Stories and News

Stories and News No. 936 While forces loyal to Assad regime launched the decisive ground assault, the rebel territory in eastern Aleppo is shrinking ...   It’s shrinking, yes. It also does now, stopping here, at the mere narration of things, standing under the judgments from above, that crush us like worthless ants. Or, at least, this is what the story tells. From above. Yet, as the trips we best remember, those where everything goes wrong except the people we met, simply reversing the poles of the heart we could save something. Not all, because at the end of the day it’s not true that we need everything. Yet it’s shrinking. I know. Trump wins and what do the hopes of peace and, above all, for a blessed world, humanitarian pause? They follow the rule, they shrink, that’s normal. We open newspapers, we read the news at the top, even those to the side and below, and trust in the future does the same. It shrinks. Nevertheless, let’s indulge an unexpected step for onc

Stories and News No. 935 The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women is an anniversary created by the General Assembly of the United Nations, through Resolution 54/134 of 17 December 1999. The Assembly chose 25 November as a day of celebration and urged international organizations and governments to promote on that date events and activities aimed at involving the citizens. The Day for the Elimination . Of something that even now. It’s here among us... The teacher of literature said that. She’s not miss Nobody, right? She said that violence against women starts from very young. It’s taught us while we’re children. She also said, just the day before, that we might learn more from a simple fairy tale that a perfect lesson by the most intelligent master on earth. I've learned much from fairy tales, it must be so. Because I have read a bit and love it all. Well, you know what? I wanted so badly to do something, being of the game, in fact. Si

Stories and News No. 934 Tokyo woke up with the first snowfall in November after more than 50 years. However, as it often happens, what is a simple recurrence for some for others it is a truly remarkable event… “It’s snowing,” says the child. We might call him Haruki . Because it has a nice sound. Or, perhaps, because sometimes it happens that imagination dares so much to touch the real. In other words, that his name is really so. Then, Haruki looks through the window and thinks: "This is the snow, then." The snow of fairy tales and photos, movies, and people who desperately need an audience. The snow in November , to be precise. As if the miracle was in the month, rather than the wonder itself. As if time counted more than us. And as if this instant’s weight enjoyed a greater value than a short meeting. Between you and me. However, Haruki is not lost among such semantic tangles. The amazements in this world are blessed gifts, as the free and open to all

Stories and News No. 933 According to a recent report from the European Environment Agency “air pollution remains the single largest environmental health hazard in Europe, resulting in a lower quality of life due to illnesses and an estimated 467 000 premature deaths per year.” But, who is killing who? The interrogation room is a classic. Anyway, even the most abstruse visions must take advantage of fixed points, otherwise, thin as they are, could fly away like untied balloons. White and bare walls, gray metal table, as cold chairs and the usual two-way mirror, although it is hard to find these days criminals who don’t know that beyond the reflected image someone is watching them. Someone is reading between the lines. There is someone there. Well, he will not be the highest, but for many it can make a real difference. On the other hand, this time the accused is not a suspect, but a witness, a very ocular one. "Please, sit down, Miss Nature ", says the detective

Stories and News No. 932 In the UK, a 14 years old died of cancer girl has won the right to be cryogenically frozen . The court decided to back the mother to get her to hibernate in the United States. Known only as JS, the teenager had written a letter to the court: “I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I’m only 14 years old and I don’t want to die, but I know I am going to. I think being cryo‐preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years’ time. I don’t want to be buried underground. I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish.” Dear JS, Wake up, do it now, please. Wake up and wake me too. We did it, tell me so. Tell me that cancer was defeated. And that all tumors that eat flesh and breath in there, hidden, were finally discovered, unearthed in their enormous and innate horror. Clusters of dead cel

Stories and News No. 931 One hundred people are probably drowned, following the sinking of a boat off the coast of Libya, bringing the death toll to three hundred and forty in the Mediterranean this week. Doctors Without Borders says that only twenty-seven have survived. Twenty-seven stories, twenty-seven lives. Like a boat capsizing for twenty-seven times, but the journey continues... One , the boat capsizes and everyone is still on board, because the wife’s magic glue worked. Two , the boat capsizes, but also the world did, and then we are all safe, bar none. Three , the boat capsizes and I wake up, we did not sail at all, because we never needed to do so. Four , the boat capsizes and nets are full. We were just trying a new way of fishing, what did you think? Five , the boat capsizes, then I am hiding and you start counting to ten, twenty, indeed, twenty-seven, but did not find me, please, because it means that this time I really won. Six , the boat capsizes and I&#

Stories and News No. 930 A children's hospital in Aleppo , Syria, has been hit in recent air strikes . A driver of ambulance and at least two children died after a night of shelling. Immediately before the story is real... “Come on, kids,” says the man with the strangely white coat. “Let’s go.” “Where?” Asks the first child, the less wary one. “I'm sorry. I meant let’s back.” “Where?” Repeated the other one, the more thoughtful child. “In the only place left.” “Which?” Says the first, the most talkative among them. “Forgive me. I meant what could have been.” “Which?” Inquires the other, the only apparently devoid of originality between the two. “The kingdom of ungrammatical conditionals, in the land at the side of possibilities, beyond the boundaries of disillusioned illusions, in the sea on the painting without canvas.” “Now?” Asks the usual child, the more hopeful one. “Oops, what careless... I did not say when? Now and in all forgotten priors, at any shor

Stories and News No. 929 I read that a city in New Zealand has decided to build an underpass to facilitate the march of the penguins. The private gallery is designed to help these migrant creatures, allowing them to pass unmolested. Wow. Double wow. Indeed, only a half, and nothing exceptional. Don’t spread the news that I exaggerate. I, Mahuta Atairangikaahu , and all my family, we are well known for stubborn containment of measures. Just for the record, it’s enough to say that the day my cruel and authoritarian grandmother was hit by her last infarction, just before she declared “it was just a tremor due to the changing weather”. Soon after, my brother-in-law, as well the unpleasant and severe elder’s son in law, to explain his sudden attack of a convulsive laughter used very similar words: “Excuse me, just a tremor, due to the changing weather.” And go on with other guffaws. Wow, you know, we Atairangikaahu are like that, we minimize by vocation: it’s nothing , don’t wo

Stories and News No. 928 Thousands demonstrated in the United States against the election of Republican Donald Trump in at least 18 cities on Wednesday night. The largest protests took place in New York and Los Angeles, shouting "Trump not my President". Trump is not my president. So far, it should be granted, given that I am not American, but it is not so simple, in fact. Because it is hard to say that about ours. And if we cannot say of them, let alone those of others. Above all this one. However, if we stopped here, if everything were reduced to a simple cry, it would be important, would be the beginning, would be something fundamental, but not all. Probably not so much. Certainly not as much as it would be enough to exclaim the opposite message. Meanwhile, we shout. We yell and recite in a loud voice urgent needs of the heart and soul, only apparently different. As the male is not our gender , where it is represented by people like Trump, which are mu

Stories and News No. 927 Sunny Pawar, young Indian actor in the upcoming film Lion, with Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, has been denied a visa by the United States to attend the movie's premiere in New York. We believe it is the effect of immigration paranoia, production company executives have declared . Come on, let's sit down, soon. Yes, there is fine, hurry up, the movie is going to begin. No advertising, this time, because the product was already bought. Simple plot, indeed. Trivial, I dare say, but very effective for this reason, necessarily minimizing and fairly superficial. So that everyone can see just enough to believe that everything is there. The story in brief: They were afraid, the opening words . They were afraid of what they did not understand , in detail. End? A long time ago I would say yes, it would work, but every age needs the right tricks and special effects seriously capable to impress the eyes. Well, let’s add: They were afrai

Stories and News No. 926 Fatim Jawara , the young goalkeeper of the women's national football team of the Gambia, who dies in the Mediterranean trying to reach Italy, had told her family she wanted to "follow her destiny" and play for a big European club "whatever the risks". The stadium is full, tonight. It always happens, in the valuable games. But today it is a wonderful exception. Because we usually count less than less. However, we are many, now. Because these particular viewers are made of the same volatile substance of the players. Negligible for most and all that is, for those who have never had otherwise. So, enough with the waves, of living bodies rather than insensible oceans. Listen and watch, the team that goes into the sea. Number one, her. The lady goalkeeper. Fatim with ambitious and generous hands at the same time. Protecting the only door that connects us, here. The one of the left behind house. The girl with the blind dete

Stories and News No. 925 The Moroccan authorities have arrested two teenage girls, the sixteen year old Sanaa and Hajar , a year older, caught kissing on the roof of a house. This is forbidden by the article 489 of the Penal Code, or " licentious or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex ", punishable according to the Moroccan Association of Human Rights with imprisonment from six months to three years . Prudence, we need prudence, murmurs Hajar. It will change, sooner or later it will and time will make its part. It’s happened before. What yesterday was unclean, it is now obvious. It mingles in the whole picture, such as usual colors and minor shapes. Just like what it should now be obvious and rather it sounds as unclean. You're right, says Sanaa albeit reluctantly. We must not be hasty. Let us be satisfied with the minimum. Because minimum is just a word, before the embrace of looks, the plot of smiles, only apparently identical, a just menti

Stories and News No. 924 A Pakistani court today rejected the bail for Sharbat Gula , detained on charges of living in the country illegally. Sharbat is better known as the " Afghan girl ," the young green-eyed portrayed in a famous photograph by Steve McCurry dating back to 1984, published the following year on the cover of National Geographic Magazine. The story in a photo. That is, the whole life. Frozen adolescence and all the lost time. Read as well as she would have lived happily ever after . As the eye that looks and moves. Which celebrates the exceptional contrast or pines for the absurdity of the moment. Life in a photo. In the sense of the whole story. Just like those who read it in a second and then returns to support the death and indifference building that wants crush us. Sooner or later it will do it to everyone of us and it would take very little to make it harmless. The illusion in a photo. That is, a life of deceptions for the eye as for