Modular origami

     Tetrahedron, intersection of two tetrahedrons, intersection of three tetrahedrons, intersection of five tetrahedrons, pyramidal or starlike icosahedron, stars of different colours with six modules, stars of your favourite soccer teams.  

Let's say (it) to Calvino, in fact let's not say it

     Writing you is Silvana Calabrese, twenty-three years old, with a degree in Communication Sciences at the University of Bari. Few people remember that in 1984, Italo Calvino was invited by Cambridge Harvard University, in Massachusetts, to deliver a series of six lectures on free subject that took the name of American Lessons. He chose to illustrate some literature values which he should save: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity and consistency or coherence. He called them Six memos for the next millennium. The author argued that the mastery of their own language was a moral and social deep value, because it’s the only weapon capable of opposing the loss of form that has infected the world, making senseless and shapeless people life, and the only tool that’s able to make so clear and crisp the nuances of thought and imagination.

     Calvino called the precision which would follow the confidence, the ability to process complex and articulated speech without running into contradictions. Extolled the value of the accuracy, as opposed to the tendency to approximation that characterizes contemporary society.

     At the end of the series of conferences, emerged the idea of the writer’s work as a challenge to the degradation of society with the specific weapons of the language.

     This assumption, while going back to 1984, is revealed present, indeed futuristic, because it seems that Calvino has predicted the linguistic immaturity of youth, so linked to linguistic bad habits "we say" and "pratically" that spread like the plague, and exactly how the plague, they don’t discriminate by class or education level. By television journalists to physicists at Geneva CERN, many souls are affected by this virus.

     The "say" is sociable: it goes to "pratically" to "roughly", the "whatever other" and "i.e.", occurring as a nightmare.

     What Calvino could "we say" of this expression/pleonasm, sign of linguistic weakness that laps every day new people and don’t leave them never and never.

     And then, "we say" it forever, but we know it?

     At first, it’s presumptuous to use the plural if the speaker isn’t the spokesperson for a group and then, it’s a clear sign of loss of control over their own language.

     But the worst phenomenon which I happened to attend is contagion: learners make large use of  it and the lights follow their example.

     So... don’t say (it) to Calvino. 

     Source “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, June 25, 2010, p. 22.

Balloon sculptures. A poodle

With the mentor Pope Francesco we restore the sense of faith

While I address a salute to Pope Ratzinger, who with the withdrawal from the Petrine ministry has shown humility of mind, we welcome to the papal throne Jorge Bergoglio who measure accurately the choice of the pontifical name directing it towards Francesco. The Holy Father greets us with fraternal way and asks us to pray for him so that he’ll be able to fulfill his mission of spiritual guide for the faithful. In addition to pray we have the moral duty to help him in this goal. How? Reflecting on the meaning of faith, indeed, restoring it because prayer, severed from the action, loses much of its value. 

The faith isn’t acquired from the breviary, and isn’t consolidated with the knowledge of religion, because it means hearing with the soul. It finds its raison d’être in the constant dialogue that we should establish with the conscience and that also should involve the atheist because must not only be the fear of God to be a deterrent to evil actions. In theory it’s simple approaching the subject, but the perception and the daily application of righteousness is a matter that requires caution. Since the world is characterized by free will (by God’s will) and by the lack of balance between good and evil, health and sickness, wealth and poverty, we’re often impelled to believe that luck and joy are attributable to awards that the Lord gives us for having done good. But that reasoning can’t be applied to the less fortunate people.

We haven’t understood that the distribution of rewards and punishments doesn’t take place in earthly life, but rather the Judgment Day. But how to explain the inequalities? Whether or not you believe they’re trials to which we’re subjected. It even might come to argue that it’s a kind of little tricks of God to test our behaviors. Who leads a wretched life is put to the test and will have to continue to have faith and doing right even when he/she sees the evil and no chance of redemption, but only the constant social and human deterioration.

While those who live in comfort and they enjoy the luck of meet the good people, get a good job, get married with a kind and caring consort, have children or grandchildren in good health and healthy, he/she is equally placed in front of a trial. He/she will thinks that everything is owed him/her or that is receiving deserved rewards and this will make he/she greedy, proud, haughty and without the slightest regard for others. He/she will pray and will go to the Holy Mass, but he/she won’t carry out ever acts of faith, those which by definition are unconditional and dictated only by the humble consideration towards each other and not with a view to profit. 

Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, March 20, 2013, p. 16. 

Carvings. Swan with apple and bud with zucchini

Legacy of Apple. The lesson from Steve Jobs

The obstacles make the man

     The death of Steve Jobs brings us back to June 12, 2005 when Stanford University, on the occasion of the delivery of degree parchments, it could hear the speech by the head of Apple, who had left the University. Isn’t a contradiction. The expensive college didn’t seem to provide him an opportunity, and not even the clarity to understand his vocation. 

     Following curiosities and interests made his way to unexpected results. The skills acquired free were, some time later, a practical application in his life. Everything happens for a reason. Drop out of college to find new life elsewhere has created a ramification of events on a global scale. Even behind the paradox of being laid off by created company, though lost, he discovered the presence of a superior design: "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again." Wrapped in creativity he founded NeXT, Pixar (that created the first computer animated film, Toy Story) and with his wife, another great 'holding': family. In quality of avid reader of the newspaper "The whole earth catalog," he recalls the maximum of the last no.: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Firmly convinced that the failures are the best place for forced to think differently and creatively, Jobs claimed that there was no reason not to follow our heart, "Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown out our inner voice. We must have the courage to follow our heart and intuition. They know what we really want to become". Commit us to his message continues to thrive among young people.

     The Rectors/Deans tells fables when stating the capacity of the University to train competitive youngs. Still, sometimes we feel compassion for the student who flew over the area of study instead of studying it. Since one student has the ability to determine which teaching is "profitable" for his training? And since he/she know what thing will take to meet the challenges imposed by the world of work? It’s well known that many are used to study a little and less they try to do it, they feel it so hard and so difficult to concentrate. But humor them is a badly: off creativity, reduces the flame of insight and preclude the opportunity to discover their real vocation. History, art, novels, films and Steve Jobs teach us that the presence of an obstacle is the necessary condition to harden. Are the obstacles to embellish path and goal. A training institution should encourage students to cope with the difficulties and not make soften it. Or abandon them. Support and advice are essential, but we must give them the desire to assert themselves and not make them crippled. 

     Source: "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", an italian newspaper, October 11, 2011, p. 24.

South Est Railways: the real troubles come after road accidents

     The driving school manuals recommend to drive appropriately to the characteristics of the vehicles and the road conditions and traffic by taking the precautions dictated by common sense and showing strong civic sense. But sometimes the inevitable happens. 

     Off the car, it sets in motion a perverse mechanism known and inevitable. The involved people in the mildest sinister leave the scene, but they finance any act, and enter in the field new characters, insurers, loss adjusters and body shop mechanics. As defenders, midfielders and attackers, they pass the ball themselves, indeed the numeric digits with a lightness that doesn’t suit to the sum of monies. Numbers are inflated and there is no stop to this habit. Often it seems that the expert/loss adjuster who, having read the vehicle, estimated the damage is in possession of the same price lists of bodywork mechanics with astronomical prices for repair abrasions, and not deep scrapes or dents (it spoke in a service of the italian show "Le Iene/The Hyenas"). Insurers provide compensation for damages, within the maximum, and then inflict their deadly blow in the policy rates. From body shop mechanic, more and more like a goldsmith, went few people. When accidents cause only property damages, you can take advantage of the form of an accident and friendly report prepared by the two drivers involved in order to make a complaint to the insurance. The module expected to be realized sketch illustrating the dynamic impact. There is always in some left any left individual who seeks to take advantage by declaring dynamics and attributions of blame that deviate from reality. This is the case of collisions occurred against the blue bus of the South Est Railways. Stay away from them because if your car were to collide with one of them, in spite of the accident and friendly report and the consolidated involvement liability (Article 2054, clause 2 of the Italian Civil Code), they declare that thay has received damages greater extent than those actually caused. The abrasions become dents. In addition they award sole responsibility for what happened to the small drivers. The compensation claim that they send will be accompanied by descriptions that don’t respect the logic of the trajectories and the mechanic principles, branch of physics that studies the movement. South Est Railways, let’s make sure that the blue Pacific, like the ocean, recalls the beauty of the waters and not the depth able to swallow the human honesty. 

     Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, Friday, May 18, 2012, p. 24.

Is time travel possible? With Pixum, you can

     We will never stop fantasizing about the possibility of making time travel. We would like to relive historical events or personal Moving quickly through time and space.

     Since each concept is flexible, it is also the expression "time travel", and one of its meanings makes it possible. Worth the example of photograph that gives moments, contexts, environments and faces and preserves them from the inexorable passage of time. In an afternoon of respite from the busy schedule, try to take an old album and you will realize how to be able to carry you away on memory lane, and to involve friends and relatives.

     But that's not all. All the achievements of mankind suffer later developments, maintaining the original shape. This is because we are creative, or lovers of perfectionism, or constantly looking for innovative openings that create (very important) new employment opportunities.

     I could not resist to the temptation to write the preamble above. It is necessary to introduce my personal experience with Pixum, a company dedicated to photo printing, photo books, posters, paintings, mugs, magnets, bags, puzzles, playing cards, memo card and a wide range of customizable products with your own photos.

     With the services offered by Pixum are accomplished miracles by information technology mixed with the effects of globalization.

     This is the chance to get home the selected and personalized product in a few days and comfortably.

     It is a way to sprinkle our photos with a handful of charm till to obtain real gadgets with our image in effigy ... as if we were celebrities. Isn’t it our innermost desire?

     Anyone who knows me remind my great passion for San Francisco, the city that I feel very close although geographically distant. I was certain that I would have bought some souvenirs if I went there. In my mind had outlined an idea of what I would have purchased: a snowball depicting the famous bridge in California. The coincidences are nothing more the twisted lines of destiny. In fact, I had the opportunity to test a product Pixum has fulfilled my desire.

     Do you want to try it for yourself? Please visit www.pixum.com, choose a product and customize it. Then put it into the cart and fill out the order form with your personal data.

Navigation of this site is natural, but unique is the experience that Pixum makes about photo.

Pixum is emerging as a rising star of custom photography. The company was founded in Germany in 2000 and has gradually expanded in several European countries and then moved to Italy in 2005 with Pixum.it.

     The solid ambition of the company is reflected in its mission because Pixum aspires to become the leading photo printing service in Europe. To fulfil the lens is committed to offering the best quality in the market, targeted to the wishes and needs of customers. 

     It is usual to consider advertising as the soul of trade, but nowadays there has been a degeneration of this conception which is expressed in spot redundant and often poorly structured. Pixum has a noble soul reaching out to customer satisfaction, which word of mouth will be the best advertising that is possible.

2012: the world ends or doesn’t end? The new Hamlet doubt

     A couple of years ago was often heard on television advertising of some Tv programs, including Voyager, and we could see how they were based on impact phrases (words meant for effect) such as: "2012: the end of the world?".

     While inserting the question mark, the sentence contains an intrinsic affirmation candidate to take root in the minds of viewers.

     May be in few are really interested in the Maya civilization, but today they have gained the most fame thanks to the powerful message that media has carried.

     The alleged end of the world has not generated a collective psychosis, but a sense of power by individuals. Humanity has shown, in the historical ages, its desire about a topic: being able to establish the exact date or year in which the life on planet Earth will cease. Our presumption will never end!

     However, we believed in the words of TV hosts, verbal words full of significance and relevance that the media resonance has given them. But we are also ran in the bookstore to buy one or more copies of those books that promised to exhaust the entire repertoire about the infamous 2012.

     Television has a hypnotic power... even when it’s going to deny that a message had been established.

     If Giacobbo has continued to talk about the end of the world and if then it that wasn’t turned up for the appointment, the entire credibility of the host would have collapsed much faster than the Berlin Wall. Now in his transmission he portrayed the topic and prepares us for the event will not happens.

     It a luck that written thing on paper and appropriately dated resist to the passing of time, because I really have a quote for you: «Someone observing some Maya bas-reliefs, wanted to see spaceships. Some argue that the same Maya were aliens. In support of this claim, they report the fact that the facial features of Maya are too far removed from those of the native Mesoamericans. The Mayan calendar bring back two forward-looking statements: the first concerned the Spanish conquest; the second refers to a date, December 21, 2012, the day on which, according to prophecy, will end a cosmic cycle. This prediction of the future, shouldn’t be seen as the end of the world, but it indicates the end of a galactic year. It’s assumed that Maya had discovered not only that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but also that the solar system performs a rotational motion around the galaxy. A galactic year, indicating the complete tour, takes about 25,626 years». 

     Quote from: S. CALABRESE, All the mysteries aresolved, Rome, 2009, pages 98-162.
     And: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an Italian newspaper, Jan 7, 2012, p. 16.  

Charmed theme song How soon is now? – The Smiths

I am the son

And the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and heir

Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth

How can you say

I go about things the wrong way ?

I am Human and I need to be loved

Just like everybody else does

I am the son

And the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and heir

Oh, of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth

How can you say

I go about things the wrong way ?

I am Human and I need to be loved

Just like everybody else does

There's a club, if you'd like to go

You could meet somebody who really loves you

So you go, and you stand on your own

And you leave on your own

And you go home, and you cry

And you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen "now"

Well, when exactly do you mean ?

See I've already waited too long

And all my hope is gone

You shut your mouth 

How can you say

I go about things the wrong way ?

I am Human and I need to be loved 

Just like everybody else does

The revolt of the universities and the right to study

     What is known as "agitation" by researchers is a disorder caused by the University Reform, which was continuing its passage through Parliament until the halt by Minister of Economy and Finance Tremonti. I haven’t the intention of making an apology to the Gelmini decree and not to move against it criticism. I will remain neutral, but eager to tell how much discomfort is felt by the students as the teachers abstention by teaching is concerning them as if they were accomplices of the Decree.

     It started the 2010-2011 academic year in the Faculty of Education of Bari and a few weeks before had been published the schedule of lessons with a surprise: in many courses are completely or partially absent the names of professors which would have given lessons. All this not comes from a typing mistake, but is the greatest effect of researchers agitation. Consequently, subjects whose exams are for the first half slip to the second half of semester without a specific day. No lessons, no programs, no books, no tests/exams, farewell be in order, where is the right to study guaranteed by article 34 of the Italian Constitution?

     The students are trying to develop strategies, searching for the lawfulness of course, in order to implement an exchange of lessons learned and thus save the semester, but the time is despotic towards them because November is started; the semester ends in January and requires a precise number of days to devote to lesson hours.

     Freshman and preparing for a degree continue to cultivate their hopes and dreams for their future, but not all are so phlegmatic. From the rank of the revolutionaries was raised a "voice" and it is possible that is "white": there is a module called “renunciation of the studies”; if it was duly completed and delivered by the students, by now sick and tired of the lack of interest shown towards them, it would the death certificate of many courses. 

     Source: "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", an italian newspaper, November 27, 2010, p. 20.

Daedalus Publishing: Little Library of Science

     Book review: Christophe Cassou, Weather and climate doesn’t rhyme!, Daedalus Publishing, Bari 2014, pp. 64. 

     Book review: Pierre Papon, Let’s full of energy!, Dedalus Publishing, Bari 2014, pp. 64. 

     In what we want to invest our future? The correct answer is: in children, the younger generation. How? Following the suggestion of the historian Marc Bloch, according to which we have to explain a simple concept that starts from the question of own child and at the same time it’s necessary to stimulate new curiosity in children.

     In a society dominated by the frenzy comes to our rescue the book series “Little Library of Science” designed by the Daedalus Publisher that from own works reveals altruism toward readers of all ages. The mission of the book series, which addresses to the curious from 9 to 99 years, is to take on scientific issues in a simple way. The authors are scientists and experts who answer to the childlike questions able to condense profound existential and environmental curiosity.

     Only the tenderness of a little child is able to feel the vulnerability of the planet where we live and encourage their family to take measures that can pamper the Earth. The two texts I’m going to review, “Weather and climate doesn’t rhyme!” and “Let’s full of energy!”, seem related and basically they are.

     Climate and weather are indicative of the globe health level. Current is the issue of climate change which follows the global warming alarm. To a child is like the Earth had a fever and should absolutely be healed. Climatologist Christophe Cassou stands next to his young readers and guide them in the fascinating journey of discovery of meteorological phenomena of which so much is said and little is understood. He translates the buzzwords of technical jargon and puts them at the level of nippers understanding.

     Each book is organized as an exciting story that tells the adventures of the characters which discover new phenomena and find creative gimmicks to understand them.

     Alongside of physics and chemistry industrial professor Pierre Papon, we discover the treasures of the Earth i.e. all types of energy and the different ways to produce it, store it, use it as best but never exploit it. 

     The books are close to the families in the delicate phase of the education of children and their human and cultural formation. Isn’t a coincidence that the location of the tale Let’s full of energy! is the farmland, the only place in the world where you can develop an awareness of the environment sensitivity and show gratitude for the precious elements that the planet gives us.

Handmade Dollhouse Model in Victorian style

Bossi has demonstrated the effectiveness of policies … for the family

     A recent event such as the news of Umberto Bossi resignation from Northern League will invoke a remote one as the controversial phrase uttered in a diplomatic memorandum on August 2, 1847 by Klemens von Metternich: "Italy is a geographical expression". The historical context proves to be enlightening, in fact the years that were flowed into 1848 coincide with the national revolutions. The Restoration period began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna aims to establish a social and political order based on that existing before the French Revolution. The Austrian statesman Metternich watched a divided Italy on which would be easier to exercise the Austrian influence. Who read between the lines of "The Battle", dictionary of the Italian language, can see how that phrase is used to describe a nation that hasn’t yet achieved political unity. But now Italy what is it? Has become of expression of what? And how long we don’t hear more news that could be called political rather than relating to the politicians private lives? Bossi hoped for fiscal federalism in the country and to get the popular support has leveraged on the area in which we are weaker, Italian language, proposing the idea that each school is teaching the regional dialect. While he entertained us and mesmerized us was dedicated to the unification of money within a file with the heading "The Family". It seems almost a mitigating factor because his operations were aimed at the welfare of the fundamental cell of society, the family, his family. We disclaim, so the claim that Italy invests little on family policies because Bossi isn’t the first to "borrow" some money for the final exams of his son Renzo, jumped to the headlines in 2008, or however, to guarantee his family a decent standard of living. It’s almost creepy the sequence of images aimed at documenting the professional climb of Umberto Bossi, but under those lights and flash there were already gray areas that have become increasingly bleak and we can’t really say that the social top was been reached with sacrifices. Only some Italians have close encounters of the third kind with the concept of sacrifice and pay for the vices of the arrogant and powerful. I conclude with a new maximum, emblem of the period of the cuts even on syllables: Italy is a peninsula, but a pain. 

     Source: "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", an italian newspaper, April 8, 2012, p. 20.

University of Bari in danger. Close or pull weeds?

The ANVUR report is strict in the assessment of the quality of research in the South of Italy. The University of Bari is placed at the bottom of the ranking. The benchmark are publications. The President of Abruzzo, Gianni Chiodi, shouts against the University of Bari judging it a factory of illusions that should be closed. Great situation! What is the cause? 

In the United States if things collapse in a company, people will organize a hunt in search of the bad apple, i.e. the rotten apple that must be separated from the others not to infect those. In Bari the fungal formation, whitish and greenish with particular smell (mold) that has affected the social system, we can identify it in what is public. Isn’t necessary to dig deep into professors’ lives because their curricula studiorum are public and visible within the Faculty websites. From those documents will be clear a study path anything but modest, boasting stays in prestigious institutions across the Alps. Money allows unthinkable opportunities. But then is in their country that they try to climb the social ladder. They win the chair, but not honor that. Their professional career should give rise to scientific publications numerous and constant over time. But the results are scarce. Yet they not have to finance their own books. Yet those high–level courses should have resulted in an explosion in the academic production. But no. If the work of these bad apples were by piece, they couldn’t reach the end of the month. Such situations give rise to the usual suspects with a novelty: we cross a gap, and we float in mid–air with few words: relative–town, recommendations, references. Relative–town means that the University is like a family–owned company. That the ex girlfriends remain on good terms with the professors, they could integrate into the University. A recommendation may be lawful or unlawful. In the first case it takes the name of reference. But has a professor parent the clarity needed to provide references on their own child? Be sons of art or want to follow in the footsteps of father and mother isn’t wrong, it is to ignore their real abilities. But there is something genetic and hereditary. Comparing the curricula of two professors related we can see the same chromosome set: macro credits and micro publications. Is in their hands that we place the education of our children. Too few people are able to infuse professional passion. The solution, however, isn’t close University, causing a cultural regression of the South, but pull weeds that living quiet shade of a permanent contract. 

Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, August 21, 2013, p. 16. 

White Chicks Soundtrack A thousand miles - Vanessa Carlton

Making my way downtown

Walking fast

Faces passed

And I'm home bound

Staring blankly ahead

Just making my way

Making my way

Through the crowd

And I need you

And I miss you

And now I wonder....

If I could fall

Into the sky

Do you think time

Would pass me by

'Cause you know I'd walk

A thousand miles

If I could

Just see you

Tonight

It's always times like these

When I think of you

And I wonder

If you ever

Think of me

'Cause everything's so wrong

And I don't belong

Living in your

Precious memories

'Cause I need you

And I miss you

And now I wonder....

If I could fall

Into the sky

Do you think time

Would pass me by

'Cause you know I'd walk

A thousand miles

If I could

Just see you

Tonight

And I, I

Don't want to let you know

I, I

Drown in your memory

I, I

Don't want to let this go

I, I

Don't....

Making my way downtown

Walking fast

Faces passed

And I'm home bound

Staring blankly ahead

Just making my way

Making my way

Through the crowd

And I still need you

And I still miss you

And now I wonder....

If I could fall

Into the sky

Do you think time

Would pass us by

'Cause you know I'd walk

A thousand miles

If I could

Just see you...

If I could fall

Into the sky

Do you think time

Would pass me by

'Cause you know I'd walk

A thousand miles

If I could

Just see you

If I could

Just hold you 

Tonight

Farewell, indeed, goodbye Neil Alden Armstrong

     He was born in 1930 in the state of Ohio and holds a degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955. He became a civilian pilot and worked for NASA. Later, he was selected as an astronaut in 1962.

     He participated in the Gemini program, commanding the Gemini 8 mission, in 1966.

     In 1968 he was appointed commander of the backup crew of Apollo 8 mission.

     One year before the landing he risked his life in a training.

     1969 changed his life: he commanded the Apollo 11 mission who made the historic landing on the Moon. On the approach to the ground, Armstrong picked up the manual controls of the LEM called Eagle, and uttered the first words of the mission, became by now part of history:

     "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed".

     Out of the Lunar Module, he was the first man to set foot on the Moon, its footprint is the most popular in the world. During contact with the selenic ground uttered his most famous phrase:

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind".

     He left NASA in 1970.

     From the book Theatrum mundi. Landing on the Moon, p. 49-50. Dedicated to you.

     He left all of us on August 25, 2012. In circumstances like this we distance ourselves from the debate about the truthfulness of landing. We pay homage to a record curriculum. Let's go back to that enchanted night, between 20 and 21 July 1969, the night when humanity, moved by the charm of progress, felt had to turn our gaze to the sky. It seems that not a theft has been committed in that night.

     Your death takes away a piece of history, astronomy, a piece of childhood for those who have dreamed the immensity of the universe and the galactic features.

     To Houston we say "ok Houston, the eagle has soared" and your name will mount in the firmament.

     To you we say farewell, indeed, see you if there is a place where we meet again. 

     Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, August 28, 2012, p. 24. 

Die on the beach in a sea of indifference

The horror genre, editorial and cinematographic, borns with the aim to defuse the fear of death because it’s the only element on which we haven’t control. It’s inevitable. It’s the only event that we could never desert. Besides it makes us equal and humble. But recent news events show that we have defused it excessively.

It may happen to be caught by a sudden illness at sea, in the water, and leave the quills. The current or a swimmer bring the body back to shore. It alerts the security force and on the corpse is laid a white cloth. What happens around? That we didn’t expect. The press reports tragedies (drownings) occurred in different places, but they have the same post–mortem scenery: the swimmers continued to sunbathe, play on the sand, swim, play with a ball or with rackets… have continued to live and enjoy just a few meters away from those bodies covered by sheet. It’s regular: a lifeless body lying on the shore and it doesn’t unsettle and doesn’t raise other feeling that indifference, sometimes accompanied by the desire to take some gruesome photographs. Not silence or meditation, but dips, laughter and the usual marine chatter, because a cadaver on the beach is an irrelevant event. It can be horror vacui? In physics this Latin phrase indicates that nature abhors the vacuum, and therefore it constantly filling it (in fact, Torricelli’s experiment debunked Aristotle’s theory). Perhaps, like the nature we want to compensate the emptiness of the end of a life? No, we aren’t so deep, at least not deeper than a puddle.

The general indifference was cut only after the exhortation by members of the public rescue and civil defense to assume a dignified behavior.

Why all this should concern us? Maybe it’s a way to pause reflecting on a phenomenon that has already produced in us habit. Every day we perform many different activities, walking (but here it would be better the ambivalent word “wandering”) between a long series of already dead and rotting values. And faced with this scenery of death we are and remain indifferent. 

Source “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, June 22, 2013, p. 16.  

Even the finance gurus little understand about crisis

There is little clarity on the economic crisis of the twenty-first century. Rapid changes and difficult to focus, even to the minds of high finance. This is the case of the fruits that fall far from the tree, in fact we never understand crisis thinking to today’s problems, but we must go back to 2007 to learn the roots of the crisis. Subprime mortgages are at the origin of the Great Depression. Are granted to individuals with problems of defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcies in the history of the debtor, as well as low income. The risk comes from high interest rates.

The rate of adjustable rate mortgages reached levels above average incomes in 2007 and bursts the bubble mortgage: 15 U.S. States recorded the highest level of unpaid installments for at least 90 days and banks repossessed properties by putting them up for auction. But that’s not all. The risky real estate loans were inserted into bonds marked by the triple “A” representing the status of reliability of the title. Far from it, for this there is talk of “toxic assets”. These securities may be purchased by individuals, banks, pension funds and foreign countries. That’s how the contagion began.

The problems of global finance arise from the collapse of one of the five power-house (citadels of power) of Wall Street, Bear Stearns, the U.S. investment bank among the most exposed to subprime mortgages. The U.S. investment bank JP Morgan saved the situation by detecting the Bear, whose managers have come under FBI investigation and arrested on charges of conspiracy, fraud and lack of transparency at the expense of investors. Banks should improve communications provided to customers, so that they can choose with greater awareness of financial products more or less risky.

The public opinion equates the origin of the global financial crisis with the collapse of U.S. investment bank, Lehman Brothers, which is in charge of financial services globally. On 15.09.2008 the company announced the bankruptcy proceedings or bankruptcy driven by the accumulation of huge debts. The company will cease to exist when it’s completed the bankruptcy proceeding.

Our dock has welcomed a current case of financial globalization, which refers to the growth and expansion of financial markets. Its side effect, however, is the phenomenon of contagion, i.e. the possibility that crises have effects beyond the home market, with global repercussions through transmission channels such as trade and financial linkages. There have been anti-crisis measures aimed at encouraging investment and increase consumption. But the prospect of unemployment has inhibited them. The rest are living. 

Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, November 28, 2011, p. 16.

Many objects are in the forefront. And why not the corset?

That corset too innovative for Puglia

Scoliosis, kyphosis, lordosis: are accentuations of the physiological curves of the vertebral column. They require preventive and corrective actions, but we can’t talk about healing. Although irreversible conditions, those are not the accused words, but the medical negligence together with the innovation lack. We love fringe us with well–advanced objects, but in the orthopedics field we are resigned to vintage. The corset, or orthopedic corset, is tailored and applied to solve those problems.

 In severe cases we undergoes surgery. Corsets range is wide: there is a kind Boston, Lionese, Riviera; Lapadula; Cheneau; Spinecor, the immovable Risser plaster cast, the Milwaukee model with or without cervical ring. Versatile names that divert the attention from health problem and direct us to the fashion effect. Corsets are rigid, made of polyethylene (ie synthetic) and hardly bearable especially by child/adolescent. They are also old, be enough to think that the Lapadula dates back to the Sixties. Great for erotism and already used in that field. The treatment consists in wear them for many hours a day, but it’s almost impossible and many people renounce losing the ability to realize postural benefits. The solution lies in innovation: it was patented in the United States (homeland of scoliosis) a new generation corset which represents the new frontier of orthopedic correction. It offers a better toleration, even in summer, due to the characteristics of the production material: carbon fibers. It is breathable and antistatic due to the special conductive fibers that absorb and dissipate electrostatic charges.

However, in Puglia we are stuck with antiquated models, flag–bearer of a fossilized mentality. At this point, the conversation becomes an affluent that flows in their long–issue of health Organization gangrenous composed by doctors, often greedy for money accumulation and not knowledge, and by physiotherapy that is slow to catch on with correction techniques and equipped gyms. Remains in vogue private institutions, real cooperatives of physiatrists striving for innovation. All this forces families to become emigrants at home, making the journeys of hope in their own country in search of an updated region. The achievement of a broader visions caused an economic splurge for families already immersed in temporary work. It’s time to expand our field of action. Too long emeritus primary reached the summit of his career, placing the metaphorical ladder on weak and crooked backs. I’d like imagine the doctor as if he/she were Atlas, the Titan of Greek mythology that keeps the entire heavens on his shoulders, to lift/solace his neighbor from the pains that afflict him/her. Medicine isn’t it altruism? 

Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper, March 12, 2013, p. 24.

Sing me, o Goddess, a University without students

     Let’s try to imagine a university without students... Now read the letter and you will understand why the students were stricken by an acute form of demotivation.

     "Sing me, o Goddess, the wrath of Peleus Achilles...". This opens the Iliad, one of the greatest poems of humanity, written by Homer. This is the traditional invocation to the Muse Calliope, who presided over the heroic poetry and is considered a source of inspiration. I made a change, "Sing me, o Goddess, the wrath of inaupicious student", to tell you the story of a shipwreck that can’t happens. But if we transposed the whole story in an imaginary world, it could take the tone of a joke. Once upon a time there were three teaching islands at the University of Bari, probably the largest of the academic archipelago. With the multimedia stations, each equipped with PC, they represented a safe haven for the "wolves of the Web", aims to research, write term papers or theses, write the Almalaurea form or fill out the applications for registration and enrollment. Students felt calm, they observed the rules, and in case of problems were assisted by a coach or a mentor. Then something changed, possibly due to a telluric disruption (forgive the irony, my faithful companion) and the islands have disappeared, or rather, one has been terminated (plexus of Beata Elia Street), another has no Internet connection and has been even lacking the printer (plexus of Q. Sella Road), the last one appears and disappears, a bit like the volcanic origin islands that are submerged and then re-emerge from the waters (Ateneo Palace, third floor, side Crisanzio Street).

     I’ve always been of the opinion that the student body represents the bottom of the food chain, but the status quo isn’t the best. In the moment you could glimpse the silhouette of the last island, the last possible landing, there was found only at the mercy of the current, time dragged by it, now rejected by the undertow, but always surrounded by many acres of opened ocean.

     To make shipwreck would at least an island, even the most deserted or infested with giant lizards, for not being pretentious, just a rock in the middle of the sea.

     As you can see, we have the resources at homeland, but we leave them in a state of neglect, in fact now the didactic islands are very similar to the sequestration locals. And the thing has been running for already two years.

     The undersigned, in full possession of her mental faculties as well as sarcastic, has granted the desire of those who wanted that I extract the pen from its sheath to know the sad reality of the students. Appertain to me a desire too: I don’t want that this become a poem to be handed down through the centuries, I prefer solutions rather than a diachronic fame.

     It spent time, but today goes missing only the island of Beata Elia Street. 

     Source: "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", an italian newspaper, August 3, 2010, p. 20.

Painted Ladies embroidered cross-stitch

The charm of San Francisco

     If happens to you to catch the first flight to San Francisco, then it is the case to look at these lines written by me, a potential tourist guide of the Californian city. All my knowledge about the city, and on its famous bridge and about the enchanting bay is purely theoretical.

     Are generally included in the itinerary, otherwise, go to visit the famous Painted Ladies. Alamo Square offers a view of Victorian buildings in wood painted with pastel colors. Represent the pride of Victorian architecture. With their elaborate decoration, are the peculiar aspect of the city architecture. Many are the names with which we can refer to those buildings right in line on the east side of Alamo Square Park, for example, are known as the Six Sisters. Asserting that these are photogenic and telegenic structures is absolutely irrefutable and this assumption is substantiate by many film frames set in California.

     Obviously they aren’t the only ones. They are accompanied by many beautiful old Victorian houses in the nearby streets near Alamo Square, an area declared a historic district. However, the most picturesque row of Victorian houses in San Francisco is located on the sloping road called Steiner Street to house numbers from 710 to 720.

     The Six Sisters, built in 1895, are located in a strategic position, raised about 68 meters, allowing breathtaking views of the city.

     To be more precise about the architectural style should be added that the houses, a must on tourist postcards are examples of buildings in the Queen Anne style (1875-1905). The name Queen Anne Style was coined by its exponent and Scottish architect Richard Norman Shaw (Edinburgh, 1831 - London, 1912). The history of this style becomes twisted as it was born in England during the reign of Queen Anne Stuart of Great Britain (1702-1714 timeframe of the kingdom) and then be taken up and repeated in the forms can observe in America in the late Nineteenth century. Its primary characteristic is the combination of many traditions and/or stylistic infiltrations; the use of towers, turrets and decorative panels on the walls. 

     My great passion is shared by my mother, who took me to invest my money in a software not cheap, but worth the huge expense because it converts images and photos into cross-stitch patterns. At the end of conversion it comes into play my mother’s talent, as skilled with needle, Aida canvas and DMC floss. The result is the image that accompanies the article.

4th of July, Independence Day

     Is a federal holiday, marked by patriotism, celebrating the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 with which the thirteen american colonies were declared free from the motherland, The Great Britain. American people celebrate the fourth of July with fireworks, parades, barbecues, family reunions, concerts…

     The Declaration of Independence is a statement that explained the decision to be free from The United Kingdom. It was written by Thomas Jefferson.

In 1776 Congress voted in favour of the Declaration of Independence.

     That which follows is the complete text of the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies from the English Crown.

     In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

     WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

     We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the Present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

     He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

     He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

     He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People; unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

     He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

     He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

     He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

     He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

     He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

     He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

     He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

     He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislature.

     He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

     He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

     For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

     For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

     For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

     For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

     For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

     For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

     For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule in these Colonies:

     For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

     For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Powers to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

     He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

     He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

     He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

     He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

     He has excited domestic Insurrections among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

     Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

     We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of the divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress,

    John Hancock, President.