Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1213 Once upon a time hundreds of thousands of children in Italy. Hundreds of thousands, almost a million, of children born in Italy from non italian parents. According to the actual italian law, the Jus sanguinis, they won’t be able to be italian citizens before 18 years old. In the meantime, they live here, going at school, hundreds of thousands of children and young people, but you may also say almost a million, they exist. Then, suddenly, the miracle happened. Like a single firework in the open sky, during the day and not on a particular festive and celebratory occasion. The children called it Suarez's gift , the fable of a mirage that becomes real. By mistake, maybe, probably by scam, to be honest, but what matters in any fairy tale – or miracle – what matters is the effect on those who feel it more in their lives. The news quickly occupied the front pages of all the newspapers: to obtain the much desired citizenship it would have been enough to pronou...

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. 1211   When a black is killed in Italy . The story is all here. The story in the news . The latter’s storytelling and of an entire country, which insisted in strenuously trying to hide behind empty speeches, composed of empty words and phrases such as the heart that gave birth to them. Because when a black is killed from whites in Italy, for the majority of people the ignoble chatter counts more than a lost life. As an undisputed proof of this, when a white man is killed by the blacks, the barking and new fascist company is united in a compact and harmonious chorus: bad Blacks and kisses and hugs to the poor white man! Because – after all – in Italy the Blacks are bad until proven otherwise for everyone. Let's be honest, at least here, right? Let's face it. Because that was true yesterday and it will be so tomorrow. It is inside the character’s biography that we came up with, come on. As a variant of the worst interpretation, Blacks are criminal...

Stories and News No. 1210   I would like a vaccine. Not the one for Covid-19, which many are rightly waiting. I would like a vaccine of a special kind, good for viruses and diseases of an even more subtle type than the one that is sadly claiming victims in enormous quantities in most of the world. These are much less lethal illnesses in the short term, I know, and for this reason equally less feared by most. However, more than ever at this moment in my life, this awareness does not diminish the desire to enjoy an antidote against such particular pathologies. That is, the so-called pathogens, spreaders of the relative disease. Let me be clear, I am not claiming full immunity, because it would be unacceptable in those who, like myself, aspire to relate with an open mind and heart with the daily facts of life. But, how can I say, I would appreciate a drug that can help me overcome the inevitable infection. I would like this vaccine, then. I would like it to allow me to re...

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. 1208   Why do we migrate ? I mean all of us, nobody should feel immobile. Why do we leave the country, the place, the exact point on the map where we are, to move further, elsewhere, over there, as long as it is not here? You could avoid conversing with me on such a crucial issue, and maybe get carried away by the usual and punctual train, subtly powered by instrumental lies. But if instead you want to reason on the fundamental question, instead of being anesthetized by the best-selling answers, that is, false and only apparently free, I promise you that I will try to make it simple, like a short story. Let's say your home is the world. Although for many out there, it is exactly like that. Let's imagine that this brief tale lasts one day. We choose a day of celebration, without particular and routine commitments, in order to make the plot less banal. Even if, the incipit can only be taken for granted, I admit, thinking about the awakening of...

Stories and News No. 1207   More than 350 elephants died in northern Botswana in a mysterious mass death defined by scientists as a "conservation disaster". Something similar had already happened in the African state in May, where 169 animals died, just near some pools of water. The local government has not yet tested carcass samples, so there is no precise information on what is causing the deaths or if they could be a risk to human health. The two main possibilities are poisoning or an unknown pathogen. However, according to experts there is no precedent which proves that it is a natural phenomenon, but without adequate controls, it will not be possible to discover the truth. On the other hand, the search for the latter, especially when it forces us to get on the dock, is definitely not our best. So, as the generalist press often prefers, let's focus on the deceased, rather than investigating the causes, currently mysterious, but precisely for this reason wo...