Boing Boing » italy

Amazons with a Cause

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:41:55 +0000

Why are women first to pay for every crisis? In every society, capitalist, socialist, or transition? It's because the bodies of women are expendable.

I always noticed how women over eighty in Turin looked incredibly well, beautiful and loved and taken care of: desirable, because old and valuable. I connected this to Italy's long-established and sophisticated health care system. Italian hospitals were famous for methods which preserved the dignity of the patients, in tumor cures, especially breast cancer: the "invisible mastectomy" was invented in Milan. Rather than simply intervening in crisis, they were good at illness prevention and attentive follow-ups.

The economic crisis and financial harassment of Italy has reached this safe haven of health and dignity. In Turin, one of the best clinics for cure and prevention of breast cancer is about to be closed. The patients are on the streets, their appointments cannot be scheduled, they are paying for their urgent operations because their doctors cannot help them. The doctors are on the streets too.

Public health care in Italy was guaranteed as one of the basic human rights: without class race of gender discrimination. We are all equal in front of death.

The Valdesian hospital was founded by Italy's Protestant minority; it was about spirituality and charity rather than the global health market. However, the church passed the hospital to the state some years ago. They naturally assumed that it was in good hands, but as this tiny church is to the state, the state is to the market.

Although "Italy is not a brothel," as they said during the Berlusconi scandals, the flesh of women is negotiable by other means.

Protests, sit-ins and negotiations have failed to save the hospital. So last weekend, Turinese women decided to take action. They organized a public booth to photograph their breasts anonymously.

They plan to release an affresco of hundreds of their depersonalized female bodies, as a warning.

They are merely doing publicly what the hospital did less visibly.

Next step is the big demo planned for December first, to be followed by a sit-in for December 7th. On that day, the police are scheduled to shut physically the hospital.

It was a place of solace where women felt like respected human beings, and the attack on it has made them into Amazons with a cause.

Student Riots in Italy: a dispatch from Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:05:02 +0000

When I myself was a protesting student, I remember vividly remembered the cold warning in the text by Pier Paolo Pasolini. He reminded us youngsters that the police we faced in the streets were also someone's children, that not all young people were fortunate enough to be in colleges rather than wearing uniforms, and that we should join all together against the general oppressor, the system, capitalism, the corporations, name it…

That was then, and this is now, and while the students and policemen still have the same interests, they are still on the opposite sides of the barricade. Austerity has driven Italy to its knees. Day by day the future of Italy's young people is vaporizing, and now the streets are flooded by torrential rains, to boot. Italian cities rocked by earthquakes might as well settle for witchcraft, rather than find responsible and competent government officials who can rescue the nation's casualties.

A Facebook comment from my Italian friend:

Is it possible that all these years every time there is a demonstration we have to expect the same song: attention to the provocateurs + protestors cruelly beaten by the police + poor policemen beaten by provocateurs = Am I missing something: Democracy!

In Torino, a 15-year old high school student posted on her Facebook a photo of two girls kissing in front of the heavily armed police. With these words: this is how we should face the forces of order!

She told me: those horrible Black Bloc destroy our attempts to do something peacefully, and we are not protesting only because there is no money left in our schools, but also as Europeans who understand that austerity program kills the students in rich as well as in poor countries.

Yesterday during the "No Austerity day in Europe", proclaimed by students and trade unions in major towns in Italy, the protests turned to riot and turmoil. In Torino, three policemen were injured, one badly. The number of students/citizens injured in Torino is not yet known. Chantings and peaceful legal manifestations degenerated into beatings and insults.

In Rome, along with a general strike of transportation, the Tiber flooded, paralyzing the nation's capital. Even on its best days Rome can barely move.

The targets of protesters were banks, public administration offices, and even the twelve-starred European flag, a flag so deliberately dull that it rarely attracts a passionate attention. The center of protests are the countries in crisis, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy…but even the well off northern countries are crippled by the Austerity, which is rapidly become a crisis much worse than the Crisis it was supposed to fix. Choked by Austerity, Europe is sliding into Recession again, and there's no sign that this approach will ever restore prosperity.

The word Austerity, that calm and bureaucratic term, is enough to cause panic in the streets of Europe now. National majorities know that it's a weapon against their own interests. Where is the "Austerity" for the one percent of the population dominating the economy? They don't apply any example of severe austerity to their own habits and aspirations. Secured in private jets, or within their high tech mentally-gated communities, they wonder why the streets grow slick with blood, sweat and tears.

This is something new in the world. It's rather like the alienation and anomie of the Industrial Age, but it's a new cybernetic detachment -- the atomized individuals of the Network Society, super-connected to screens, but failing to live and breathe together as a civilization. The Smart City shows its dark side as a gridwork of surveillance, as the peaceable consumers of the 1990s become a rabble to be kettled up!

United Europe just won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Where's the peace and Union from Austerity?

Collective Intelligence: Science on Trial, Berlusconi sentenced. Dispatch from Italy, by Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:24:43 +0000

The Italian scientific community was stunned when Italian scientists, seismologists, were recently sentenced to years of prison for manslaughter, for failing to predict the lethal earthquake in Aquila in 2009. Other scientists have resigned to their jobs in protest, and even some relatives of the victims condemned the sentence as ridiculous.

The world press was reporting on the dark ages of inquisition in Italian courts and labs. But then, journalistic investigations discovered political scandals that implied a plot to downplay earthquake dangers in Aquila, involving Berlusconi and his cabinet. Silvio Berlusconi can't control earthquakes any more than seismologists can, but he's always been keen on controlling media.

It came as a huge relief to many Italians when, on Friday, a brave court of Milan managed to sentence Berlusconi for his tax frauds. He is condemned to 4 years of prison, but of course he will appeal, stall, and agitate demogogically. Nobody is expecting this potentate to serve time in an Italian prison. It is still a significant moral victory for the brave judges, fighting for years on end to legally prove what was already obvious to everybody.

Of course Berlusconi was enraged and immediately threatened to take over the Italian government and, if necessary, topple the European Union in his ageless feud with the Italian courts. His re-ignited ambitions -- he only feels safe at the top of the Italian state, and often not even there -- caused justified fear among the citizens. Italians are unhappy with Monti governmental solutions, an Austerity imposed by the Central European bank and the EU from Brussels. The Austerity is miserable, but it got there due the wild immoral corruption of Berlusconi, his party members and the court harems.

In Rome an anti-Monti demo blocked the downtown of the city with the usual leftist protests, so dear to the Italian alert activists. But in the outskirts of Rome, in Garbatella, a wise and sharp conference of small enterprises and craftsmen was held. Here political matters were handled in a different way; no more laments and protests, but a search for concrete solutions for getting Italy out of a dead end.

The CNA NeXT 2012 Motori festival was held in a rebuilt theater in Garbatella, the working class neighborhood once dominated by the vanished Italian auto business. Digital and other young Italian craftsmen, self employed artists/businessmen are facing a harsh reality of shocking number of small businesses bankrupting next year. Made in Italy crafts, the nation's most famous and prestigious products from food to clothes, are collapsing in the general economic crisis. There's no sign of plausible political and social solutions, just the black past of Berlusconi laissez faire right winged corruption, or the present European asphyxiating austerity.

The Italians have won the battle on national brands in the EU regulations: they can keep their much-prized "Made in Italy" branding, if any craftsmen financially survive to actually make things in Italy. It's been hard to forfeit control of local affairs to the distant European Union; when it came to deposing Berlusconi the Europeans were lifesavers, but Brussels isn't sentimental about local arts and crafts.

Garbatella has a certain working-class blue-collar romantic air, the part of town was portrayed by artists like Pasolini, the poet killed in 1975 and Nanni Moretti the prestigious Italian contemporary filmmaker. So "Motori" was a conference for "Collective Intelligence," where Italians, who might have once been in labor unions, scratched their heads and wondered if they could organize digitally on new platforms for design, creation, production and export. It may seem farfetched to look for rescue from the Internet and open-source, rather than from Rome, Brussels or panicky business investors. But what else is on the horizon for people who want to get real work done? Just anti-science superstition, financial corruption, and blatant fear of the future.

Besides the young boisterous voices of Italy's lost generation, who are seeking inventive ways to avert the disasters brought on by their nation's elderly "Caste", two Italian celebrities were also present. They were the Oscar winning Italian conductor Piovani and the famous national soccer coach Zeman, both accompanied by Roman paparazzi. How do they manage the "collectivity" of an successful Italian orchestra and a successful Italian soccer team? Did these star managers have any useful hints?

Piovani, the musical director, resplendent in a silk suit and burgundy socks, was entirely in favor of collective work imposing discipline, and, as he put it, the beauty of following the rules. Zeman, the leather-clad soccer coach, was in favor of individual talent -- the stars have to hone their gifts to pull the team to victory. So approaches differed, but everyone involved mourned the painfully obvious cultural and moral decline of such a beautiful and creative country.

It's hard to believe in national salvation by "collective intelligence." On the other hand, it's exhilarating to see proud Italians rallying against obvious stupidity.

Photos: Jasmina Tesanovic

Berlusconi sentenced

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:05:25 +0000

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is off to the clink for four years for tax evasion—pending appeals and whatnot, of course. [RT]

Seismologists guilty in Italy: More on the L'Aquila verdict, and what it means for the future of science

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:05:14 +0000

In a guest piece at Scientific American, David Ropeik argues that an Italian court's decision to charge scientists and a government official with manslaughter isn't about quake prediction per se, but a failure to communicate science effectively. Snip:

But, contrary to the majority of the news coverage this decision is getting and the gnashing of teeth in the scientific community, the trial was not about science, not about seismology, not about the ability or inability of scientists to predict earthquakes. These convictions were about poor risk communication, and more broadly, about the responsibility scientists have as citizens to share their expertise in order to help people make informed and healthy choices.

An editorial from Nature, a publication that covered the case extensively in 2011, echoes this sentiment. "It is important to note that the seven were not on trial for failing to predict the earthquake," but...

The verdict is perverse and the sentence ludicrous. Already some scientists have responded with warnings about the chilling effect on their ability to serve in public risk assessments.

Berlusconite politician caught slashing disabled man's tires

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:39:50 +0000

Antonio Piazza, a Milanese government official from Italy's People of Freedom party (that's Silvio Berlusconi's party), has made headlines after he was caught on CCTV slashing the tires of a disabled person's car. Piazza had been in the habit of parking his car in a disabled spot near his office. When a police officer fined him and made him move his car so that a disabled person could use the spot, he returned a few hours later and slashed the guy's tires. He forgot that there were CCTVs on the scene. Here's The Guardian's Tom Kington:

Piazza at first tried to appeal against his parking fine, claiming he had given a lift to a disabled person, but has now grudgingly resigned from his job running a regional housing agency under pressure from his party, claiming: "I made a mistake, but there are people who behave even worse."
As Italy's fiscal police inspect local government accounts up and down the country in the wake of the Lazio scandal, a new report has revealed tax evasion is still endemic among Italy's professions – finding that psychologists fail to declare 40% of their earnings, rising to 42.7% for lawyers. Italians who do pay taxes were shocked to learn of the arrest of the head of a tax-collecting agency on suspicion of embezzling €100m, some of which he spent on lavish parties in Portofino.

Italian politician slashes disabled driver's tyres in parking dispute

The butler did it! Pope's butler is the leak behind Vatileaks

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 27 May 2012 01:00:14 +0000

VatiLeaks is pretty much what it sounds like: leaks from the Vatican, which culminated in, "Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI," a blockbusting book from journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who cites a Vatican source called "Maria" for leaking sensitive letters address to Benedict XVI. Now police have arrested a man whom the press identifies as the Pope's butler, who is accused of being VatiLeaks's Maria. From the NYT:

An on-again-off-again scandal that the Italian press has called VatiLeaks burst into the open on Friday with the arrest by Vatican gendarmes of a man, identified in news reports as Paolo Gabriele, the pope’s butler, who the Vatican said was in possession of confidential documents and was suspected of leaking private letters, some of which were addressed to Pope Benedict XVI.

In Vatican Whodunit, a Punch Line of a Suspect (via Making Light)

Earthquake and bombs in Italy: An eyewitness report from Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:36:48 +0000

[Video Link.]

A weekend of fear and mourning in Italy.

Early this Sunday morning, an earthquake struck near Bologna: at least six killed (ceramic workers, and a hundred year old person), and big material damage in the region. The US Geological Survey heard the tremor: a magnitude-6.0 quake struck at 4:04 a.m. Sunday between Modena and Mantova, about 35 kilometers north-northwest of Bologna. Civil defence says that the quake was the strongest in the region since the 1300s. And the damaged building are valuable historical sites. In Italy such loss goes without saying.

We felt the earthquake in Torino, 260 kilometers from Modena at dawn. The apartment building shook and the late-night party people yelped with alarm in the streets. As I write this we hear the building crack and we tremble: I am checking on twitter. Yes, it' s an aftershock at 15.19.

Not unusual for Italy to deal with deadly earthquakes, but what comes afterward can be nearly as troublesome: state neglect and real estate speculation. Those who are not under earth may have the skies as a roof forever! The last big earthquake in Aquila in 2009 speaks about that.

On Saturday morning, a bomb exploded in front of a high school, killing a 16 year old girl and injuring several other students seriously. This school bears the name of an antimafia activist, but it seems this was a terror attack. As if this distinction mattered: what cruel frame of mind, what political activism wants to bomb teenage schoolgirls? What is this message supposed to convey?

Fear and anger among citizens: standings all over Italian towns in solidarity with bombing victims in the southern Italian town Brindisi, and loud opposition to the reign of terror of anonymous bombs against civilians. The "strategy of tension" was notorious during the "lead years" in the seventies and eighties.

Italy in these days is targeted as the next country after Greece to be tumbled out of the euro zone into severe recession and collapse. The new Monti government, struggling to undo Berlusconi's long unruly reign in mere months, is imposing grim economic measures. Monti was a banker, and now is a prime minister: the trade unions blame his approach as inspired by and for the financiers rather than the population. Even Italian lighthouses auctioned off to tackle public debt pile.

"They stand on imposing headlands with spectacular views of isolated bays and white sandy beaches, some of the most picturesque in the Mediterranean." (Telegraph, UK)

The rate of unemployment among young people is 40 percent.

Italian flags are at half staff for three days of mourning. The international press has been reporting on the school killing as well as the earthquake: the social networks are full of useful news and active support for concrete initiatives. This awareness doesn't stop the Italian earth from shaking, the euro from falling, or criminals from killing the innocent, but it's a vital sign in our modest domain of life.

—Jasmina Tesanovic

HOWTO decorate like a Mafia boss

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:56 +0000

Nicola Schiavone is the recently jailed Camorra mafioso. His Naples home was photographed by the Italian tax police who raided it. It's quite an eyefull of Mafia-chic strangeness. The Guardian has the story.

Criminal? Italian mafia interior tastes exposed - in pictures

Vatican City ATM displays instructions in Latin

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:28:03 +0000

Seth Schoen snapped this Vatican City ATM that displays instructions in Latin.

Latin ATM (via Kottke)

Centurions battle cops at Colosseum

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:35:28 +0000

Phillip Pullella writes: "Roman centurions, complete with red skirts, tunics, armor, swords and feathered helmets, fought in front of the Colosseum. But this time it was with a modern enemy - Rome's city police. The police arrived at the ancient amphitheatre to enforce an eviction notice for the men, who ask for money to have their picture taken by tourists." [Photo: Tony Gentile / Reuters]

Documentary about inventor of giant 3D printer that can print a house

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:02:06 +0000

The Man Who Prints Houses is a documentary about Enrico Dini, an Italian roboticist who switched tracks to design and build enormous 3D printers capable of outputting houses:

Having built his printer – the world’s largest – from scratch, there’s no shortage of work offers for this highly-skilled and imaginative engineer. Throughout the course of the film, we see Enrico embark on an array of innovative projects: constructing the tallest printed sculpture in existence, working with Foster + Partners and the European Space Agency on a programme to colonise the moon, solidifying a sand dune in the desert, and printing the closest thing to an actual house: a small Italian dwelling known as a trullo.
The long-term nature of these projects and the current financial climate take their toll on Enrico and his team of workers, as contracts fail to be honoured and the infant technology stutters. Travel back to 2008 and it’s a different story, as Enrico describes how he was staring a €50m investment in the face. Just as he’s about to sell up and move to London, the stock market crashes… he must rebuild his business all over again.

The Man Who Prints Houses (Thanks, gaiapunk!)

Elephant bean-bag chair

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:00:35 +0000

Italian Etsy seller ConceptualDevices made this $450 elephant beanbag chair, "a place where to read (and write) fairy tales."

Its external lining is made of a soft fabric used for outdoor upholstery produced by Sunbrella which is easily washable, waterproof, oil proof and sunlight resistant. The internal lining is 100% cotton and contains the expanded polystyrene padding.
TANTO is manufactured in Italy. Elephant is the first character of a wide collection of pachyderms that we intend to make.

TANTO. A Place Where to Read (and Write) Fairy Tales. (via Super Punch)

Italian Isaac Asimov graffiti

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:17:21 +0000

Chrisperfer sez, "I randomly came upon this Isaac Asimov graffiti when attending a birthday party in Rome for my 4 year old daughter's friend."

Isaac Asimov

Titanic Tales: The Costa Concordia

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:57:51 +0000

Photo: An oil removal ship is seen next to the Costa Concordia cruise ship as it ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island, January 16, 2012. Over-reliance on electronic navigation systems and a failure of judgement by the captain are seen as possible reasons for one of the worst cruise liner disasters of all time, maritime specialists say. (REUTERS/ Max Rossi)

When I read hastily the headlines on Jan 14—a shipwreck in Italy, seventy missing, three known dead—I immediately thought: it must be the Africans again. The refugees, the clandestine, the invisible, the nameless, the unwanted… Those "less-than-human" people coming from all over the world to the Italian coast, looking for a safe haven from dictatorships, from hunger.

My Somali Italian friend Suad, who works with her community In Italy now, urges her people in Somalia NOT to take that dangerous ride: even if you survive the trip, what waits for you in Italy can be fatal. Italy is in deep economic crisis today, on the verge of bankruptcy and social disorder. The new government struggling to remain a G8 power while the euro and United Europe are at stake. Italy also struggles to overcome a big moral value crisis after twenty years of Berlusconi's reign of sexism, racism, indolence and corruption.

But I was wrong about the Africans. It was a fancy cruise ship full of wealthy foreigners that wrecked unexpectedly near the island of Giglio.

The splendid Costa Concordia was 290 meters long, and had thirteen decks. The ship featured thirteen bars, five restaurants, four swimming pools and five hundred balconied staterooms.

One woman survivor testified: "It was horrible! The foreign crew was screaming in their language in panic. We broke the glass and then we fought each other to get the lifejackets."

"While we were eating dinner, the first course, the plates started to flow, the glasses all of a sudden to run and then the lights went off. Then we fell on top of each other. People were stampeding while the ship was turning upside down. Now I am trying to find a friend I lost. Her cell phone is ringing but she is not answering."

A young Serbian girl who worked in the ship's gift shop recalled:

"We had to unleash the lifeboats ourselves: the instructors who had taught us how to do that jumped into the boats. There were no signs of ship officers to calm the passengers. Eighty-year-old people in a panic were shoving children, and mothers with babies in arms, in order to save themselves..."

When passing the isle of Giglio, cruise ships often greet the inhabitants of the island with a honk of the ship's horn. They say the habit dates back to an old Italian ship captain who was from Giglio and was bidding his home goodbye. From the land, the illuminated ship looks beautiful, and from the ship it's romantic to see the dark shape of an island speckled with lights. But for the Costa Concordia, everything went wrong.

Every tragedy becomes romantic if it's the last day of your life. All ships that sink carry the aura of the Titanic. All big disasters reveal the good and bad in people tested by adversity: people transform into heroes or cowards, and you never know who lurks within your own self at that ghastly hour.

A son of two elderly parents on the ship -- they had never left their home since their honeymoon years before -- personally came with his whole family to rescue them. He managed to save his mother, but for his father, it was too late.

A quiet Korean honeymoon couple was found alive after two days of fear, hunger and cold.

An Italian actress, also a survivor, said: "I was like an idiot, completely lost! When this ship tipped over on its side I tried to stop it with my feet!" In a further irony, this actress had once starred in a film about the famous sinking of the Andrea Doria.

There were four thousand people on that cruise ship: mostly Italian and French, but also tourists from many other nations. Students on a training course, hairdressers who had won a competition excursion worth 100 000 euros, many retired people, handicapped people and children. A floating Babel of different languages and cultures: a ghost nation.

Once the Costa Concordia showed her bad karma, of course it was recalled that on the day of her launch, the bottle of champagne smashed against her bow did not break.

A bad omen.

The captain of the ship was arrested and accused of manslaughter. He was charged with abandoning his position of command by cravenly saving himself, reaching the coast where he was found on a rock while his passengers fought for their lives.

The captain, in his distress, claims that his maps did not show the "Ghost Rock" on which his ship foundered: but his crew tells a different story. A deliberate decision to cruise far too close to the coast, to the bella isola di Giglio...to whistle a fond goodbye!

Naturally the Italian social networks spread their wisecracks: That's what happens when you hit the rock of Italy, the sinking country!

Other tourist cities in Italy like Venice are changing the security rules for cruise ships. A potential ecological disaster lingers: the fuel tanks in the carcass of the Costa Concordia might rupture.

My dear friend, Maja Mitic, an actress and activist from Belgrade, was aboard the Costa Concordia. She was there on her honeymoon, and to celebrate Serbian New Years. She wrote this on her Facebook profile:

"Dear friends, Ljuba and I are finally home.... after cruising seven days on Costa Concordia where we spend our last night, Friday the 13th of January, like on the movie Titanic... thank you all for your messages... What does not kill you, make you stronger!"

Berlusconi to neo-fascists: "I'll be back."

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 13:22:26 +0000

Berlusconi is ready to return to politics, having been absent from office for (almost) a whole day. In a message to a neo-fascist gathering, Il Mafioso wrote, "I share your spirit and I hope to resume with you the path of government."

Bye-bye, Bunga-bunga: "Addio Berlusconi"

Jasmina Tesanovic — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:27:39 +0000

"I haven't been so inspired since 1994," an Italian friend of mine posted on her Facebook page.

Well, I too can remember the year 1994, when I was in Milan, giving a public speech among some so-called intellectuals, soon after Berlusconi was elected. I had come there directly from Serbia, struggling in the thick of the Milosevic reign of terror.

I remember warning my Italian friends, feeling frightened, extremely emotional. I described a 'soft dictatorship,' how a small caste of oppressors gets into power legally, because WE vote them in, and then they steal and fake everything that WE, the people, never delegated them to do. And how, finally after waging wars against all the OTHERS in our own name, they finally turn on their ultimate victims and wage their war against US.

How they destroy every aspect of reality that stands in the way of a total exploitation: meaning the destruction, the ruin, of the people, ideas, customs, habits, prosperity, morality, of a nation and its history, of a time and a space. Afterwards, after the dreadful crash, who feels empty and responsible? We, the citizens who voted, we whose states were surrendered to the exploiters and profiteers, we, the participants, we are the ones humiliated in front of our children and the whole world.

Tonight, while Italians danced in front of the parliament, impatiently waiting for Berlusconi to officially resign, I remembered, once again among many times, how Milosevic was finally toppled after his miserable endless reign. Milosevic stumbled in the elections. He took Serbian support for granted, since he controlled all the Serbian mass media, and all the local means of patronage and favors.

Milosevic admitted his electoral defeat, promising to regroup and return to power soon. He faked a compliance with democracy, but we believed in his defeat. We didn't allow him to return to the statehouse. Instead we paralyzed Belgrade by occupying the streets in a crowd of a million, surrounding the parliament until the police and army deserted the criminal and agreed with the population.

Italian change came more smoothly: but the exasperated crowds in Rome were harshly insulting their premiere. "Mafioso," "buffoon," "go to jail now," "up your ass, Silvio," between sentimental fits of patriotic singing, huge crowds of people in the nation's capital called their elected leader awful names that haven't been heard since the fall of Mussolini.

Italian state TV channels were very prudish about reporting the rude scenes in the streets and squares of Rome. Only one Italian TV channel, plus online video streaming from Italian newspapers, recorded the historic moments. Italian journalists had to rely on Al Jazeera, BBC, Sky and other foreigners to tell the Italian people about the public scenes and public events within their own capital city.

As usual, Twitter was raving and reporting live. These 140-character messages from widely-scattered cellphones are hard to repress. However, bandwidth on the net got very patchy as Italians poured online massively: their government was collapsing headlong while their leader's pet TV machine offered them nothing but game shows, vapid repeats and busty dancing girls. So much for their national media and their role as informed citizens.

Silenced and humiliated.

Anonious people are courageously shouting in the public streets: the buffoon is gone! We lived for this day! Prison for Berlusconi, out with all the cowards!

People around me are more than happy. They are extremely frightened. They don't need the somber warnings of Italy's President, Napolitano, an old man in a figurehead post whom many now credit with saving the country -- for the time being. It is as if, only now, the Italians can realize the obvious truth of their dramatic situation, the grave national crisis they have somehow survived.

The future carries a worrisome burden of long-denied truth. After so many blatant and revolting personal scandals, people somehow imagined that they knew the truth about their Big Boss. They knew how to maneuver and how to protect their own interests in the minefield of official illusions. But that is not what real life is like, after the Fall.

The aftermath is like a mudslide after a torrential rain: it carries away the innocent as readily as the guilty. Since every citizen is entirely implicated in a nation's official fantasies, you cannot tell the clean from the polluted. Berlusconi brought out the worst instincts in every Italian, Eugenio Scalfari said.

Tomorrow is a big day for Italy: the first day of reconstruction. A new government, a new prime minister. Emergency stability law has been passed, as required by EU in a terrible haste, as Prime Minister Berlusconi crept from the President's house through the side door after resigning.

He finally departed his TV stage-set in a cloud of angry Twitter #hashtags: #byebyebungabunga, #finecorsa (end of the road), #maipiu (never more) #rimontiamo (Italy rides again)!

[Video Link]

Berlusconi Bye Bye?

Jasmina Tesanovic — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:01:05 +0000

Is this really the final end of the Berlusconi era, or just another pause for the Cavaliere to catch his breath?

Will he return on a fresh horse as the savior of an ever-crumbling Italy, as he has done repeatedly for the past 20 years? Will my Italian friends finally be able to travel abroad without a miasma of shame, and not be forced to explain to all what a bunga bunga orgy means? Will the numerous foreigners living and working in Italy, legal, clandestine, and semiclandestine, be able to face their children and say: we did the right thing to come here? Will they say: a new day dawns on the peninsula, the specter of crisis, gloom and crime has finally lifted! Work hard for your future!

These are open questions, and frightening questions today in Italy after yesterday's dramatic countdown, and Berlusconi's declaration that he will step down only after passing an emergency law on the Italian economic crisis. United Europe and its presses have closely followed the saga of the decadent emperor. They know that it was global economics and not his domestic scandals that pried the scepter from his hands.

Italians are wondering : whatever next? How badly off is the Italian political culture, which after all is to be blamed for many times that Berlusconi has managed to take and hold power? Where was the legitimate opposition, why were the counter-forces so weak? After the fall of Milosevic in Serbia, the deeply corrupted and dysfunctional state system was hard put to maintain any pretense of a normal government. Can Italy recover, and behave like a major G-7 power again? How is that possible?

Berlusconi was not a genocidal warmonger like Milosevic, but he inflicted years of steady ruination on Italian culture, health, education, research and reputation, not to mention state finance. Whoever comes in power after him will have to either clean cut with the past, or slowly purge the present. Either that, or just accelerate the collapse and scramble for the spoils, as Milosevic did.

What new, fresh faces may emerge from an Italy in moral and financial crisis? Young people without jobs, homes and children, a nation without funds or diplomatic credibility, a health care system without doctors and technology, brilliant students without no prospective but to flee elsewhere for careers, foreigners fighting for their basic human rights, women claiming back their long-fought victories of freedom and dignity.

Berlusconi was refused power by his own majority in the parliament. He loses little by resigning from a state so dysfunctional. Fear is in the air that he will create new elections, pose once again as the last-hope knight on horseback, and win over voters much as he did before. The Dignity people in Italy, together with Se non ora quando women's movement, anticipate a lot of activism and square action.

Berlusconi and the Italian power-structure seem to have an addictive relationship. Even mutual ruin cannot free them from one another. Sometimes I think that professional parties and politicians should be banned, to give anonymous alternative networks some chance to grow from scratch.

Italian stock markets are crumbling. Twitter messengers are raving. The daily press updates their websites by the hour. Italian TV comedians and stars are improvising political buffoonery like commedia dell'arte. Floods and rains are still drenching Italy, and even Pompeii, that victim of an ancient volcano, is a scene of the modern deluge.

Rome Burns

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:13:04 +0000

Photo: La Repubblica, Italy

That is the graffiti in one of the destroyed streets in this Saturday's "indignati" demonstration. It ended in violence against the police, city security, and last but not least the pacifist organizers of the manifestation, in tune with the world wide movements OCCUPY.

The graffiti sounds like some epic motto of ancient Rome when power struggles burned palaces, libraries, and streets.

Roman life may not be too different after all, except that 2000 years later, we somehow believe that those conflicts should be resolved without arson. Maybe we are wrong. Maybe the fact that people are organized using web networks does not free them from timeless forms of treachery and palace intrigue, or the manipulation and destruction of good political intent.

Anyway, after the mayhem, the search was on for the hooded arsonists, organized through the Internet and through private video shots by participants.

Italy remembers very well the violent "Years of Lead" (late 60's to early 80's), when red and black terrorists planted bombs in public places, blasting innocent citizens in the name of their distorted concept of supreme justice. For years they rampaged beyond the reach of police, courts and other institutions.

Even today, after many years, some cases of public terrorism have not been resolved. Books have been written by important authors to explain the supposedly important difference between a red and a black bomb detonated in public. The Nobel prize authors Dario Fo wrote a play where he showed how easily the police could frame anarchists for terrorism, killing them by legal means. There was a famous question about crime: a chi giova, who profits from it?

Today decades political violence is less sophisticated and ideological. Rome on fire Oct 16 2011 could have been Belgrade Feb 18 2008, when nationalist hooligans, upset about Kosovo, burned foreign embassies.

This is how Italian press reported:

"Black bloc, the day after.

Rome woke up after the nightmare of violence. Devastated, injured, the city counts the wounds. In the streets cars are burned, roads left without precious sanpietrini stones used as bullets, the facades of banks hotels and shops destroyed, black from smoke: at least one million of euros is the damage.

135 injured people, luckily no dead. 500 violent intruders destroyed a protest of 300 000 pacific protesters: the battle lasted for 5 hours in Rome downtown: a boy has lost one eye, one men has lost two fingers and a policeman suffered a heart attack.

International day of anger, Roman version"

"You can recognize them immediately by they clothes: pants, hoodies, helmets, masks, backpacks. All in black. Sometimes they even hold a banner in front of them: we are not asking for the future we are taking the present. They individuate the target, make a cross, take off they backpack , take out their hammers and other tools and hit. They started with the cars…"

Eugenio Scalfari , in La Reppublica editorial commented:

And who are the indignitati? They are neither right or left winged., in the traditional sense of those words. They are however not conservative, they have concrete objectives: they want public goods for everybody, they have no faith in private property including the state administrated property by political and power elites.People should possess and rule the goods they have where they live as water food forests, communication networks, houses, factories hospitals. And banks should stop to exist except for elementary transactions based on use and exchange value."

It' s a sad end of an attempt in Rome of the globalized protest starting from Madrid through Occupy Wall street in NY and other 80 cities which managed a peaceful protest.

It all happened while the usual protestors where on the streets; in somewhat a bigger number: plus a feminist , an angry teacher, a perky granny, a guy who lost his job hand in hand with an extracomunitario and finally a indignado youngster. Then black bloc stormed in and all hell broke loose: the spectre of bloody Genova riots between the protestors and the police ten years ago, anni di piombo of public terrorism and police mafia 40 years ago and Rome in flames 2000 ago.

A chi giova, who profits from all this? Premiere Berlusconi has been confirmed in power again after months of public sex and corruption scandals as if nothing happened. As if indignity did not exist or protest. The Italians seem not to need a foreign enemy: they bring it all alone on themselves.

La Repubblica: "Outraged, burned the flags of Italy and the European Union"; "The broken windows"

Wine carafe shaped like human heart

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:52:31 +0000

Paola C's Cuore is "two glass carafes shaping a human heart when joined together" -- made from blown Pyrex.

Cuore : LIVIANA OSTI

(via Neatorama)

Italy's insane Internet law prompts removal of Italian Wikipedia

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:21:14 +0000

Prompted by Italy's punitive (batshit) wiretapping law proposal, Wikipedia has removed its Italian version and now directs anyone trying to find Italian Wikipedia to a page explaining that Italy's Internet law will make it impossible to have an Italian Wikipedia:

This proposal, which the Italian Parliament is currently debating, provides, among other things, a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.
Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge - the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website.
Hence, anyone who feels offended by any content published on a blog, an online newspaper and, most likely, even on Wikipedia can directly request to publish a "corrected" version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources...
The obligation to publish on our site the correction as is, provided by the named paragraph 29, without even the right to discuss and verify the claim, is an unacceptable restriction of the freedom and independence of Wikipedia, to the point of distorting the principles on which the Free Encyclopedia is based and this would bring to a paralysis of the "horizontal" method of access and editing, putting - in fact - an end to its existence as we have known until today.

Wikipedia:Comunicato 4 ottobre 2011/en - Wikipedia [secure.wikimedia.org]

Skeletal whole-hand bracelet

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:49:01 +0000

Delfina Delettrez, a designer in Rome, made this beautiful, polished skeletal bracelet (though I couldn't locate it at her site, which autoplays music) (be warned).

Delfina Delettrez

Italian MPs propose Internet disconnection law: one copyright accusation from anyone and you lose your Internet connection

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:14:45 +0000

Italian MPs from Berlusconi's party have proposed legislation that will require ISPs to disconnect any customer on receipt of a single unsubstantiated copyright complaint, from anyone -- even someone who's not connected with the alleged rightsholder in any way.

1) citizens, outside of any judicial proceeding and without the right to appeal to the judicial authority, may be banned to access the Internet if ANYONE (a rightholder or an ordinary citizen) notifies a provider about alleged infringement of copyright or trademark or patent ("one strike" disconnections);
2) Internet service providers must comply to the blacklisting of citizens who are *suspected* of copyright or trademark or patent infringements ("proscription lists" to ban citizens from any access to the Net);
3) an Internet service provider must use preventive filters against services that infringe copyright, trademark or patents;
4) an Internet service provider must not promote or advertise, and must use preventive filters against, services that do not directly violate copyright, trademark or patents, but that *may* lead citizens to *think* that infringing services exist;
5) a provider or a hosting provider which does not use effective filters will be charged with civil liability.

A short analysis of Internet killer Centemero draft law by Paolo Brini for AirVPN. Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA (attribution, share-alike) (via Reddit)

Silvio Berlusconi prostitution-ring wiretaps: sex with eight women in one night, "I'm only prime minister in my spare time"

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 21:00:14 +0000

Italian magistrates investigating a prostitution ring have been wiretapping prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and have recorded the oligarch boasting about ordering eleven women for a single night (he was only able to have sex with eight of them), complaining that meeting with David Cameron and the Pope interferes with his womanizing, and stating that he is only prime minister in his spare time.

Berlusconi, who boasted to one TV showgirl that he was only "prime minister in my spare time", told Tarantini in September 2008 that he needed to reduce the flow of women since he had a "terrible week" ahead seeing Pope Benedict, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown. Berlusconi has long insisted that his private parties are informal but elegant affairs, that extend only as far as joke telling and songs, but is revealed on the tapes as putting pressure on Tarantini and his associates to conjure up beautiful female guests...
In a letter published in the newspaper Il Foglio, Berlusconi hit back at the latest wiretaps, claiming: "My private life is not a crime, my lifestyle may or may not please, it is personal, reserved and irreproachable."

Silvio Berlusconi wiretaps reveal boast of spending night with eight women

Transparent soft furniture

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:51:16 +0000

For Milan design week, furniture company Poltrona Frau exhibited some of its designs covered in transparent PVC without any fill, so that the structural elements were visible. I like the look of this, though it does remind me of the transparent toilets and TVs sold for use in prisons.

Transparent Furniture by Poltrona Frau (via Crib Candy)

Homeopathy multinational sues blogger over statements that its mythological curative had "no active ingredient"

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:12:46 +0000

Samuele Riva, an Italian blogger, is being sued by Boiron, a France-based homeopathic "remedy" multinational. Riva dared to mock the company's claim that its Ooscillococcinum has no "active ingredient." The company claims that the product has been made by diluting "oscillococcinum" (a mythological substance said to be present in duck liver, though no evidence supports this claim) at 1:100 dilution 200 times, which "is the equivalent of diluting 1ml of original ingredient into a volume of water that is the size of the known universe."

Writing at ScienceBasedMedicine.org, Steven Novella calls this "a pseudoscience trifecta": Boiron claims that its imaginary element is present in its solution which has been diluted at farcical levels, and that the imaginary ingredient in question is effective at treating flu symptoms. "Essentially Boiron takes fairy dust and then dilutes it out of (non)existence."

I hope Boiron does draw a line in the sand over their oscillococcinum product, and that it becomes the center piece of a broader public discussion about homeopathy. Most of the public does not understand what homeopathy actually is. They think it means “natural” or “herbal” medicine. They have no idea that homeopathy is about taking fanciful ingredients with a dubious connection to the symptoms in the first place, and then diluting them into oblivion, then placing a drop of the pure water that remains and placing it on a sugar pill. The resultant pill is then supposed to contain the magic vibrations of the original substance.
This rank pseudoscience, which has no place in 21st century medicine, is the business of Boiron. Let’s see them try to defend themselves and their products. Let’s see them harass bloggers and those who are just trying to expose the public to the truth. Let’s see them argue in public how air bubbles in duck liver fantastically diluted can treat the flu.

Boiron vs Blogzero (BlogZero.it)

Homeopathic Thuggery (Science Based Medicine)

(Thanks, Russell!)