Mediterranea

Riflettevo che non c’è nulla di più diseducativo, di più castrante di quell’ultima thule dell’insegnamento della matematica nei licei italiani: il famigerato studio di funzione. Un campionario di eccezioni, cavilli, casi particolari che riempiono di autentico nulla la testa degli studenti.

Václav Havel was not only a hero of democracy, the prime mover behind the Velvet Revolution and the true father of the Czech Republic.

Albeit being myself an agnostic, I find it most inspiring that Pope Francis’ lastest encyclic, Fratelli Tutti, explicitly quotes Ahmad al-Tayyeb whilst at the same time addressing some of the most striking aporias of the digital age.

Après plusieurs mois d’intenses négociations, il semble que la coalition Vivaldi commence à voir la lumière.

In Italia è possibile costituire startup innovative con una procedura completamente online e senza passare per un atto pubblico, cioè senza servirsi di un notaio. Fantastico. Peccato che le startup innovative siano una goccia nell’oceano: poco più di 10 mila a inizio 2020.

Non è paradossale che quella parte dell’opinione pubblica che ha difeso il NO come presidio di democrazia non riesca ad accettare l’esito di un referendum che è esercizio di quella stessa democrazia da parte del popolo sovrano?

During her address at the State of the Union 2020, President Ursula von den Leyen has put forth that the Commission will go to great lengths in order to support Member States in setting up a framework for minimum wages, probably through collective bargaining.

Più vado in giro, più mi convinco di una cosa. La celebrata familiarità dell’italiano medio con la buona cucina è una solenne fake news.

La bellezza e l’arte sono zone femminili dello spirito. L’arte è femmina ed è l’uomo che la fa e la plasma. I maschi se potessero decidere starebbero sempre in mezzo alle femmine e quindi la disparità di genere esiste per colpa delle rivalità femminili.

Il capitale sociale ha tante facce.

Ma quanto riesce a rappresentare questa nuova Italia il Festival della Bellezza di Verona? Tanto, tanto.

Con la solita amica (quella con cui domenica scorsa parlavamo dell’insegnamento del greco) si discuteva ieri del livello infimo della conoscenza dell’inglese da parte degli italiani.

Bonus vacanze: dei 2,4 miliardi di euro stanziati ne sono stati spesi solo 200 milioni e appena l’8% è giunto nelle casse di albergatori e stabilimenti balneari. Troppo poco per rilanciare il comparto ma soprattutto troppo poco per gli italiani.

Come contrastiamo la crescita delle big tech, si chiede Grillo? Quelle stesse big tech che oggi valgono più dell’intero mercato azionario europeo?

Tre capisaldi della lotta alla Covid:

Let this not be taken as an inclination to enroll him in my private Pantheon, but I hereby declare that I would pay to boast in my late thirties as little as one tenth of Warren Buffett’s stamina today. And he just turned ninety.

Si discuteva con un’amica se abbia tuttora senso lo studio del greco nelle scuole italiane. Per chi non lo sapesse, siamo tranne eccezioni marginali l’unico Paese in Europa in cui questa materia è parte di un programma di studio non universitario: neppure in Grecia studiano il greco antico alle superiori.

Behind this outrageous inability to understand why a blackface is a huge no-no, there lies that very same self-deceptive narrative which depicts Italians as brava gente (decent people) and has proven useful in dismissing as hullabaloo the Italian fascist genocide in Ethiopia, exactly as it continues to prove an ace up Italy’s sleeve when international criticism over caporalato (illegal recruitment of migrants bordering on slavery) and systemic racism has to be dodged away.

Su Immuni l’approccio del governo continua a essere troppo cauto.

Travelling or relocating across our continent is the most brutal way to realise that a united Europe, in the true meaning of the word, does not yet exist.

Non è meraviglioso assistere alle contorsioni di un pensiero che si sforza di tradurre un mondo in evoluzione negli schemi obsoleti a cui è abbarbicato?

The pandemic has unleashed (or should I say rekindled) a massive conflict between generations. On the one hand, the Covid-19 is incomparably more threatening for the elderly, on the other it is the youngest who will pay, far and away, the highest price, due to a public debt looming larger and larger ahead, a plummeting job market and a long-lasting disruption in essential services like basic education. By the way, the latter has been out of order for several months on end in Italy, with no certainty as to its getting back in business.

It used to be our creed, but now it is over. It is high time for us to ditch the narrative, half naive half downright brown-nosing, whereby the multinationals of the digital revolution are perfect creatures built by enlightened geniuses. Big techs, indeed, almost invariably build their fortunes much more on the inadequacy of regulations, on unfair tax regimes, on financial unscrupulousness and on the global scale on which they operate (and on which politics is unable to be of any efficacy) than on bona fide innovation. It is not for their (albeit brilliant) AI algorithms that Uber and Lyft dominate the market, but because they have been able to exploit the gray areas in national legislation and to cut costs on the management of the working force. Gig operators were hailed as novel entrepreneurs but were, in fact, devoid of any protection and entirely depending on customers’ reviews and petty nuisances: in a word, the very parody of the American dream.

«Mums will fight for the freedom of their children. No masks no disgusting vaccines no distancing no microchip no fear!»

«June 2021. The world has been in pandemic mode for a year and a half. The virus continues to spread at a slow burn; intermittent lockdowns are the new normal. An approved vaccine offers six months of protection, but international deal-making has slowed its distribution. An estimated 250 million people have been infected worldwide, and 1.75 million are dead.»

This picture is tell-tale.

With a tech-corporate culture fraught with Move-Fast-and-Break-Things innuendos, it comes as no surprise that being «imbued with the power and confidence» that you can do no wrong is highly rewarded. And it is a boy’s thing, or at least this is what the NYT believes: «it’s almost always a him», quoth the journalist, who happens to be a she.

As the pandemic rears its ugly head again and again, we might find ourselves forced to stay at home longer than we expected to. Thus, it is key for our mental health to strike a balance between a fully-fledged “social onlife” and our natural tendency towards isolation and self-sufficiency — a behavioural bias that humans have somehow embedded at least as much as they depend on social skills, but which, although healthy if indulged in with awareness, might jeopardise the natural process of growth which happens through constant (not necessarily physical) interaction with others. If listened carelessly, the enchanting song of our inner self is capable of leading us astray.