You Tube has given show-off adolescent males further motivation to engage in spectacularly self-destructive behavior. Teenagers have filmed themselves wearing a protective suit in a bathtub full of fireworks and throwing a flaming basketball soaked in gasoline – with predictable third-degree burns as the result.
In Spanish island resorts the sport of balconing has become popular.. It involves climbing from balcony to balcony in a hotel or diving from a balcony into a pool. Death sometime results.
The Spanish newspaper ABC reports that the profile of a balconer
es el de un turista joven, normalmente varón, menor de 30 años (próximo a los 25) y habitualmente de nacionalidad británica, que está pasando una semana de vacaciones en las Islas.
That he is a young tourist, usually male, less than 30 years old (on the average 25) and usually of British nationality, who is passing a week’s vacation in the Islands.
And (surprise!) drugs and alcohol are involved.
ABC, a conservative Catholic paper, finds such behavior inexplicable and disturbing. But it is mad at Catalonia for banning bullfighting. Getting into a ring with an enraged bull or running before bulls in the streets of Pamplona are fine Spanish traditions.
