adding insult to injury

With a rising wave of sexaul assault, it may not have beena good idea to carpet Naples and Rome’s walls with the following ad :

thankfully, several municipalities declared their intention to pass a ban against the photos. 

The sad thing being, there ad were meant to promote clothes: can you actually see that as the main message in it?

lesson (not) learned

 

These days Italy is in the midst of strikes, street protests and a whole array of fantasious acts of accusation against the decreto Gelmini, which, in its most contested part, re introduces the Mastro unico for primary school: one teacher for almost all subjects of study.

This outdated institution bring with itself a first problem: the one and only teacher works by law a maximum or 24 hours for working week, against the more thatn 50 that a small group of 3 teachers could have guaranteed. A part from the natural reduction in the knowledge that would be transmitted to the pupils in this halved school time (which in any case can be considered as neligible, given that we are dealing with primary school), the issue is: who will stay with the kids of two working parents for this suddenly free 20 hours a week?

Anywyay, the fishy part has yet to come: it looks like the Maestro Unico won’t be totally alone in his enterprise of providing the new generations some hint of education: two other reference persons will be with him.

Firslty, the foreign language teacher, who in most cases will be teaching English. If there was a transparent selection process of these teachers it would actually be a good idea: teaching English requires some special skills that the Maestro unico need not hve to teach properly math and italian grammar. 

Secondly, and here hold on to your chair, the Religion teacher!! 

This is appointed on (binding) encouragement from the local church, and receives a salary, as the other two teachers, that comes straight from the taxes raised by the (even non catholic) population. Don’t forget that the Church already has plenty of money flowing in from its enourmous real estates and financial assets.

It was around 1855 that Camillo Benso count fo Cavour, first president of the council of ministers, advocated the principle of “free Church in a free State”. The decreto Gelmini is a clear instance that that lesson has not been learned.

beware of the Romanians

and their elegant and sophisticated football tradition.

question to you:

italy vs romania:

only one team will survive. the looser, whoever he’ll be, is bound to leave the pitch shattered, humiliated, trashed, torn apart. morally worn out. physically devastated. 

hint:

io non ho paura

what the dutch are you doing?!

  and… 

oh-la-la someone has a preference for a 90 degree approach to football

YES WE CAN

but what does this mean, a part form implying NO YOU CAN’T ?

moreover, i would love to actually know what Obama wants to do if he gets to power. the most concrete policy that i heard of is “we need to promote good teachers” – as opposed to the other guys..

i would also like to know in advance how far his “becoming white” will go. i heard that he was accused by his own staff to have delivered a discourse that sounded too black.

anyway, this is not about black people. what is creepy about Obama is that he is running for the presidency of the US only armed with popolist slogan and no real program. this is a worrisome signal of political immaturity. just look what happened when someone won the elections on the emotional wave of the slogan Forza Italia. abstracting from a judgement on the political legacy of Berlusconi, his first government made clear the inadequacy of the italians to organise themselves in a mature democracy.

now my grandmother would say “what we need, is a dictator”. as an economist, i would say “what we need, is a social planner”. as for now, i take the what goes around comes back around perspective.

women in politics at the age of Berlusconi

fact1- the female politicians that we have in Italy are everything but bad-looking. let me stress it again: they are just gorgeous.

fact2- work promotions should be deserved, and what one deserves is by definition the fruit of one’s personal and individual efforts.

much better then, i safely concluse, to get a seat because of a costly worked-out beauty rather than because of family connections and nepotism.

italy at the age of internet

i needed an internet connection. in my new flat, we have more serious businesses to take care of. of course, because when you buy a flat the seller usually does not tell you that the water heather is broken. nor that the stairscase to the second floor, where the prestigious machinery is located, has been built too narrow to allow the passage of 99% of the commerciable water heathers. nevermind.

still, while five blue-collars go around my just re-painted flat, charge their cell phones in my plugs, smoke cigarettes in a traditionally non-smoking loft, i call the national phone company to have internet activated. or better, to have at least a land-phone line. at lest, a phone number! but no, it s not possible. they change 5 times the number that i should have activated. i spoke with 8, i mean, really 8, different operators. i cursed, bribed, joked, yielled. nothing.

wisely, i head to a internet point.

moer wisely, i will go for a check-up as soon as i get out. i am sitting in the back of a bar, the keybord is stained with something stick-ish (jam? cappuccino drops?), m neighbour is not someone i would like to meet in a dark alley. the pc frantically pops up alarming icons. it s hot and smelly. the owner is a cheap and greasy lady that seemed pissed off by my presence. i thought i disturbed her, by expensively usig this HP compaq nx300.

i wont indulge in the details aroud me. the viruses may be already at work. red cross here i come!

LoVe

an unnecessary event to celebrate an unremarkable year:
THE Kiss in piazza san marco
starring: 60.000 unimportant people (hopefully an even number)
director: Doug Jack, a man “inspired by life” http://www.dougjack.net/
location: Piazza San Marco, roughly 22.500 square metres, which leaves each person with 0.3 sqm to breath, sneeze, hold the (right) partner and kiss
time: two rehearsals at 22.15 and 22.45 -do people really know how to kiss?http://www.wikihow.com/French-Kiss- , then the real and SPONTANEOUS kiss at 00:00
music: the most heartbreakingly romantic songs (ie Take my breath away)
issue: should homosexuals be allowed to partecipate?
resolution of the issue: two steps: step1) take no official position, step2) the day after, always complain

unspoken issue: 3 deaths for meningitis in the last two weeks. “The risk of getting the disease is very low” YET ” We pass the bacteria between each other by close contact (e.g. kissing)” (http://www.meningitis.org/disease-info/whats-the-risk)

me: i didn’t go. in the fury of kissing according to Doug’s instructions, i might have ended up kissing one of the 100 special cops sent to patrol the area- unless they have been sent in couples as well.