Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1311 Nothing new in the premise of this umpteenth story: a privileged minority exploits the earth's riches, causing suffering and death among the majority of human beings. And the grotesque paradox, which is incomprehensible to any living creature on our planet, is that sooner or later this stupid attitude will harm everyone, without exception. In particular, today's story is about water. Or what the problem is. One cannot help but agree with Professor Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading in the UK when she states in the inspiring article that more than climate change and population growth, the real problem is social inequality, which causes the situation explained inside the incipit. However, when I read in the same article that constantly irrigated swimming pools and lawns in large cities contribute to the enormous gap between the few who take water for granted and all the others, this leads me to think that the problem is another one. Or one of ...

Stories and News No. 1299 Sorry, but I cant’ help but to tell it this way. Once upon a time... actually, no, let's forget the past, let's live it in the present, also because it's happening right now. So, there's a thug okay? Because this is what it is, let's face it once and for all. Furthermore, the authors of the commendable documentary The Corporation - I always highly recommend it, analyzing the behavior of multinationals as if they were human beings came to the conclusion that they are psychopaths. Well, the protagonist of this short story, in my humble opinion, shows clear signs of a criminal personality (hyperactivity in crime, anti social, great ego centrism and more) and a sociopath (contempt for laws and social customs, inability to recognize the rights of others, inability to feel remorse or guilt, etc.). By convention, respecting the privacy just as if we were writing the report of a patient with mental disorders, let's call him GB. Now, the fac...

Stories and News No. 1292 The french oil company TotalEnergies and the chinese China National Offshore Oil Corporation are the main financiers of the controversial East African oil pipeline, which according to recent studies will produce huge quantities of carbon dioxide, 379 million tons of pollution from global warming, or more than 25 times the combined annual emissions of nations Uganda and Tanzania, where the pipeline will be working. At the same time, the oil will be exported and sold abroad as usual. All this confirms what Martin Griffiths, head of the humanitarian section of the United Nations, claims regarding the damage suffered by African populations such as Somalia, victims of our habits, while most of the 100 billion promised in 2009 by rich countries to counteract the climate change has disappeared into the many pockets, sleeves and purses of the various intermediary parties responsible for the funding delivery . Once upon a time there was “us”. Or even “those”, “the...

Stories and News No. 1221   November, 2020. We won. Once again we won. Because we are still alive. Because surviving is our triumph. And the simple daily life, which follows this unexpected primacy, is the prize. The first time the virus appeared and made its roar heard in the world, our world - immensely more tangible and vast than yours, it was in another country. Another nation. With different and at the same time similar humanity, identical for the undervalued preciousness of living and incomparable for overestimated trifles. Nonetheless, none of us has ever dreamed of considering those people as cruel planners of the evil or perfidious infectors. Because for us senseless hatred has a very high price and when you are forced to buy it, we know how the story ends. For the record, it was June 1976 and in the aforementioned sister land, nearly 300 were infected by the most invisible enemy of human beings, a creature of negligible size and proportionally inverse danger. At lea...

Stories and News No. 1212 Once upon a time there was the desk. Like the school one, on wheels or not, old and new, as long as you can imagine the classroom that hosts it, the whole school and everything you can remember for sure. Because you have been there, you have lived part of your life there, or because perhaps the fruit of mutual love – or mere passion – he or she is in turn living this particular, delicate and fundamental phase in their personal journey. Do you see the desk? Can you touch it with your fantasy’s fingers, hopefully surviving the digital dream suckers and horizons burners called social networks? Well, I presume you will easily agree with me that, like the chairs, the blackboards of the past and their erasers, or a cold IWB and the ever-present teaching post, is just a piece of furniture, a fragment of a special show’s schenography, where the brave protagonists, called students and professors, minimizing their value somewhat, are the meaning of everything. To ...

Stories and News No. 1209   Recently I have had the opportunity to read that Covid-19 pandemic was a sort of general test of the world’s end. It could be, I consider it a reasonable observation, but in my humble opinion – especially regarding the lockdown – it is also an extreme and caricatured representation of our own present, not just the future. Occasionally I happen to think back to those days when in Italy we almost all lived locked at home, with windows or balconies as the only glances granted to the outside world. In addition, of course, to the digital portholes to explore the chaotic backdrops of the World Wide Web and, more than anything else, the much underestimated imagination. But you may also call it as the ever free internet, infinite until proven otherwise and capable of connecting anyone with anyone in any place and time. Italian lockdown has ended, although I am convinced that some of us is still trapped at home, on the embalmed sofa in front of the TV, ...

Stories and News No. 1204   So we do, and so we did in the world that preceded us. Beginning - or rather ending, a second ago. In suspicious times we used to raise and inaugurate statues and busts, monuments of all types and shapes, sizes and presumed artistic value, among the most classic or daring obelisks, mausoleums and sculptures; not to mention simple plaques, medals and dedicated roads. Then, with the passage of time, it happens that the facts recounted by the daily narration contradict the version credited to History. Consequently, as if trying to correct the inappropriate celebration of the infamous, rather than infamy, we do the contrary. Because we have done so in past times which we are all children of. I refer to the moment when we gather around statues and busts, monuments of all types and shapes, sizes and presumed artistic value, among obelisks, mausoleums and among the most classic or daring sculptures, not to mention simple plaques, medals and dedicated ...

Health is a right, health is everything, health is the most important thing in life, health is a precious good, health is the first thing. Health is wealth... Stories and News No. 1200   Once upon a time there was health. It was there and, for good luck of those who can enjoy it, it is still there. For all the others, perhaps it could be in the future, but not forever and we should to think about that every now and then. To tell the truth, it would be appropriate to keep in mind every day what unites us all, which concerns each individual. Among the various benefits of such a virtuous practice, we would not waste time and mind dividing each other. Well, health is like that, exactly like the current virus that is attacking it all over the world. It is a global issue which we are all connected to. Ultimately, it works a bit like happiness; it stays up there, it wants to be admired, while the rest of us outstretch his fingers wishing us not only to grasp it, but above ...

Stories and News No. 1198   Once upon a time there was earth, which luckily still is. Think for a moment, afflicted and limited by the lockdown, of escaping from yourself more than your home. Let's imagine that we are something else, something immensely larger and certainly more welcoming. I am referring to our planet, often underestimated and mistreated. I try myself: a little acting method, I close my eyes and... bam! Here I am, speaking as the earth from now on. First, I say it immediately to avoid misunderstandings and complaints: there is nothing personal in what I will say. I am your planet, but not only yours. Every now and then it doesn't hurt to remember that, even to myself. Nonetheless, I am perfectly aware of the hard times that many are facing, with more or less tragic tones, mainly because of conditions before the spread of this virus. Covid-19 has led to the death of more than 220,000 people to date and the tragic consequences for the standard of l...

Stories and News No. 1194   The video call’s time. Who could believe that it would become a regular, unmissable and fundamental event during our every day. It is for those who continue “to be” school, despite the necessary full-time curfew; for those who work remotely, if the job carried out up to the day before the so-called lockdown allows this chance; for people who intend to feel close to the loved ones, maybe living alone; and also for those who just want to have a good chat. The video call’s time is a precious, useful and rewarding one. However, things don't always go as smoothly as we would like. For instance, maybe the streaming with the professor's lesson becomes slow and the image lags, or arrives late. So, instead of providing IT advice, I invite students to remember that according to UNICEF data dating back to April last year, more than 175 million children - which correspond to half of the preschool population in the world - they are not even enrolled i...

Stories and News No. 1191   Online soon

Stories and News No. 1190   They said that the pen kill more than the sword. It is probably true, even if today we have slightly lost its use. In our time we simply type keys, paying more or less attention to what we write, often forgetting what we said a second later. However, this epochal change does not diminish the power of words at all. Indeed, paradoxically it has led us to underestimate its weight and consequences, in the short and long term. But the accountability, or the guilt, remains and someone will have to give us an answer about them, sooner or later. Because words may kill. Literally. They translate crazy thoughts and terrifying intentions. Like when Tobias Rathien, the man who murdered eleven people and seriously injuring four others in Hanau, Germany, declared that some people we are unable to expel must be exterminated. But words are like the grains of sand on which we run in the summer. We unfortunately share them as every atom of the earth that ho...

Stories and News No. 1189   Today is the thirteenth of February. We are in the middle of the day, which refers to as many observances to remember and give homage. In fact, today is the Children's Day in Myanmar and the Radio Day in the world. Reflecting on the past, on mistakes, especially where these are sinful sins, is a fundamental matter. The first ingredient inside the bricks with which to compose the road that, hopefully, will lead us to a better future. Nonetheless, raising my head and aiming a hopeful look at the horizon awaiting us, I cannot help but dream of myself there, beyond the obstacles and above all the walls that prevent us from seeing where we are wrong now, even before passing. There must be an instant, down there, in which some victories against our current backwardness have been obtained so definitively as to be useless and even ridiculous to talk about it. Solid points of living together that we will not need to recall them. As if today we shoul...

Stories and News No. 1188   Hey? You’re welcome, here. Yes, I’m talking to you, not everybody, of course, but in this case I said you, even if in general. You, who scream or whisper, posting and chirping, sideways or secretly observing. Take a seat. Imagine that I am a friend or a kind of shrink, although maybe I’m neither. What did you say? No, I'm not kidding at all, I'm serious, despite everything. Sit down, come on. Let's talk. That is, speak, let all come out, do it now, please. Tell me, then, let's start with the classic. What was your childhood like? You had your hard times, didn't you? Problems with dad? Misunderstandings with mom? Domineering brothers? Little affectionate sisters? Are you an only child? Was the affection missing? Unleash yourself without fear, really, stop living in fright, you can no longer take all this concern. Aren't you tired too? Come on, then, let's move on. There was something bad during adol...

Stories and News No. 1186   Maybe it's because now I have more white hair in my head than just gray. Maybe it's because I prefer the surprise, the real freshness, than what I have already read and seen. Maybe because the more time passes, the more I focus my attention on the glass itself, rather than swinging between the full and the empty part. Or maybe, I just have a great desire to go beyond the actual news and observe the whole long-range story, taking advantage of the vision of the past in the precious rear-view mirror called memory, before even in my case it starts to falter. By way of example, think about so called leaders like Donald Trump, Putin or our Matteo Salvini. Right now, in the heart of the live broadcast, for many everything seems normal. Since their arrival on the public scenario they did or told so many crazy things, but each time we suddenly became used to that. In a few words, it happens, so it is normal. Like it was normal, in their time, ...

Stories and News No. 1185   Once upon a time the world. The one as we saw it as children, when everything we look at with our tiny eyes was already infinite, let alone what we still ignored and fantasized about. Then things changed. They say it's the age that changes us. I believe other people do, more than time. The mechanical turn of the hands has never affected our history. The human beings that flow by us unexpectedly, at times illogical and often violent, but sometimes capable of incalculable tenderness, are the ones to influence our future, second by second. One of the most decisive aspects regarding choices and thoughts, the feelings on which to focus the heart and which emotions to keep away from the intellect, it’s the screen through which we observe the world. It is not always the same and probably that’s right. Every look, in each chapter of our personal story, needs the appropriate filter. The metaphorical glasses to look at the best, here and now, are chos...

Stories and News No. 1184   Once we called it the law of large numbers . Today, it is the slavery of exaggerations . It is a consequence, after all. One of the most uncomfortable contraindications of the unbridled rush to approximation of our lies. Because many of us live on lies, today. Often venial, sometimes more serious, but that’s Internet, we’re on a social media, then I could delete, right? Indeed, that’s something better: I may write another one! And so on. Moved by the illusion of really going away. And yet, at the dawn of the new year, I still like to see it as a story. The fable of small numbers, of course. Which hardly get the front page of the news and it is understandable. There are many examples: to make noise we need to be many, to be truly successful, a prize is not enough, but a lot, and to attract the gaze of the average reader you need at least thousands of pixels, otherwise he doesn’t even believe the truth. Give me the biggest number you have...

Stories and News No. 1181   Once upon a time there was a planet. Let's talk about it as if we were in a science fiction story. One of those that we consider improbable and that sometimes we use to relax, like catastrophic movies or those fails videos, and everyone laughs. Because we are not the ones who fall. The planet was very bizarre and the creatures were no less, compactly consistent in defining the common horizon on the basis of a questionable assumption: the relationship of cause and effect is outdated, since what really matters is the latter. Everything else is boring, even if it could save the present, and so the future. By analogous reasoning, the obtuse extra-inhabitants refused the third law of dynamics , the principle of action and its logical reply. According to such an unfortunate species, there was only the reaction , period. The origin, the gesture and every initial choice were never on the agenda. Thus, the ways in which these unconscious guys inter...