Sicilian wonders

Amazing goal scored by Sicilian striker Giuseppe Mascara in the Sicilian derby (Palermo vs Catania) of 1/03/2009. Watch it, it'll leave you speechless ;)

D.

Diamonds, Lamborghini and sparring partners

Normally I never pay attention to gossip. Nevertheless, today a news left me quite appalled.

It's about the U.S. singer Rihanna, who's decided to come back to his boyfriend, after he had beated the shit out of her a while ago, lefting here like this.
Subsequently, after being arrested (and getting massive waves of bad press), he apologized. With the help of a diamond bracelet, Rihanna bought it and decided to come back to him.

Now, my first thought was that idiots are definied as such by virtue of how they act, thus...let her get what she deserves.
But that would be wrong, I think. Maybe there is more about it than being idiot. It seems that this kind of behavior is very common among women, and transversal in relation to ethnicity, age, power, wealth and...IQ.

Just think about it: a woman in the position of Rihanna could in principle do whatever she wants...yet, she has rather chosen to forgive a dickhead that's beaten the shit out of her (also with negative influences on her career, I assume). Despite all her power, she's behaving like a slave. Maybe she feels that this kind of behavior is acceptable as a sort of "male prerogatives" and can thus be tolerated, who knows...but this all story is really nasty because she is a very famous person, and I this behavior certainly does not help decades of fight for women emancipation and againts domestic violence.

Low self-esteem, fragile personality, a morbid tormentor-victim relation, I don't know what else...they could have all played a role. I don't wanna be harsch about this girl, but she's really given a terrible example in here.

And the diamond-bracelet-detail somehow adds a queasy taste to it.

D.

One family, one people, one country

(Picture from politiken.dk)

Today the Danish Parliament turned down a proposal to allow dual citizenship. Altough the majority of EU countries allow their citizens to have two nationality (i.e. to acquire another nationality while retaining the original one), Danish MPs turned down the request, which followed a petition signed by over 10,000 people. I was one of them.
I understand the worries of the MPs, a general fear that people might take advantage of the Danish welfare could be justified, given the extensive support DK gives its citizens. Yet I think such an answer anacronistic and, ultimately, short-sighted.

First of all, most of the petition's subscribers are Danish citizens living abroad, who can't fully enjoy the membership of their newfound comunity because they'd have to give up their Danish passport, plain and simple. Second, revising the procedures for getting social benefits, linking them to one's residence shouldn't be a mission impossible. Third, because limiting the right of citizenship seems totally at odds with the trends and needs of a global world and, of course, of internal dynamics of the EU.

Nevertheless, there seem to be also reasons to be optimistic. Most of the parties who voted against basically stated the rejection was not due to a matter of principle, but to a lack of clear understanding of the short-term consequences, thus hinting that in the future their mind on the issue could change - a position held, with different shades, by the two parties sitting in the government (Venstre and De Konservative), and by the biggest opposition party (Socialdemokraterne).

Only one party said they would never even consider this possibility whatsoever, because, according to them "Ligesom man kun har én familie, har man også kun ét folk eller ét land" (=just as people can have only one family, they can have one people and one country). A moderate, toned-down opinion...how lovely! Well, amen to that.

D.

Who's afraid of the Polish plumber?

Not the Danes, apparently. As a result of the current crisis, thosands of eastern European workers have been laid off in Denmark in the last months, according to leading newspaper Politiken. Despite they are reported to earn, in average, less than their Danish collegues, they also seem to be more likely to be fired in times of difficulties, such as now. Economically it does not make much sense. Yet, a number of non-economic factors can explain the trend (industry-specific trends, possible perifericity of the E.E. workers in the organization, lower unionized labour, veiled parochialism). But this doesn't go without consequences, and it could be harmful in future. In fact, what seems good and rational at the micro-level, often produces unwanted results at the marco-level.
During a reserch project on political journalism, I remember stumbling upon an article on The Daily Telegraph, about a sort of Polish "esodus" that has been going on in England over the past months. The trend in UK is very much alike the one in DK, with masses e. europeans workers being laid off. As a consequence, many of them chose to come back to Poland, where the economy keeps growing (crisis has not hit significantly Eastern Europe) and, considering the current low value of the British pound, the salary level is now comparable to the West.
Where is the problem then? Well, it lies in the fact that eastern Europeans workers are in average better trained and skilled, and willing to work for lower wages than the locals. In time of economic growth, they made the fortunes of their employers in many key sectors (constructions for example), and they'll keep doing it when the crisis will be over and the economy will start to grow again. If too many of them leave England (or Denmark, or any other western European country, for that matter), then there will likely be a critical shortage of skilled labour in the next quarters.
The economical impact of this will be severe and twofold: revenue loss from the one hand, and constraints to future growth on the other. In other words, nothing to rejoice about.

Berlin nostalgia

Yesterday I rewatched Goodbye Lenin, I found it still fascinating, though it is already the second or third time I see it. But watching it after having been in Berlin added so much to it!

Moreover, browsing youtube in search of some clip to embed to this post, I stumbled upon a user's comment that gave me a twist in my understanding of the movie: Alex efforts to recreate the lost DDR for his mother is driven at first to preserve his mum's wellness, but soon afterwards he finds himself involved in his own game, maybe trying to create - by his own words - the DDR he would liked to have lived in. The same path was followed by the communist parties in Soviet Union and the other socialist states, at first their lies served the purpose of people's good, thereby getting out of hand and engendering the orwellian state that most socialist countries were ultimately turned to. I don't know if the scriptwriters saw it that way too, but for sure it would fit the powerful symbolism that charachterizes the movie...not to mention it changed my way to look at it.

Tschüss!

D.

A good news

The Obama administration, and the year 2009, start with a good omen. The president-elect has declared that under his mandate the U.S. will no longer practise torture, and will adhere to the principles of the Geneva Conventions on war prisoners.

Besides the not-so-insignificant detail that he (Obama), in practise, openly confirmed that torture was used during the Bush era (when it was euphemistically called "enhanced interrogations"), I think Obama chose a good starting point from where to deliver the change his admirers have so much longed for.
Now the hope is that concrete actions will follow (for example, the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, as the President elect often promised during the electoral campaing), and that bloggers and human rights activists may hopefully have less to do in the next 4 years.

D.