so Prodi's government just fell on the intention to prolong the mission to Afghanistan which the government defended. Incredible although was probable although possibly staged although will end in a mess anyway. One way or another, it's probably the end for Prodi. It's the second time in his political life that he fails this way, stabbed in the back by less than five votes of the same stock of communist and christian senators, and you can't survive that twice.
Anyway, it is so obvious that it's not fault of the mission to Afghanistan, nor of the small pack of lousy senators who betrayed: I happen to know in fact that the fault is all of the new logo that the government presented yesterday: the logo that was supposedly meant to relaunch the italian "system" of tourism, localisms, heritage and governance.
It is known how ugly design can be fatal for pretty much anything, but this particular logo is so ugly and meaningless (almost bad as the design of the mascot for the world championship 1990, "Italia '90", whoever remembers that) that it had to be bad luck: a old-fashioned "i" next to a green blob out of proportion? c'mon! They can say it's a "t" to make a "it", but it's either a smeared blot or as airos says a zucchini. I'd say it's an eggplant. But anyway: It's such a classic case of wrong design... only a stupid slogan could make it worse.
Well, of course there's also a stupid slogan. "L'Italia lascia il segno", "Italy leaves the mark", which seems more a mafia threat than a anything else (maybe marks left on faces cut with Sicilian knives?)
But it's true, it's true. Italy does leave the mark on you. When you fall it does.

Who said that Milano was a nice place? Once again, the middle class has won and we all got five more years with a new reactionary phony mayor, the slimy former Berlusconi's Minister of Education Letizia Moratti.
Another mayor who will have no problem in cutting down trees, I guess, or financing more ugly housing projects, encouraging the fashion & design mafia as long as it is not concerned with the ugly city itself, but just with the money, and so on. One mayor that will, for five more years, encourage her citizens to just keep on working hard, head down, be a little greedy, be a little racist, be a little acquiescent, and coward for the rest. Most important, another mayor that will encourage every social category, of every creed, color, political idea, to be even more sealed within its own borders and to look conspicuously to everyone else from there. Good.

Good ol' Milano. Sometimes I wonder why its citizens want it this way. I guess it is because of the extreme prgamatism of the milanese tradition, where money and houses and cars and the like are the only solid stuff we all can think of.
Well, amen. Not that I thought there were actual alternatives to this picture, I'd only love to see some new approach at it, just for the boredom it causes me.

-- In picture: the new mayor cheers us from her pit