“Volevo uccidere, ho scelto Leo perché era felice”: la confessione dell’omicida dei Murazzi 

E siamo arrivati all’omicidio “per il delitto di felicità”.
Una persona in difficoltà, probabilmente anche per colpa propria, ne sceglie un’altra a caso che gli sta sulle scatole in quello specifico momento, e lo accoltella a morte.
Psicopatologia. Sociopatia… si scelga.
Di certo però non è plaudendo alla cattiveria in ogni sua forma che si possono prevenire situazioni del genere. Al contrario, è facendo scendere la temperatura di ebollizione della società.

Perché la cattiveria, e ancora di più la rabbia che si fa cattiveria, ha sempre avuto la serenità come bersaglio. Solo che la serenità di tutti dovrebbe essere l’obiettivo di chi è chiamato a gestire la società.
Questo non è “buonismo”: è solo spirito di conservazione. Non è bontà evangelica, ma semplice buon senso.

Il presente messaggio valga come risposta preventiva a tutti quanti scaricheranno tutto il proprio odio sull’assassino, dimenticandosi che l’assassino ha scaricato tutto il proprio su di un ragazzo che andava al lavoro “perché sembrava felice”. E magari non lo era neppure.

The Ozone hole is really shrinking!  In times of daily bad news on almost everything it is definitely a piece of real GOOD NEWS!

Some history: in february 2013 the European Space Agency released a report that was commented positively by scientific blogs as –>Livescience.com: observations from late 2012 were showing a progressive shrinking of the ozone hole, as a result of the chlorine gas restrictions established by the Montreal protocol in 1987. However, later that year, some NASA experts seemed to hold differently. They argued that, though the “hole” was in fact shrinking, there was no real evidence that (1) this was due ti the CFC reduction and (2) the ozone layer was not simply “redistributing itself” this partially covering the hole (–> here). It is not easy to quickly grasp the reason of such opinion from the official NASA ozone watch website (–>here), and I leave to better meteorologists than me to explain it. In any case, the rejoice was postponed…

Now, on July 1st the United Nation Environment Programme released a report that clearly and most officially states that the depletion of the Ozone layer has stopped, and full recovery will occur by 2050 or so (official doc. –>here, and UNEP website –> here)! As I’m not a fan of the conspiracy theory, “I want to believe” that finally some good news has come out and, you know, I’m so glad it has nothing to do with religious beliefs, conflicting food-related taboos or exoteric stuff. Just plain, good, old-fashioned, galilean SCIENCE!.

The piece of news was re-bounced today by Italian newspapers (see –> here). I truly hope it will spread at least as quickly as the news about financial disasters. (you may say/ I’m a dreamer…)

This book is a good reading. Maybe not “fundamentally optimistic”, as the commentator says.

I propose you this reflection, published in November 2012 -an Eon ago, if you want- on the “Indice dei Libri del mese” (an important literary review published in Italy) by Edoardo Villata -“La guerra di Star Trek“.

It draws an (easy?) parallel between a Star Trek Episode (the author does not quote but it refers to “A Taste of Armageddon” by Robert Hamner e Gene L. Coon, 1967) and the casualties produced by the economic crisis we’re still crawling in.

And, among the casualties, the works of art and the elements of culture that disappear because of the budget cuts. Or by the choices of budget cuts done with a warfare mindset.

Now, 1967 Star Trek was good Science Fiction, of course was no economic science. However, it included a quality that lacks to so many future-tellers of today: common sense, memory, in a word, humanity.

That’s why Science Fiction told about “future”, while Standard & Poors publications talk about “outlook”. Imagining might be very scary, if you take imagination seriously.

Alan Turing, convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death.

The famous mathematician was the person who had broken the Enigma Code (giving a fundamental advantage to the Allies over the Axis Powers during World War II) and had set the basis for modern computers by imagining a machine (–> the Turing Machine) that could verify -on a case by case basis- if a mathematical relation (i.e. 1+1=3) is true or false. He had achieved such results also in H.M.’s service, while directing the Bletchley Park research group during the war.

Despite these achievements, and their importance, a court established under law could not but convict him for his homosexuality, that was a crime in UK until 1967. (read the article from The Guardian –> here)

I still find amazing (and shocking) how absurd can be the result of applying legal categories to strictly personal behaviors. In this case, we have a world class hero induced to suicide by the very legal system that he contributed to defend. Luckily for the whole Western world, Mr Turing was tried after the war and not before: otherwise, the war could have had a different end, computers could have been invented somewhere else and, maybe, the Nazi Weltanschauung could have prevailed.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. Can we counter-argument to the Swan of the Avon? definitely not. Therefore, let’s learn from the good players how to make our hour upon the stage.
Have a look at the theatrical gestures of most-lamented Italian actor Vittorio Gassman (photos recently found, and published by “La Repubblica). How many marketeers could claim to be more expressive and effective, without saying a word? How many lawyers would give five years of life to become capable of convincing, influencing, communicating their cases without depending on their speech only?