"Let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that there is a party holding the power, a dominant party, which does formally want to respect the Constitution. It does not want to violate it, as a matter of fact. This party does not want to march over Rome and transform the parliament in dorms for the troops; what this party wants to do, is to create the seeds of a new dictatorship, without looking like it is doing so.
So, what could they possibly do to take possession of the schools and transform state schools into schools of the party? The party realises that state schools have the disadvantage of being impartial. There is some resistance; in such schools, there is always resistance, even during the fascism there was some.
Then, the dominant party decides to follow another way (it is a purely theoretical hypothesis, let us clarify this). It starts neglecting state schools, giving them a bad name, turning them poor. It leaves them anaemic, and starts giving favours to private schools. Not to all private schools. To the party's own schools, to that party's schools. Care starts drifting towards these schools. Care means money and privileges. They even start suggesting that students should go to these schools, because after all they are better than the state ones, they say.
And maybe there could be also prizes, as I shall explain, or it could be proposed to give prizes to those citizens who will agree to send their children to private schools, instead than to state schools. To "those" private schools. Exams are easier, you study less and you succeed more. So private school becomes a privileged school. The dominant party, not being able to publicly transform state schools into schools of the party, destroys state schools to make its own private school prevail. Watch out, my friends, this is the point we have to discuss in this convention. Watch out, this is the recipe. We ought to look after the cooks of this vile kitchen.
There are three methods to perform such an operation, as I told you:
1) destroy state schools, ruin them, make their finances poor, ignore their needs;
2) leave down the guard on private schools, avoid to control their seriousness, let teachers who do not have the minimum requirements to teach teach there, let exams become jokes;
3) give private schools public money.
This is the key point. Give private schools public money. This last method is the most dangerous one. It is the most dangerous phase in the whole operation.
The money, which belongs to all citizens, to all taxpayers, to all people who believe in different religions and are affiliated to different parties, goes to feed the schools belonging to one single religion, one single sect, one single party.
(...)
If ever allowed, this game of family prizes could be a rewarded incitement to desert state schools, therefore an indirect way to favour certain schools, an award for those who send their children to such private schools, which do not form citizens nor believers of a certain religion (it could still be worth respect) but build electors of a certain party."
from Pietro Calamandrei's speech
In defense of state schools
Rome, 1950
although it sounds like it could have well be written today.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
sign for Roberto Saviano
there is a collection of signatures that came out a few days ago to support Roberto Saviano, the writer of the book Gomorrah, the book about the criminal system in my region and its huge economic power, which appeared a couple of years ago and i really suggest to read to anybody who still hasn't.
not only he's been living under death threaten for the last 2 years, but also people back in campania despise him for having brought shame upon their country. right, like if it was his fault. so a collection of supporting signatures is the least one can do to show that this is not the only reaction people have had about that book.
please have a look - the english translation follows the italian text - and if you feel like, please sign:
I was born in the land of Camorra, in the spot of Europe with the highest number of murdered people, in the country where barbarity is tied to business, where nothing is worth anything if it does not produce power. Where everything tastes like a final battle. It seemed impossible to have a peaceful moment, not to live the whole time inside a war where every act can become a surrender, where every need becomes a weakness, where you have to conquer everything ripping the flash from the bone. In the land of Camorra, fighting the clans is not class struggle, it is not asserting the law, nor claiming back the right to be citizens. It is not becoming aware of one's own honour, nor defending one's own pride. It is something more fundamental, it is wildly carnal. In the land of Camorra, knowing the asserting mechanisms of the clans, their extraction kinetics and their investments means to understand how one's own time works in every respect, and not only within the geographic limits of one's own land.
I had my feet soaking in the swamp. I had water up to my thighs. I could feel my heels drown. In front of me, a huge fridge was floating. I threw myself onto it, I grabbed it strongly with my arms, letting it transport me. I remembered the last scene from "Papillon", the movie with Steve McQueen based on the novel by Henri Charriere. Like Papillon, I also looked like I was floating on a sack full of coconuts, trying to take advantage of the tide in order to escape from Cayenne. It was a ridiculous thought, but in some moments you cannot do anything but letting your own delirious feelings go along, as if they were not something you chose, but something you simply endure. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout out loud, I wanted to rip my lungs apart, like Papillon, with all the strength in my guts, bursting my trachea, with all the voice that my throat could still pump: "You damned bastards, I'm still alive!"
not only he's been living under death threaten for the last 2 years, but also people back in campania despise him for having brought shame upon their country. right, like if it was his fault. so a collection of supporting signatures is the least one can do to show that this is not the only reaction people have had about that book.
please have a look - the english translation follows the italian text - and if you feel like, please sign:
I was born in the land of Camorra, in the spot of Europe with the highest number of murdered people, in the country where barbarity is tied to business, where nothing is worth anything if it does not produce power. Where everything tastes like a final battle. It seemed impossible to have a peaceful moment, not to live the whole time inside a war where every act can become a surrender, where every need becomes a weakness, where you have to conquer everything ripping the flash from the bone. In the land of Camorra, fighting the clans is not class struggle, it is not asserting the law, nor claiming back the right to be citizens. It is not becoming aware of one's own honour, nor defending one's own pride. It is something more fundamental, it is wildly carnal. In the land of Camorra, knowing the asserting mechanisms of the clans, their extraction kinetics and their investments means to understand how one's own time works in every respect, and not only within the geographic limits of one's own land.
I had my feet soaking in the swamp. I had water up to my thighs. I could feel my heels drown. In front of me, a huge fridge was floating. I threw myself onto it, I grabbed it strongly with my arms, letting it transport me. I remembered the last scene from "Papillon", the movie with Steve McQueen based on the novel by Henri Charriere. Like Papillon, I also looked like I was floating on a sack full of coconuts, trying to take advantage of the tide in order to escape from Cayenne. It was a ridiculous thought, but in some moments you cannot do anything but letting your own delirious feelings go along, as if they were not something you chose, but something you simply endure. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout out loud, I wanted to rip my lungs apart, like Papillon, with all the strength in my guts, bursting my trachea, with all the voice that my throat could still pump: "You damned bastards, I'm still alive!"
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
never leave unsupervised
otherwise i'll end up doing some stupid thing like crashing my head or burning my hair - accidentally of course! - or end up sick in bed, trying to treat sore throat with thai food. to name a few. sometimes i have the feeling i should really hire a tutor. or simply grow up, maybe.
i look around and my room reminds me of how it looked one year ago, when i had just moved here - and incidentally also started this blog... but i'm too weak right now to start sorting things out. maybe it is because being surrounded by this huge mess it's easier to delay stuff. stuff i have to do, stuff i'd like to do, my ambitious plans of whatsoever... (that was actually my ambitious attempt to shrink myself. pitiful.)
if left unsupervised, i start feeling moody. start wishing i'd be somewhere else, doing something else, but then i keep on feeling cranky doing something that makes me feel cranky in a place that makes me cranky. don't try to come out of that, because i'm scared. scared of what, this i don't know. or maybe i am just not ready to admit it to myself, that's why it feels like i don't know the reason. (here's another terrible attempt. need a better shrink than myself.)
last week i discovered a place i had no clue about. karlstorbahnhof. it's a cultural centre here in heidelberg. well actually i had been several times there, in the cinema, in the club, even in the theatre. but i had never seen what's behind that. the gray matter. the offices. then i had to go there to meet a guy from the fair trade store. and i found out this brand new world, these offices where people seem they're having fun, planning events and believing in a better world...
and being there, i realised several things. that you will always think a place makes you cranky even if it's not the place, but it's just your fault and you haven't being searching enough. that when you realise something makes you cranky and you think you've searched enough, even if it's not true, then you should try and change, because persevering in the quest won't probably make things any better. at least a change could do it. well, it's not like an epiphany. it's actually pretty trivial stuff. that i know and knew all over. just materialised, all of a sudden, in a place i though i knew, but not enough. whatever.
it's delirious, i know. after all, i'm still sick. better get some sleep now.
i look around and my room reminds me of how it looked one year ago, when i had just moved here - and incidentally also started this blog... but i'm too weak right now to start sorting things out. maybe it is because being surrounded by this huge mess it's easier to delay stuff. stuff i have to do, stuff i'd like to do, my ambitious plans of whatsoever... (that was actually my ambitious attempt to shrink myself. pitiful.)
if left unsupervised, i start feeling moody. start wishing i'd be somewhere else, doing something else, but then i keep on feeling cranky doing something that makes me feel cranky in a place that makes me cranky. don't try to come out of that, because i'm scared. scared of what, this i don't know. or maybe i am just not ready to admit it to myself, that's why it feels like i don't know the reason. (here's another terrible attempt. need a better shrink than myself.)
last week i discovered a place i had no clue about. karlstorbahnhof. it's a cultural centre here in heidelberg. well actually i had been several times there, in the cinema, in the club, even in the theatre. but i had never seen what's behind that. the gray matter. the offices. then i had to go there to meet a guy from the fair trade store. and i found out this brand new world, these offices where people seem they're having fun, planning events and believing in a better world...
and being there, i realised several things. that you will always think a place makes you cranky even if it's not the place, but it's just your fault and you haven't being searching enough. that when you realise something makes you cranky and you think you've searched enough, even if it's not true, then you should try and change, because persevering in the quest won't probably make things any better. at least a change could do it. well, it's not like an epiphany. it's actually pretty trivial stuff. that i know and knew all over. just materialised, all of a sudden, in a place i though i knew, but not enough. whatever.
it's delirious, i know. after all, i'm still sick. better get some sleep now.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
chocolate emissions
went to see tricky's concert a few days ago. in mannheim, which is the city round the corner, where the streets have no name. the concert was ok, nothing spectacular. way too short, definitely. but that's not what i want to talk about. the surreal thing happened actually right after the concert. as we were looking for our cars there around, we smelled something like... chocolate... or cocoa. weird enough, so we all reluctantly told to each other, not being sure of the feeling. i even thought i had hallucinations, but it really felt as if a chocolate factory had just blown out.thanks to google, i found out that, actually, close to where we were, there is a chocolate factory, called Schokinag... probably it did not blow out, but was just releasing tons of its (maybe not so poisonous) gases in the atmosphere. funny to state it this way, in a moment like this, when european countries are trying to make plans on how to reduce CO2 emissions beyond the kyoto protocol, and italy is the only one saying no, that in times like these, with the finance crisis and everything, we should just screw the environment, basically. cool. great.
so i was thinking, it would be sweet if industries could just release cocoa instead than CO2. but i guess we're not leaving in the best world possible. not even close.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
my fair (?) day
spent almost my whole day in the weltladen today. the fair trade shop here in heidelberg. there were delicate things to take care of, which came out unexpected, and also found out stuff about people there i had no clue about. so the hot tea spill situation was just the lightest emergency. had to stay there way too long, we had to close for a while, a mess. me blaming german people for ordering cappuccino all day long (honestly, how can you at 6 pm??) and especially when the cappuccino machine is broken! and my room is as messy as could be, was supposed to tide it up today but no way... we had still customers long after feierabend (closing time) guess we're the only place all around germany where we don't respect it by the book - love the idea, but still... at least one of them was the most adorable boy in town, whose name i still don't manage to understand, but still he doesn't really look at me so no, not fair enough! guess i just need to crush on the couch for a little while...
Thursday, October 09, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
while writing the previous post, i had a feeling...
and i checked... yep, it's true:
my blog is 1 year old today!!
congratulations for having lasted so long!
(after all, self-doubt was not right this time!)
and i checked... yep, it's true:
my blog is 1 year old today!!
congratulations for having lasted so long!
(after all, self-doubt was not right this time!)
not that scary, after all
browsing in search of possible information about science writing (yes, it's one of the ideas that are crossing my mind these days) i bumped into a text that really scared me. at least, at first. i mean, i already ask myself enough, why on earth should anyone be interested in reading what i write?? - and yet i keep writing this blog! but that's mainly due to my bad habit of not listening to myself...
being already so encased in self-doubt, you might want to read something more reassuring than ...
"Things have gotten so bad that hordes of researchers are now thinking of pursuing writing as a viable “alternative” career. Let’s take a step back and think about how ridiculous this is."...
which it is written by a science writer, so it has to be kind of true - at least, a bit. ridicolous, isn't it?! feeling of doomsday again, all over my head. damn. and as i go on reading, it becomes even worse...
"Possession of a Ph.D. and a word processor does not make one a science journalist, any more than a fedora and a camera make one a photojournalist. This is why many would-be science writers enter the field only to find themselves playing a game they do not enjoy, whose rules they do not understand."
makes total sense to me. it's actually what i'm already scared of the most. to begin playing a game i have no clue about. just that until now i thought it was only one of my paranoiae, which are very many and, often, a teeny bit excessive (that's also why i don't usually trust or listen to myself). now, reading it written by somebody kind of in charge, seems more trustable, and boosts the self-doubt by a million or so. damn.
but then i go on...
"It is a world where progress is marked in word counts and column inches, days filled with telephone interviews, transcription, and note-taking. The sound bite is king, and the quotes must be accurate."
and i think, well, but it's not that bad.
"Deadlines are sacrosanct."
well, what's wrong with that??
"The essence of the job is the craft of turning words into sentences, building up paragraphs and stacking them into stories, then watching them appear in print for the world to see."
it actually sounds perfectly fine... but again, it's probably just my romantic view of this job, being naive and having absolutely no clue about it.
i'm totally disenchanted by now... i go on reading by inertia, just to check how else this guy is going to crash my soul...
"About ninety-nine percent of researchers will find that job description depressing, perhaps even terrifying."
seriously?! how is that possible? even compared to... research?? seriously?!
"If you are part of that ninety-nine percent, you are truly seeking an “alternative” career. For you, I have two words of advice: law school."
law school?? no thanks. i guess i'm not in that 99% anyway.
"Writing is not an alternative to anything. It is a compulsion, and if it is not your compulsion, you will fail at it."
fair enough. sounds familiar, too... mmm, after all i kinda like what he's saying. let's see where he's heading to...
"If you are part of the remaining one percent, I already know a few things about you. Hidden somewhere in your home is a journal, where you collect ideas for stories you plan to write. You probably worked on the school newspaper and took creative writing classes, and you have a great idea for a novel. You think best with a pen in your hand. As a researcher, you have a hard time concentrating on your sub-field, preferring to browse widely in the scientific journals. You often see poetry, humor, and irony lurking in research results. In your spare time, you read an eclectic assortment of fiction and nonfiction, and history fascinates you. Writing is not something you do - it is who you are."
crap, that' s me! they're watching me - even more than the phdcomics guys do! it's true, i have a journal with ideas for stories to write, and it's true, i do think best with a freaking pen in my hand! after all, if i'm awake now and what i'm doing is writing, i guess there is an answer...
"If that description hits close to home, you are either going to become a professional writer or spend the rest of your life wishing that you were."
and it's not that scary, after all... spending the rest of your life wishing that you were, this is way more scary.
being already so encased in self-doubt, you might want to read something more reassuring than ...
"Things have gotten so bad that hordes of researchers are now thinking of pursuing writing as a viable “alternative” career. Let’s take a step back and think about how ridiculous this is."...
which it is written by a science writer, so it has to be kind of true - at least, a bit. ridicolous, isn't it?! feeling of doomsday again, all over my head. damn. and as i go on reading, it becomes even worse...
"Possession of a Ph.D. and a word processor does not make one a science journalist, any more than a fedora and a camera make one a photojournalist. This is why many would-be science writers enter the field only to find themselves playing a game they do not enjoy, whose rules they do not understand."
makes total sense to me. it's actually what i'm already scared of the most. to begin playing a game i have no clue about. just that until now i thought it was only one of my paranoiae, which are very many and, often, a teeny bit excessive (that's also why i don't usually trust or listen to myself). now, reading it written by somebody kind of in charge, seems more trustable, and boosts the self-doubt by a million or so. damn.
but then i go on...
"It is a world where progress is marked in word counts and column inches, days filled with telephone interviews, transcription, and note-taking. The sound bite is king, and the quotes must be accurate."
and i think, well, but it's not that bad.
"Deadlines are sacrosanct."
well, what's wrong with that??
"The essence of the job is the craft of turning words into sentences, building up paragraphs and stacking them into stories, then watching them appear in print for the world to see."
it actually sounds perfectly fine... but again, it's probably just my romantic view of this job, being naive and having absolutely no clue about it.
i'm totally disenchanted by now... i go on reading by inertia, just to check how else this guy is going to crash my soul...
"About ninety-nine percent of researchers will find that job description depressing, perhaps even terrifying."
seriously?! how is that possible? even compared to... research?? seriously?!
"If you are part of that ninety-nine percent, you are truly seeking an “alternative” career. For you, I have two words of advice: law school."
law school?? no thanks. i guess i'm not in that 99% anyway.
"Writing is not an alternative to anything. It is a compulsion, and if it is not your compulsion, you will fail at it."
fair enough. sounds familiar, too... mmm, after all i kinda like what he's saying. let's see where he's heading to...
"If you are part of the remaining one percent, I already know a few things about you. Hidden somewhere in your home is a journal, where you collect ideas for stories you plan to write. You probably worked on the school newspaper and took creative writing classes, and you have a great idea for a novel. You think best with a pen in your hand. As a researcher, you have a hard time concentrating on your sub-field, preferring to browse widely in the scientific journals. You often see poetry, humor, and irony lurking in research results. In your spare time, you read an eclectic assortment of fiction and nonfiction, and history fascinates you. Writing is not something you do - it is who you are."
crap, that' s me! they're watching me - even more than the phdcomics guys do! it's true, i have a journal with ideas for stories to write, and it's true, i do think best with a freaking pen in my hand! after all, if i'm awake now and what i'm doing is writing, i guess there is an answer...
"If that description hits close to home, you are either going to become a professional writer or spend the rest of your life wishing that you were."
and it's not that scary, after all... spending the rest of your life wishing that you were, this is way more scary.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
set this house in order
and this time it's nothing but a metaphor. the mess is in my head. in my life. in what i do and create around me. i'm sick of being grumpy old claudia, whining about not being able to make plans and yet making none. guess i don't really want a plan, right now, even though i feel lost without one: the one thing i'd like is to feel fine without a plan. and i can't.
i make lists. to do lists, reminders, whatever. i recently learned that multiple personalities do that, to keep track of stuff among different selfs. that's not my point. i'm not multiple, at least i hope i'm not. it's just a tool i use to try and overcome my laziness, which propagates to everything i set hands on. can't stand it. can't go on like that. but still, the lists don't work.
and i know it's stupid making resolutions (fitter, happier... whatever...) because even if i'm convinced about something, when i tell myself to do it, it always feels like fake. like i'm playing a character. i look at myself from outside (yeah, i'm a bit nuts) and the only thing i want to do is laugh. unless i believe it in my guts, i cannot convince myself of a single thing.
so, no new month resolutions, nor end of the year resolutions. no resolutions at all. except, to set this house in order. whatever it takes. even at the expense of having to multiply myself, and become less and less together myself...
i make lists. to do lists, reminders, whatever. i recently learned that multiple personalities do that, to keep track of stuff among different selfs. that's not my point. i'm not multiple, at least i hope i'm not. it's just a tool i use to try and overcome my laziness, which propagates to everything i set hands on. can't stand it. can't go on like that. but still, the lists don't work.
and i know it's stupid making resolutions (fitter, happier... whatever...) because even if i'm convinced about something, when i tell myself to do it, it always feels like fake. like i'm playing a character. i look at myself from outside (yeah, i'm a bit nuts) and the only thing i want to do is laugh. unless i believe it in my guts, i cannot convince myself of a single thing.
so, no new month resolutions, nor end of the year resolutions. no resolutions at all. except, to set this house in order. whatever it takes. even at the expense of having to multiply myself, and become less and less together myself...
Friday, October 03, 2008
spectralight
amazing sunset, today. again. felt the urge to go and bike through that light. to leave for a minute all the nonsense i was attempting to solve (without success, obviously). suddenly things make much more sense when they're embedded in so much light. it's a pretty cold palette, this sunset-after-the-rain lovely light we are often blessed with here in heidelberg, but still, makes things feel a little warmer. not that lately things make any less sense than they usually do, but guess i kind of feel more that time is passing by and i can't be an ostrich with the head in the sand forever. i need to make some plan. i usually hate plans, especially when they're tight and you don't feel comfy in them. but having no plan is unbearable - i found out. guess i'd like to love the idea, no plan, free, whatever... but i just can't stand it. unless, maybe, in the spectral light of heidelberg rainy sunsets. i might be even going to miss them. these short lapses of awareness. after all, life is not a continuous series of anything, just a collection of such momentary lapses. i might even admit that. one day. not now though. too early.
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