
Yes, there are gangs. Yes, there is violence. Yes, there are crimes committed by people of Latino origin. But the dangerous falsehood lies in building a narrative around those exceptions to stigmatize an entire community.
In a Soulless World, Facts Banish Feelings.
Perhaps love will manage to defy the coldness of facts or, better yet, generate facts capable of bringing true happiness to the living beings who inhabit this minuscule speck of the universe.
Our lives are being swept into a stark and terrifying landscape: a world empty and soulless, governed by the stormy reign of facts.
ORWELL, DANTE, AND THE EARTHLY GODS 2025
Thirty-second Canto. Dante and Virgil watch as Count Ugolino frenetically devours Archbishop Rugiero’s head—two souls who suffer their condemnation in Antenora. Illustration by Gustave Doré.
A Perfect Fool: The Beautiful Futility of Being a Writer
As Gustave Flaubert once said, “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” Perhaps that’s what keeps me going, even when I feel invisible to the world. Writing is my compass, helping me navigate through the uncertainties of existence, even as I wrestle with the doubt of whether my work will ever truly matter.
We are frogs, birds, and lizards, crashing against the mirrors of our own illusions.
As I write, I can’t help but think that we, humans, are also frogs, birds, and lizards, crashing against tires and mirrors of our own illusions. Perhaps if we listened more to Aesop and his fables, we would learn to walk more carefully, with more purpose, leaving less destruction behind us.
Fear as a Tool for Social Mutation: Between Power and Perception
“The fear of the unknown is the root of all evil, and when we don’t understand what is happening, we invent enemies. And we say they are dangerous.”
— José Saramago, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998
A chat with Gustave Flaubert that started from my garden
We began our walk with Flaubert, and my main interest was to explore topics related to femicides. During our conversation, I mentioned the modern concept of ‘femicide,’ but Flaubert pointed out to me that in the time of ‘Madame Bovary,’ such a term did not exist.
Plato and I, a meeting at mile two
Author: ©2024 William Castano-Bedoya THREE-MILE CHRONICLES. Chronicle 4: Today I walk three miles, as usual. I head a few meters west and quickly turn south on Alhambra Circle. My goal is to skirt the University of Miami from the west and then enter the campus to breathe in that academic air that overwhelms and inspires […]
SAC. — Syndrome of the Awkward Commitment —: A condition similar to the Fifth Amendment.
Autor: ©2024 William Castano-Bedoya THREE-MILE CHRONICLES. Chronicle 3: I went out for a walk with a purpose, my brow furrowed, feeling vexed. This time, I chose to head south. I aimed to clear my mind by briskly navigating through the vehicular traffic. I desperately needed a dose of adrenaline, a sort of shock therapy. That’s […]
“Can’t you see…?” I shouted at the deaf.
“CAN’T YOU SEE…?” I SHOUTED AT THE DEAF
According to AE, this phrase is a paradoxical epiphenomenon. By William Castaño-Bedoya
Between Bukowski and the death of the two snakes.
Author: ©2024 William Castano-Bedoya THREE-MILE CHRONICLES. Chronicle 1: I went out for my usual three-mile walk; sometimes I head north, other times south, or east or west; that depends on my mood and what I set out to think about while walking. Often I accompany my steps just by listening to some literary work. That’s […]
The Last Tango of Salvador Allende: The Utopia of a Communist President Who Didn’t Want to Be One
Author: ©2023 William Castano-Bedoya The novel “The Last Tango of Salvador Allende,” written by Chilean author Roberto Ampuero and published by Plaza & Janes in 2012, provides a perceptive portrayal of the fictions and realities that characterized the Chilean political transition in the seventies, during the Allende-Pinochet era. It was a time when communism sought […]
Crypto, the new faith of materialism
© 2021 · Author: William Castaño-Bedoya The song known worldwide as What Color is God’s Skin? written in 1968 by Tom Wilkes & David Stevenson, released by their band “Up with People”, turned into a question asked by those who do or do not obey doctrines and dogmas. Atheists use this question to show that […]