Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1040 In Japan, a teenager took the Osaka government to court because her school ordered her to blacken her hair , since every student was obliged to. The girl has natural brown hair and stated that due to the stress and anxiety for the absurd constraint, she has got various rashes on her scalp. So, here's a story...   Once upon a time there was a sky. No, ‘ the ’ sky, the perfect heavenly picture that has seen all of us passing through and, sooner or later, will tell everything. I refer to something drawn from below, with no ambition to what makes the shapes and contours of the human creation worthy of the eye. Read as well as the naive, moving courage to imagine the world as it should be . In this sky, not ‘ the ’, everything existed according to the given order. Each one respected the boundaries of their natural kingdom, as well as the times for closeness and distance, which are nothing but the same way to find out how mysterious, centripetal...

Stories and News No. 1039 A mysterious skull dating back to 6,000 years ago , found in Papua New Guinea in 1929, was thought to belong to an extinct human species. Thanks to the latest research, scientists believe that it’s property of the oldest victim of a Tsunami, at least whose remains have been found so far. I'm lost. That's what I remember. This is the only thing I know. For sure. I don’t recall why I was there, the moment the sea kidnapped me. Kidnapped ... What contradictory and paradoxical use of the words we do, then, as today. We live and ruin, with more or less impunity, a planet that is mostly covered with water. Well, we not only used to call it earth , but where the oceans properly reach our borders to demand what is right to them, and to get back the world which we first robbed them of, we consider them invaders of our peace. Disturbers of a quiet existence. Enemies of human civilization. Yet, we should have waited for, since the ceaseless danc...

Stories and News No. 1038 In these days, an Italian primary school textbook has been criticized about a controversial definition of immigrants . Become protagonist , it's the title. Become racist , the story’s subtext, as well as, the more or less unconscious, hidden exhortation. "The presence of foreigners , mainly from Asian countries and North Africa, has increased. Many are welcomed in refugee centers and they are clandestine , in other words, their stay in Italy is not authorized by law. In our cities immigrants often live in precarious conditions, they don’t find any job, albeit humble and heavy, and no dignified homes. Therefore their integration is difficult; for economic and social reasons, residents sometimes consider them a threat to their well-being and manifest intolerance to them ." It's too late, that's true. The words have already sown, and the poisonous crop has already been sold. The rotten fruit infected the near one, and so on....

Stories and News No. 1037 According to the most comprehensive global analysis to date, every year, at least nine million people are killed by pollution , and it costs us trillions of dollars , endangering the survival of human societies. A little paradoxical contradiction, don’t you think? A phenomenon that is economically and at the same time humanly disadvantageous for all, yet neglected. As if we could not see where the dirt, the refusal, the wrong word is, despite being exactly in front of our eyes, hidden in the sheet that contains the story about us... Jack is a small creature. Small as a letter , although he often feels bigger than it is, where he screams his own arrogance with each drop of ink passing through himself. Mario thinks to be modern. Because he is so, until proven otherwise. He lives today before tomorrow, as if tomorrow was nothing more than today you are writing… yesterday. Yes it is, forgetting about what yesterday was, he only cares about the cur...

Stories and News No. 1036 ‘Attack’. This is the word, but it’s not enough, in spite of the normal consequences within images and sounds of screams and smoke everywhere, thanks to a good monitor with fine resolution. ‘There was an attack’. This is the incipit, but it’s not enough too, although now well-known in the mere story as in the more or less rite comments. ‘There was an attack and there were dead’. The latter is the fundamental, further addition, for the sake of completeness, but also not to miss the driving, however cynical, element, that is the tragic count of the disappeared, at the expense of the negligible survivors. Well, did you ever think about that? The number of deceased is always more relevant, rather than the loving ones who will inherit discomfort and memories, who, according to simple logic, should be infinitely more. Nevertheless, we should have some interest for tomorrow and the next day people, for the protagonists outside the newspaper, who don’t...

Stories and News No. 1035 Daphne Caruana Galizia , a Maltese investigative journalist committed against corruption was killed on 16 October in a car bomb attack. In recent times she had been pessimistic about her own country, and watching her premature end, her enemies had good reasons to fear her work. In the last post on her blog , the day of her death, Daphne concluded the article with a phrase that is incredibly emblematic: There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate… The situation is desperate . Of course it is. In the right time. At the very moment when the best life explodes and what should remain intact forever breaks up. Like the perfect memories of even more worthwhile instants to relive. As if perfection itself was inadequate. I write it, then. I'm writing that the situation is desperate . To them. Yes, to you, wherever you’re hiding. Now I’m looking at you. It should not be easy at all, there, under the mask and the dress, b...

Stories and News No. 1034 In Uppsala, the oldest Swedish university has identified Arabic characters which apparently represent the words " Allah " and " Ali " woven in Viking burial robes. The researchers defined the discovery of such engravings, silver on silk fabrics, as 'staggering'. Well, that’s nothing, dear friends from Uppsala. Just follow the story... Listen, listen. On the other side of the world, and especially of the reassuring logic, there is another university. I cannot tell you the name and not even the town, otherwise they’ll be at risk. You know, their discovery doesn’t only exceed the Swedish one, but could also cause the researchers lots of serious difficulties, as attacks, self-attacks, boycotts under form of attacks, Mexican butchers in the form of authorized clearance, preventive, pacific and defensive wars, cuts of funds, just cuts, other attacks, but only for mental insanity, hacker intrusions, and also rats ones, which wil...

Stories and News No. 1033 Ahmed Timol , an anti-apartheid activist, was arrested in Johannesburg in October 1971. After five days of detention, his death was officially decreed for suicide because of a fall from the police headquarters building. The Court of Pretoria now brings light on the truth. The South African court said Timol was assassinated by police officers, in a historic ruling, welcomed by applause. It took 46 years ...   Rejoice. I’m talking to you, my friend, that present time's law murders with deafening ease, and modern chronicle’s silence humiliates to the most obstinate recess of your soul. Exult, since the unjust hourglass has a heart. A slow and awkward one, but it beats. Incredible in its pervading obsession in moving from the most servile side of the balance, the one where unqualified it polishes the golden wheels of the triumphal chariot. Despite that, it has a logic , from this day. A virtuous norm , finally, to be entrusted by the simplest...

Stories and News No. 1032 On October 15, elections will take place in Austria and the country seems to be heading to the Right, with the political agenda focused mainly on immigration and Islam , because of the persuasion’s pressing, monotonous and surgical action by xenophobic coalitions . Nothing new, of course, since for decades this is the common narrative of electoral campaigns almost all over the world . Once upon a time there was a table . A table nowadays entirely covered by disconnected from reality sentences and delusional, semantic eyesores, allegedly proved by the abused popular opinion . Lots of invented and manipulated tales treated like real news , fused with astute ignorance in a confused, imaginary wall , where everyone can write everything, provided you might scream it. Now, give me a favor, do it for me. Get up from your chair, find an excuse for your jailer, the little, big brother who knows how to falsify his height. Use any pretense to anything, pret...

Stories and News No. 1031 In Japan, job inspectors have determined that journalist Miwa Sado ’s death at the age of 31 in July 2013 was caused by overwork . The woman, who was employed at the headquarters of the country's public broadcaster, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, during the month preceding his death for heart failure had recorded 159 hours of extraordinary and enjoyed just two days of rest . The case has been made public by its former employer only this week . Yes, I know what you’re thinking now. That's what they all think afterwards. I would do it also myself, in your place, if I could. Yes, if I could. Too late, right? For me, not for you, as they say. This is the fate of the ‘too much’ of this world. They are a useful cover for ‘a lot’, not to mention the little. We, martyrs of time, can only envy the latter. If I had bigger eyes to find out the deception, like the cartoon characters, that look more like you than us and that's fine. Because it’s the cl...

Stories and News No. 1030 Because Citizenship, before being a Right, has been and still is a Dream for many... I’m talking to you. Yes, you, who’s saying no to Citizenship . “It’s not a priority,” you explain. Or, maybe, you’d never want to see that time, what you really think. You used to say that what was born here is not necessarily from here. That’s not enough to belong to this land. Maybe you're right, you know? Look at freedom . It was born with you. It's from this world, but that’s not what we've built. Prisons and bars, boundaries and walls, those are our actual flesh, what our nightmares are made of. But freedom… you have to choose it, because you are struggling for it, you commit yourself at any costs, even to never touch it. And what about justice ? It’s rooted in the same place where you came to light. However, it would have been great, if it were engraved next to our name, at the very first registry. Perhaps we would not need so many words ...

Stories and News No. 1029 Following the tragic events in Las Vegas, when the United States comes back to discuss the right to guns, I read that also in Italy fatal dead from accidental bullets are coming on the news . Though with a lot of difficulty, I try to put myself in the footsteps of such insane principle’s supporters. Obviously, with a story, playing with words, which could sometimes hurt, but rarely kill… Let's imagine I had a gun and I thought it was a sacrosanct right to have it. So I ’d have it. However, I 'd not be going to have it just for that, huh? It’s rhetorical. I ’d have a gun because I ’d love to have it. I 'd love to have it because I ’d know. I ’d known that if I wanted, wherever I could, I would use it. Accordingly, just for this page, I have a gun, and I know it can hurt. I can hurt even without it, if you know what I mean. And it could without me. How can we treat that? What should we do in case he had a gun and I didn’t? ...