State multiculturalism: failure or future?

I honestly need to say this: when I first heard of this David Cameron's statement on multiculturalism, I just thought that it was something silly from a person who just wanted to set himself apart from the past (the encumbering Blair's past).

But then I realized that there was something deeper going on there, e.g. a political statement on the fact that, by not giving to second generation immigrants (and to 1.5g as well) a model, they wouldn't have a reference whom to confront to (and possibly, to react to). Basically, the youngsters have been swaying between their parents models (that were however unable to keep up with the changes they, in first person, were facing), and the shaking reference of the new country which is basically unwilling of (if not afraid of) providing them with the so-called mainstream model. As a result, they feel themselves right in the middle, and maybe not totally accepted by either side of the shore. I am grossly extrapolating by saying that Cameron predicts that this could possibly end up in feeding terrorism.

Without jumping to these frightening conclusions, I don't know if Cameron's analysis is correct, but I'm under the impression that if we just downplay the sentence "multiculturalism has failed" as a right-wing shortsighted position, we may be underestimating the issues that may need to be faced in the future. Since immigration is now worldwide (I am under the idea that sic stantibus rebus, it is going to be a stationary and multiple sources-multiple sinks phenomenon), I don't think that "it's just a matter of time" to settle things down. I am convinced that an intercultural society, and civilization merge as well, do not breed automatically from multiculturalism, but may need to be driven to be favoured, more than let free. The choice on how to drive this process is now at stake: are we really so sure that sharing the "universal human rights" postulate is enough?


In italiano:

In tutta onestà devo dire questo: quando ho ascoltato per la prima volta questa dichiarazione di Cameron multiculturalismo, ho pensato che fosse qualcosa di sciocco detto da una persona che voleva distaccare la propria immagine dal passato di chi ha rivestito il suo ruolo (il passato ingombrante di Blair).

Ma poi ho capito che c'era qualcosa di più profondo in quello che diceva: una dichiarazione politica sul fatto che, non fornendo un modello agli immigrati di seconda generazione (come a quelli "1.5g"), questi ultimi non avrebbero un riferimento con cui confrontarsi (ed eventualmente, a cui reagirei). Fondamentalmente, questi giovani immigrati stanno oscillando tra il loro modello proposto dai loro genitori (incapaci tuttavia di tenere il passo con i cambiamenti che, in prima persona, stanno affrontando), ed un insicuro riferimento proposto dal modello del paese che li ospita, quest'ultimo di certo non voglioso (se non proprio impaurito dalla possibilità) di fornire il modello di riferimento.
Come risultato, il giovane immigrato di seconda generazione, si sente nel mezzo del guado, e forse non totalmente accettato da nessuna delle due rive. Sto grossolanamente estrapolando, se dico che Cameron predice che questo processo potrebbe portare ad alimentare il terrorismo.

Senza saltare a queste ultime preoccupanti conclusioni, io non so se l'analisi di Cameron è corretta, ma ho l'impressione che derubricare la frase "il multiculturalismo ha fallito" ad una miope posizione destrorsa, potrebbe portare a sottovalutare situazioni che comunque dovranno essere affrontate. Dal momento che l'immigrazione è ormai un fenomeno globale (ho la convinzione che rebus sic stantibus, è un fenomeno stazionario e multisorgente e multidestinazione), non credo che "è solo una questione di tempo" per risolvere le cose . Sono convinto che una società interculturale, ed il mescolamento culturale, non cresce automaticamente dal multiculturalismo, ma può avere bisogno di essere guidato per essere favorito, più che lasciato libero. La scelta su come guidare questo processo è l'argomento all'ordine del giorno:siamo davvero così sicuri che il postulato della semplice condivisione dei "diritti umani universali" sia sufficiente?

La Tirannide dei Vinti

Domenica 3 Gennaio 2010. Alle ore 19:00, come si conviene ad un maniaco dello sport americano nei mesi di autunno ed inverno, mi schiaffo davanti al computer e mi guardo le partite della NFL. Oggi è l'ultima giornata della regular season, e si stabiliscono le (12) squadre che potranno continuare a giocare per guadagnarsi l'anello al Superbowl. Prima della partita, gli occhi sono puntati sui vincitori dello scorso anno, i Pittsburgh Steelers, che quest'anno rischiano seriamente di uscire senza partecipare ai play-off. Nel frattempo, alla televisione seguo un interessante speciale su Rai Storia, in cui si illustrano le vicende delle Brigate Rosse genovesi a fine anni '70, e i tragici attentati che li hanno visti protagonisti, con un occhio di riguardo all'omicidio di Guido Rossa, operaio dell'Italsider, e sindacalista CGIL. Mentre distrattamente seguo l'alternarsi dei risultati dell'NFL (gli Steelers riescono a vincere una faticosissima partita contro i Dolphins, ma questo non impedirà la loro eliminazione dai play-off), a un certo punto, nella ricostruzione dell'omicidio di Guido  Rossa, viene intervistato, come persona testimone dell'epoca, un ex-brigatista, che, davanti ad una bellissima libreria di libri antichi in una casa borghese, afferma che, in fondo, l'omicidio di Rossa, non era voluto, ed era stato una scheggia "impazzita" fuoriuscita dalle BR ad ammazzarlo. Trattengo a stento un moto di rabbia, determinato dalle parole di questo intellettualoide chissà quanto  "pentito", chissà quanto "dissociato", e continuo a seguire lo speciale, peraltro particolarmente interessante. Finito lo speciale, (lo trovate qui, ma la parte sul brigatista sembra essere stata rimossa nella versione online) mi rimetto al computer, per venire a sapere cosa sia successo agli Steelers, ma all'inizio non trovo traccia di informazioni dirette che li riguardino. A quel punto, capisco che gli Steelers non sono passati, lo spazio è tutto per i "vincitori' del momento (i Ravens e i Jets), che strappano il biglietto per un pezzetto di sogno.

Ecco, queste due cose che sono successe, e che forse non hanno alcun elemento in comune, mi fanno però capire la differenza. Gli Stati Uniti sono uno schiacciasassi, e portano in palmo di mano qualunque vincitore, qualunque vittoria, rastrellando ogni brandello di "emotional story" per il vincitore (Lance Armstrong che vince e stravince dopo aver sconfitto il cancro, il soldato Ryan che riesce a ritornare a casa grazie all'eroico sacrificio dei suoi pari), ma sono altrettanto feroci nel dimenticare il vinto, la medaglia d'argento, il "loser" del momento, che ritorna nell'anonimato in un attimo, perché se la storia di un paese la fanno i vincitori, in US la cultura e la società stessa sono forgiate nel nome del winner del caso.

In Italia, invece, la cura dello sconfitto è, credo, immanente nella società. Questo credo sia un elemento importante, segno del progresso di un paese, che apre le braccia a chi non ce l'ha fatta, a chi ha avuto l'opportunità e non l'ha sfruttata, o non l'ha voluta sfruttare. Questa è una cosa che mi rende orgoglioso di essere italiano, e mostra la misura della capacità "inclusiva" di un paese. Però, è anche misura della sua limitatezza, perché stare dalla parte dei vinti non può essere lo "scurdammoce 'o ppassat" di partenopea tradizione. È solo ricordandosi il passato, ricordandosi dove è la ragione e dove il torto, che il vinto può avere uno spazio, senza che la ragione ne possa essere influenzata. In certe situazioni, invece, l'Italia sembra dare la precedenza ai vinti, ai quali è spesso permesso riscrivere la storia con gli occhiali polarizzati della loro esperienza. Si sviluppa, essenzialmente, un criterio criterio del tipo: il vincitore ha già avuto il suo premio, al vinto il diritto della critica storica. Credo che questo, in alcuni casi, sia purtroppo avvenuto, e ha portato ad una sorta di tirannide dei vinti, nella quale la verità è annacquata dall'esperienza del singolo, ed il vinto nasconde la ragione.

...e buonanotte alla digital inclusion...

Fino ad oggi non avevo mai capito per quale motivo gli hot spot in Italia sono cosi' poco distribuiti. In tanti altri paesi, entri in un pub/bar/libreria/cafe', e con ogni probabilita' hai accessso gratuito alla rete con il tuo laptop: l'esercente ti offre l'accesso al servizio gratuitamente, anche perche' sa che con una bella connessione al web, tu rimarrai piu' tempo da lui, e probabilmente ti comprerai un croissant in piu', o un altro cappuccino. In Italia no, e non me ne facevo capace: poi ho letto questo. E', credo, il quarto anno consecutivo, che, per un esercente pubblico, e' d'obbligo
1. registrarsi presso la Questura, ma soprattutto
2. tenere un registro dei dati dei propri clienti o soci che si connettono a internet, ed inoltre,
3. identificazione certa degli utenti della propria rete (tramite carta d'identità o numero di cellulare)
Be', questo mi sembra andare proprio nella direzione opposta alle promesse di superamento del digital divide...

Change, finally!

Non arrestarli, ma picchiarli...

Lui è stato Presidente della Repubblica:

Presidente Cossiga, pensa che minacciando l'uso della forza pubblica contro gli studenti Berlusconi abbia esagerato?

«Dipende, se ritiene d'essere il presidente del Consiglio di uno Stato forte, no, ha fatto benissimo. Ma poiché è l'Italia è uno Stato debole, e all'opposizione non c'è il granitito Pci ma l'evanescente Pd, temo che alle parole non seguiranno i fatti e che quindi Berlusconi farà quantomeno una figuraccia».

Quali fatti dovrebbero seguire?

«A questo punto, Maroni dovrebbe fare quel che feci io quand'ero ministro dell'Interno».

Ossia?

«In primo luogo, lasciare perdere gli studenti dei licei, perché pensi a cosa succederebbe se un ragazzino di dodici anni rimanesse ucciso o gravemente ferito...».

Gli universitari, invece?

«Lasciarli fare. Ritirare le forze di polizia dalle strade e dalle università, infiltrare il movimento con agenti provocatori pronti a tutto, e lasciare che per una decina di giorni i manifestanti devastino i negozi, diano fuoco alle macchine e mettano a ferro e fuoco le città».

Dopo di che?

«Dopo di che, forti del consenso popolare, il suono delle sirene delle ambulanze dovrà sovrastare quello delle auto di polizia e carabinieri».

Nel senso che...

«Nel senso che le forze dell'ordine dovrebbero massacrare i manifestanti senza pietà e mandarli tutti in ospedale. Non arrestarli, che tanto poi i magistrati li rimetterebbero subito in libertà, ma picchiarli a sangue e picchiare a sangue anche quei docenti che li fomentano».

Anche i docenti?

«Soprattutto i docenti. Non quelli anziani, certo, ma le maestre ragazzine sì. Si rende conto della gravità di quello che sta succedendo? Ci sono insegnanti che indottrinano i bambini e li portano in piazza: un atteggiamento criminale!».

E lei si rende conto di quel che direbbero in Europa dopo una cura del genere? «In Italia torna il fascismo», direbbero.

«Balle, questa è la ricetta democratica: spegnere la fiamma prima che divampi l'incendio».

Quale incendio?

«Non esagero, credo davvero che il terrorismo tornerà ad insanguinare le strade di questo Paese. E non vorrei che ci si dimenticasse che le Brigate Rosse non sono nate nelle fabbriche ma nelle università. E che gli slogan che usavano li avevano usati prima di loro il Movimento studentesco e la sinistra sindacale».

E' dunque possibile che la storia si ripeta?

«Non è possibile, è probabile. Per questo dico: non dimentichiamo che le Br nacquero perché il fuoco non fu spento per tempo».

Andrea Cangini Francesco Cossiga
Quotidiano nazionale, 2008

Debate, wrapping up, with a laugh twist....

this is quite something...

Debate, take 2...

just the audio, this time...

VP hopefuls clash (not so much...)

Sarah's been better than I mis-predicted, but Joe is (despite his artificially raised Spock-styled eyebrows)too experienced for her rally style way of debating...

Joe, enjoyed the ride?

For the millions of voters getting to know him, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, portrays himself at times as an average guy who takes the train to work, frets about money and basically has led a middle-class life.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine,” Mr. Biden said when Senator Barack Obama introduced him as his running mate. “You sit there at night after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills.”

Mr. Biden certainly can trace his roots to the working-class neighborhoods of Scranton, Pa., and Claymont, Del., where he was raised. But these days, his kitchen table can be found in a 6,800-square-foot custom-built colonial-style house on four lakefront acres, a property worth close to $3 million.

Although he is among the least wealthy members of the millionaires club that is the United States Senate — he and his wife, Jill, a college professor, earn about $250,000 a year — Mr. Biden maintains a lifestyle that is more comfortable than the impression he may have given on the campaign trail. A review of his finances found that when it comes to some of his largest expenses, like the purchase and upkeep of his home and his use of Amtrak trains to get around, he has benefited from resources and relationships not available to average Americans.

As a secure incumbent who has rarely faced serious competition during 35 years in the Senate, Mr. Biden has been able to dip into his campaign treasury to spend thousands of dollars on home landscaping and some of his Amtrak travel between Wilmington, Del., where he lives, and Washington. And the acquisition of his waterfront property a decade ago involved wealthy businessmen and campaign supporters, some of them bankers with an interest in legislation before the Senate, who bought his old house for top dollar, sold him four acres at cost and lent him $500,000 to build his new home.

There is nothing to suggest Mr. Biden bent any rules in the sale, purchase and financing of his homes. Rather, he appears to have benefited at times from the simple fact of who he is: a United States senator, not just “Amtrak Joe,” the train-riding everyman that the Obama-Biden campaign has deployed to rally middle-class voters.

“He was a V.I.P., so he was treated accordingly by the bank,” said Ronald Tennant, a former loan officer who handled the mortgages Mr. Biden used to build his house. The bank did not give him a below-market interest rate, a perk that has caused embarrassment for some other members of Congress. But, Mr. Tennant said, “We paid particularly close attention to make sure everything came out right.”

Mr. Biden’s campaign said that he neither received special treatment nor offered any to the people he has dealt with in real estate and banking, and that he had not left a misleading impression of his wealth with voters. The senator, said David Wade, his spokesman, “has never forgotten where he came from, or how he grew up, and those middle-class values motivate his work for the middle class.”

“He appreciates,” Mr. Wade continued, “that with his income as a senator he has been blessed to live comfortably, provide for his family, send his kids to college, and have the home his family dreamed of.”

As for the payments by Mr. Biden’s campaign committee, Citizens for Biden, his aides insisted they were not used to cover the senator’s living expenses, which would be illegal. Election lawyers said that the law does not spell out all the ways an officeholder could benefit personally from the use of campaign money, and that regulators are generally reluctant to challenge the justifications campaign committees use.

Mr. Biden’s campaign said the payments to tree trimmers and lawn services, typically totaling a few thousand dollars a year, were permissible because they were tied to political events at his home. Jim Whittaker, co-owner of Grass Roots Inc., which was paid $4,345 in 2000, said the payment probably represented several visits to the senator’s property, adding that Mr. Biden was “late paying the bill one time.”

“We cut the grass and put sod down for him, did spring cleanups, mulching and knocked down vegetation,” Mr. Whittaker said. “One time we did a mulching job and he was having an event, but I don’t know if it was political or just for friends.”

Beyond landscaping costs, one of the Biden campaign’s largest regular expenditures is for Amtrak tickets for the senator and his aides or consultants. Going back to 2001, those expenses typically ranged from $9,000 to $15,000 a year — far exceeding that of his colleagues in Delaware’s Congressional delegation, whose campaigns spent between $500 and $3,000, federal election records show. Like Mr. Biden, Delaware’s other senator, Thomas R. Carper, and Representative Michael N. Castle commute daily to Washington, their offices said.

Commuting on the train to and from Washington is an expensive proposition, $84 round trip from Wilmington or $1,062 for a monthly pass, although Amtrak offers a little-known discount for federal employees traveling on business. Senators cannot use their office travel allowance for commuting, according to a spokesman for the Senate Rules Committee.

But Mr. Biden’s aides acknowledged he sometimes uses campaign money to pay for trips if they “involved a meeting or event related to his campaign.” They could not explain why his campaign’s Amtrak expenditures are relatively high, other than to point out that they would include travel by his staff and consultants, as do those of other politicians.

The Biden campaign’s Amtrak expenses have remained high even in years without elections, when he was not actively campaigning and his committee retained a handful of part-time staff members and almost no consultants. In 2003, for instance — after he had just easily won re-election to another six-year term — his committee spent $10,874 on Amtrak tickets; that same year, the campaigns of Senator Carper and Representative Castle spent $1,257 and $589, respectively.

Mr. Biden’s Amtrak travel is the stuff of Washington lore. He started making the 90-minute trips each day to be with his young sons after his first wife died in 1972, and he has continued ever since. On the stump, Mr. Biden cites his commute as a way to connect with voters; last month he brought reporters along to chronicle a ride.

At least by Senate standards, Mr. Biden does not have to try too hard to underscore his relative lack of wealth. He has long shouldered a heavy debt load; he obtained or refinanced mortgages 29 times since he was elected in 1972, and currently owes $730,000 on two mortgages on his home. In addition, he has had several personal loans, including one for up to $50,000 secured by the cash value of six life insurance policies.

Mr. Biden supplements his $165,000 Senate salary with a stipend from teaching a college course. His biggest boost came a few years ago, when he collected $225,000 in advances for his best-selling memoir. The Bidens have several checking accounts with less than $15,000 each, and Jill Biden’s retirement fund with between $15,000 to $50,000, according to their tax returns and Mr. Biden’s Senate financial disclosure reports. The couple reported virtually no investment income last year, and their largest asset by far was their home.

Mr. Biden previously lived for 21 years in a 10,000-square-foot former DuPont mansion in Greenville, which he bought in 1975 for $185,000 after learning it was slated for demolition.

After extensive renovations, he sold it in February 1996, through word of mouth, to John R. Cochran III, the vice chairman of MBNA, one of the nation’s largest credit card companies. He agreed to pay Mr. Biden’s full asking price, $1.2 million. MBNA reimbursed Mr. Cochran for a loss he took on the sale of his old home, according to a 1997 securities filing, which said the company requested that he move to Delaware from Maryland.

Mr. Cochran, who still lives at the house, could not be reached for comment.

The real estate deal was just one facet of a close relationship between Mr. Biden and MBNA, which donated more than $200,000 to his campaigns. The Delaware-based company gave a job to Mr. Biden’s son Hunter; flew Senator Biden and his wife to the Maine coast, where Mr. Biden spoke at a company retreat; and its former chief executive, Charles M. Cawley, donated at least $22,500 to a nonprofit breast cancer fund started by Jill Biden.

MBNA also was an aggressive advocate of bankruptcy reform legislation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Mr. Biden was a senior member and its former chairman. The legislation would make it harder for consumers to escape credit card debts.

Mr. Wade said there was nothing improper in Mr. Biden’s dealings with Mr. Cochran. He said the sale price was supported by an appraisal for the same amount, and that Mr. Biden never did MBNA any favors in the Senate.

In acquiring a site for his new house, Mr. Biden bought the lakeside parcel in Wilmington in March 1996 from Keith D. Stoltz, a real estate executive who once lived adjacent to the property and sold it to the senator for $350,000, the same price he paid for it five years earlier. In an e-mail message, Mr. Stoltz said the price was reasonable because the real estate market was soft and he had paid a premium for the lot so he could keep it undeveloped.

“Joe initially offered me $300,000 for the lot and I declined his offer,” he said.

Mr. Stoltz and several of his relatives have since given a total of about $33,000 in campaign donations to Mr. Biden over the years. He said the senator has never done anything “either formally or informally” to help his company.

To build his house, Mr. Biden turned to Beneficial National Bank. Its executives were active in state politics in Delaware, major campaign contributors to both parties nationally and advocates of changes to bankruptcy policy.

Not long before Mr. Biden obtained his construction loan from Beneficial in July 1997, he had offered to nominate the bank’s chairman, James H. Gilliam Jr., for a federal judge’s post in Delaware, according to news accounts of Mr. Gilliam’s death in 2003. Mr. Gilliam, a lawyer who also headed a state judiciary nomination panel and donated to Mr. Biden’s campaigns, declined the offer and recommended someone else, whom Mr. Biden nominated in June 1997.

Mr. Biden’s campaign said that his dealings with Mr. Gilliam had nothing to do with the $634,000 in loans he received from Beneficial, adding that Mr. Biden had other reasons to consider Mr. Gilliam, who would have been Delaware’s first African-American federal judge.

Mr. Biden, who said in his book that he designed his house “from the ground up,” saw it finished it time to move in for Christmas 1998, although the work of maintaining it never seemed complete. Recounting how he was once interrupted by a presidential phone call while he was outside watering newly planted cypress trees, he lamented that “even after a few years on the property, there was still landscaping to be done.”

McIntire and Kovaleski

The first debate

There's just a big winner here, and his name's Jim "muppet's eyes" Lehrer!
Enjoy these 97 mins...

...the odd couple: a terrifying prospect?

Forget Joe Biden. I'd like to see John McCain debate Sarah Palin.

McCain's scorn for Barack Obama was on unrestrained display in Friday night's debate. How dare this impudent whippersnapper imagine he can be president, you could almost see McCain thinking. I'm the one who's racked up the frequent-flier miles to Waziristan! Henry Kissinger and I were BFFs when Obama was glued to "The Brady Bunch"! Listening to McCain debate was like a stroll down foreign policy memory lane: Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko. George Shultz, "our great secretary of state." Perestroika. SDI.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought the Cold War would never end.

"Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman. . .," McCain reminisced. And, "I supported Nunn-Lugar back in the early 1990s." By the time McCain described how the Pakistan-Afghanistan border "has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great," you were half-expecting that he was going to tell you about how he led the congressional delegation that met with Alexander.

All this looking back doesn't strike me as a politically smart tactic -- or is that strategy? McCain risked coming off as the crotchety uncle who insists on telling you the same war stories -- over and over, no matter how off-point they are. No voter looking into the financial abyss believes the most pressing budgetary problem is $3 million to study bear DNA.
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And for McCain to open the debate by noting that Ted Kennedy was in the hospital -- a gracious touch, certainly, but reminding the audience about an ailing senior senator is not the optimal move for a 72-year-old cancer survivor seeking the presidency.

Which brings me to Palin, and my continuing -- no, make that deepening -- mystification over McCain's choice. I can understand how he views Obama as untested and unprepared.

I can't square that dismissive attitude with McCain's selection of Palin.

McCain's fundamental argument in pursuit of the presidency is that he has the background to do the job. He made this point again and again Friday night. "I've been involved, as I mentioned to you before, in virtually every major national security challenge we've faced in the last 20-some years. There are some advantages to experience, and knowledge, and judgment." Or, "The important thing is I visited Afghanistan and I traveled to Waziristan and I traveled to these places and I know what our security requirements are."

And so therefore I picked a running mate who didn't have a passport two years ago? Asked about that by Katie Couric, Palin explained that "I'm not one of those who maybe come from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduated college and their parents get them a passport and a backpack and say, 'Go off and travel the world.' "

Instead, Palin said, "the way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world."

This would be more reassuring if Palin had demonstrated more evidence of having read extensively about history or world affairs. Asked in an interview for PBS's Charlie Rose show last year ( http://www.charlierose.com/guests/sarah-palin) about her favorite authors, Palin cited C.S. Lewis -- "very, very deep" -- and Dr. George Sheehan, a now-deceased writer for Runner's World magazine whose columns Palin still keeps on hand.

"Very inspiring and very motivating," she said. "He was an athlete and I think so much of what you learn in athletics about competition and healthy living that he was really able to encapsulate, has stayed with me all these years."

Also, she got a Garfield desk calendar for Christmas 1987 that made a big impression.

McCain is a voracious reader of history. The day before the New Hampshire primary, I sat on his campaign bus listening to him hold forth about William Manchester on Douglas MacArthur.

And in his most recent book, "Hard Call," McCain explains why knowledge of history matters: "Great statesmen who have been praised for their ability to see around the corner of history knew their history before they looked beyond it, and they understood the forces that drove it in one direction or another." If there is evidence that Palin has that understanding, it is yet to emerge. Peering around the corner of history with Palin as vice president is a terrifying prospect.

Ruth Marcus

Rome, still my town? :(

It's been now around four months since Rome mayor elections were held, when Alemanno chimed in after an upset victory against Rutelli. My confidence on his ability to propose new ways to serve for the local administration was not low, but I think I need to change my mind, since he's just sticking with a personal version of the old (and IMHO not that good for Rome, right now) Giuliani's recipe of fixing broken windows:

?? No bivouacking on the streets ??

??? The army at the subway station ???

???? No 3-or-more people gathering in the parks ????

This will be quite scary, if it is enforced...
Come on, Gianni, do you really need anchors and pickets to climb Rome?
And a little reminder for those ones who are going to visit Rome: just keep walking, pretend you don't know each other, and if you happen to get drowsy, remember, espressos are everywhere... ;)

Flag bearers...

Lopez Lomong will carry the US flag at Beijing Olympics. Not too bad for a Sudanese guy who used to walk more than five miles a day out of his refugee camp in Kenya just to see the Sydney Olympics on a B/W screen. Good call from the USOC guys, and a (not so) little reminder to China about the Sudan conflict...








And Homa Hosseini will be the flag carrier for Iran, whose politics is usually blamed for its chauvinism. This is another good one!

Small talks, (spin doctors,) big men?

C: You should be on the beach,you need a break. Well, you need to be able to keep your head together.
O: You’ve got to refresh yourself.
C: Do you have a break at all?
O: I have not,I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you that somebody, somebody who had worked in the White House who — not Clinton himself, but somebody who had been close to the process – said that, should we be successful, that actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking. And the biggest mistake that a lot of these folks make is just feeling as if you have to be.
C: These guys just chalk your diary up.
O: Right, in 15 minute increments …
C: We call it the dentist’s waiting room, you have to scrap that because you’ve got to have time.
O: And, well, and you start making mistakes or you lose the big picture. Or you lose a sense of, I think you lose a feel...
C: Your feeling, and that is exactly what politics is all about. The judgment you bring to make decisions.
O: That’s exactly right, and the truth is that we’ve got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know ten times more than we do about the specifics of the topics. And so if what you’re trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you.

Fourth estates: just close to a breath-taking sea view...

I am not a Sardinia resident, so I do not honestly know how Renato Soru is behaving as a Governor of that region, within a centre-left coalition. I personally think he's a very good manager, he's the owner of Tiscali group, one of the very few ICT international companies based in Italy. It looks like he's just bought l'Unità, the once communist-alleged newspaper in Italy. Owner of both a telecommunication company and a big newspaper, and governor of a region pretty much as big as e.g. Massachusetts... Have ever heard of the term "conflict of interest"? Or does it only rhyme with Mr. Unfit?

168 years, so close

De Toqueville, 1840

There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of the new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all. It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. The discharge of political duties appears to them to be a troublesome impediment which diverts them from their occupations and business. If they are required to elect representatives, to support the government by personal service, to meet on public business, they think they have no time, they cannot waste their precious hours in useless engagements; such idle amusements are unsuited to serious men who are engaged with the more important interests of life. These people think they are following the principle of self-interest, but the idea they entertain of that principle is a very crude one; and the better to look after what they call their own business, they neglect their chief business, which is to remain their own masters.

Communion: take 1, with wife # 3...

I just can't be silent over this.
It looks like Benedict let the three-married pro-chooser take communion. I don't really care about Rudy and his views on this, after all it's his life, but I am really upset for the kiss up - kick down behaviour of my pope. My dear Benedict, weren't you reported as a pretty upright guy? What's the story with this, don't know if it's really in line with e.g. this one...

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples,saying, "The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation 'Rabbi.'
... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.'

History repeating...

February 6, 2001 - February 6, 2008.
Nothing new in Italy, except role swapping between Gnutella and Walter... ;)

Sapienza/Knowledge

It turned out that the pope has decided not to give the speech at the Sapienza University in Rome, after the protests a bunch of professors (namely, 63 out of approx. thirty-five hundreds) angry at one of his speeches in the nineties, when he apparently said that the roman catholic church at Galileo's age was more rational than Galileo himself, set a fire within the students community.
I will leave my thoughts on the so-called "bad teachers"/"cattivi maestri" apart. At the same time, I am gonna attach a new testament abstract, i think it would fit to the 63...



From the Letter of James

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you realize that we will be judged more strictly, for we all fall short in many respects. If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we also guide their whole bodies. It is the same with ships: even though they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot's inclination wishes. In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. … With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. … And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.

On the issues...

If you are going to participate to the primaries in US, this may be useful, and if you want to see what would be your pick based on these issues, just click here.