Africa has the stereotype of being the most superstitious continent, since the colonizers defined “juju” the sum of beliefs, traditions and rituals. Actually they are banned, to give a more secular image, but somehow they still can have their powerful effects…
Joan Mulholland, the Southern white woman who challenged KKK
Usually only leaders of revolutions are those who “make History”, for better or worse. So, a Joan Mulholland is less famous for the majority than a Martin Luther King or a Malcolm X, but is also and especially for people like her that those fights succeeded. Because she was white and from the South, an area which was generally more conservative than the average…
Is the American dream dead?
According to what you can hear about, to leave for America (from Italy) was becoming quite scary. “They all have guns”, “there are a lot of serial killers”, “as soon as you say – I would like to visit the country – they begin to control you at every step”, then “there’s Trump that’s worse […]
Satire, a sword, a medicine and a shield
Satire is probably the most controversial form of expression. We tried to describe it, to define it, even to regulate it, but in vain. It will always escape from the limits we try to drawn…
The internet is not Che Guevara nor Charles Manson
Technology progresses, but human mentality is basically the same since millenniums. Without understanding this we can’t argue on the internet with objectivity, without demonizing it or worshipping it and dropping our personal responsibilities that we all have to our actions…
Hate crime, society’s failure (Hobbes was right)
We call for hate crime as an antidote to gender, orientation, ethnic, religious discriminations. And when the legislation of a Country includes those aggravating factors to already considered felonies we think is a step towards a more civilised society, finally equal. But if we change perspective we could think that those laws are contradictory, and the only reason to be happy is the awareness of the institutions that something isn’t going on right (euphemism)…
Maracanaço, the birth of legendary Brazil
In Brazil soccer is way more than just a sport. It’s unconditional partecipation, faith and sometimes a reason for living. And, as sometimes happens all around the world, a reason for dying. What happened in the World Cup played in their homeland in 1950, luckily, is unparalleled in the history of this competition. 90 certified deaths between suicides and heart attacks, due to the emotional charge of the final against Uruguay…
New scapegoats
Not only people, or direct productions of humanity such as machines, have the privilege of being labeled as scapegoat. It happens to plants, substances, animals (this time as food, not as living beings). Gluten, palm oil, red meat are no worse than many other products, but somehow have an indelible mark…
The fried beetle (or methods for combating “alien species”)
Along the railways, from bananas and vegetables boxes, exotic insects like various kind of beetle, seedlings or tropical seeds, more rarely spiders, reptiles and other subjects… continually fall down. They are the so-called “invasive alien species” that would have contributed almost 40% of all extinctions in the world. In Roma we’re having for years “alien” parrots, squirrels, snakes, mosquitoes and the terrible red palm weevil…
Rise of the machines
The rise of the machines is a fear with ancestral roots, if we mean, by extension, the rebellion against your own creator. Ancient Greeks developed this topic with the myth of Prometheus and Zeus’ mistrust towards humans, dangerous because in constant evolution. With the a.i. the relationship humans-gods shifts into machines-humans The creator starts the sparkle and civilization goes on by itself, until there is no more need of deity…