Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1219 Imagine. Imagine with me, for a minute, at most two. Let's imagine together, for a brief moment, that instead of Covid-19, the invader of our global community – already seriously ill and inhumanly distant – were an alien civilization. Yes, I’m talking about them, as we have almost always described and feared, with novels and science fiction films: the hostile extraterrestrials, who arrived on our planet with the sole purpose of killing us, at best, wearing us out and above all separating us from each other as minimal result, since the well-known Latin phrase “divide et impera” seems to have spread everywhere in the universe, wherever the desire to dominate others lodged. Striving to make the alternative scenario similar to the real one plagued by Covid-19, let's say that the enemy star ships landed in the notorious city of Wuhan, in China, and that the world invasion began from there. Well, I assume it is obvious what would be the inevitable though...

Stories and News No. 1195   I just read that one hundred doctors died of Covid-19 in Italy, so far. Doctors. A generic word, which indicates a profession, a role inside the society, but also an image common to everybody: the guy with the white dress, the woman with the stethoscope, the man who control your blood pressure, the girl who signs your prescription; but also, above all, those you look for when you're ill. Like a sort of friends by duty, obliged to say “I’m here” in times of need. Well, when there is a pandemic out there, the times of need is every second of their time, more than ours. Because while we are waiting outside, maybe complaining about the queue or the ticket, as well as for the ailment itself, there is someone beyond that door; the person who, when the aforementioned fateful moment arrives, will take care of us. A hundred have gone away in Italy, among doctors, but also nurses have lost their lives for the virus; lives who were part of the so-calle...

Stories and News No. 1192   Facing the most difficult moments, my life experience and especially others, older than me, have often advised me, strongly urged, sometimes forced, to concentrate on the full half of the water glass. It frequently works, at least in seeking out that minimum of power so as not to let yourself be cut down more than necessary. In some cases, rather than identifying the famous silver lining of things, it helps us to pay attention to the glass itself. Full or empty it might be. Yes, a common and normally underestimated object, the glass, like most of the tools we usually take advantage of. Like our home, where in this particular situation we in Italy and many other countries are forced to stay. Well, consistently with what has been said, I do it for myself and for the reader. I try to list as many favorable aspects in this extraordinary as necessary captivity which we find ourselves in. 1. Home-bound we have more time for ourselves 2. Mo...