Many have waken up in the last years to the real deal about globalization in politics, which in very short terms is that the left-right paradigm acted out by the leaders has no actual sense anymore, and that the real struggle is the one of the elite against the constitutions of the nations of the formerly called free world and against the people's rights (in favor of super-national authorities that are never questioned, even when they decide to bomb Belgrade or whatever.)
"Many" is not enough anyway, and in reality many is a very little figure. In Italy though it is even less, here everything is ruled by the false paradigm: every little local power, left or right, unionist or made-by-media is barricaded to defend its own role and its own little garden of historical battles, and a incredible load of energy is wasted everyday debating false issues and pretended oppositions. Example being that every italian blog who stands for the left or the right comes with a bunch of hired opinions and expected ideas (that its readership, faithful to the same ideas, will safeguard against the authors themselves), while those who blame corruption for everything (Beppe Grillo et al.) are in fact helping to trash the Constitution and the system of guarantees that seem to be the real enemy of the elite.
Thing is, comedians and politicians and media moguls and independent bloggers are hired in Italy by the "new world order" project or whatever you wanna call it without even knowing what they are fighting for. (I am sure our average politicians and rulers don't see more clearly than anyone else, their eyes and voices prove it.)
All they have to do is to sell ideas to the masses in order to go further with the project. Clear example being the recent statement by Vice Prime Minister Rutelli, someone who pretends to be on the left, when in reality he is nowhere, who said that it is now necessary to enforce a national DNA bank in order to fight crime.

Now, aside of the sheer stupidity of the idea (assuming that everyone is a criminal to help the police to investigate? thanks a lot) this statement is hypocritically (and hysterically) made possible by the numerous unsolved or hard to solve crimes that are everyday on the newspapers and that make people indignant and frustrated. So just like in central America, where the "war on drugs" is used as a pretext to implement the police state, and in north America, where the "war on terrorism" is used for the same purpose, elsewhere politicians use different pretexts: be it immigration, "global warming" or "rampant crime".

What remains is that the pace of this global change towards technologically-driven authoritarianism is faster then ever, and should be the first serious reason to worry in this strategic moment for everyone who pretends to be interested in politics.

Just a glimpse: US doles out millions for street cameras; cameras to scan emotional behavior are being designed; US presidency gets another surveillance “blank check” (and they want more); China gets from the US a massive human tracking system; and my city cries for its own too; while scientists seem to devote themselves to design new weapons against citizens and new weapons to terrify other citizens; while internet is being used to stop dissidence in a simulation of free speech (Mao Zedong style); soldiers tell about atrocities but nobody listen to them; and a new hoax to justify satellite weapons is being prepared. Etcetera.

Italian translations on the web suck big time. It is time someone does something about it. I am already having my occasional moments of disgust for the Italian dubbing of movies and for certain italian translations of books. But that's a hard job anyway, not a science or anything, and the evaluation of it is often subjective so I'll mercifully live it at that.
But when you browse the web and you have the disgrace of using a localized Italian Operating System, it's another story. The excerpts of Italian translation you bump into are revolting. Like certain ugly translations of software, particularly Linux software, but worse: The Internet examples are so disgraceful they cease to be laughable the second time you read them.

One good example is MySpace. Incidentally, I hate MySpace: it is ugly, morbid, exposing and hypocrite (all those phony "friends" that only want to be reciprocally "added" or whatever, ugh). Anyway.
You are driven to myspace occasionally when bloggers you are interested into drives you there for one reason or another-- and there you bump into the "italian version" of it.

To begin with, the word "visualizza" is all over the place. Congratulations, because it is the ugliest word on the planet. I don't know who invented it (probably some Microsoft or MacOS translator years ago) anyway there is no reason to use it, when the world "vedi" or "leggi" are perfectly good and meaningful. Aside of the fact that using the imperative form is disturbing and rude. And where are the articles anyway? Italian wants the articles, even if someone thinks it's a redundant habit. "Visualizza amici" is grammatically wrong, the equivalent of saying "usciamo a mangiare pizza?", but "visualizza tutti giovanni: amici" is just total nonsense. No moron could utter that in his real life.

On the web is OK, I guess.

..."Visualizza altro": I hate that thing. It is just not Italian. Ironically if it was, it would mean "view something else": certainly it can't mean "view more" as they suppose. Same happens on other translated interfaces where the horrible "leggi ancora" is used to translate "read more". Funny thing is, "leggi ancora" sounds very much like "still reading?" as in: "still reading? Go outside and get yourself a life!!"

And hybrids? Hybrids of English and Italian language can be nice when they are a product of a rich imagination (like writer Beppe Fenoglio did in his books), not when they are used because of a serious lack of imagination. Blogger:

"Iscriviti al Post (Atom)": what is that supposed to mean? What someone who is not aware of the moronic jargon of the web should make of that? I'm wondering, was it so hard to invent some other kind of expression? And, "Post più vecchi"? Please. Wasn't there in the fucking italian vocabulary any reasonable word to replace "post" with? brano, messaggio, considerazione, pensiero, pagina, foglio, scritto are all usable words as far as I know.

Then, onto the background of a blogger blog, settings page ("global impositions" part):

"Visualizzare i link Post per email?". What a lazy translator can come up with that? First of all, you can't use that disgusting verb "visualizzare" to translate both "show" and "view", that's just a perversion.
Also, even if the original is a ugly "Show Email Post links", there's always a way to better the world a little. It's a sin to fail the occasion.
And "modalità stesura"? That's just sad. Is that supposed to translate "Compose Mode"? Why? How? "Stesura" means "drawing up" or something and is usually referred to either the act of hanging outside the laundry or the act of flatting the pasta or the act of writing something. A page can be written or can be "drawn up". It has nothing to do with the fact that you have access to an advanced editor to edit the page.

Obviously there are dozens of other examples out there. Now, I know what you're thinking: it's the automatic translators, they're robots, what do you expect? But this is just not true.
They have teams of people, with degrees of experience and my nationality on their passports who are paid to translate those interfaces and throw them at my face when I browse.
I hate them.

Regardless, I guess they think it is better to make up some inexistent, mistaken, sluggish, insulting language instead that just giving the English language to everybody.
Well, guess what: they're wrong. It is better if they just throw the English language at everybody. At least one could imagine another world where his or her original language still lives, decaying but still a good tool --even if one is obviously into a sorry dream.

So TIME magazine came out with its moronic "you" cover. Everyone's running around saying how phenomenal and democratic it is. To me it's just incomprehensible. It's like a joke. Well, it's TIME magazine. The digest of all the propaganda, right? Ginsberg teaches.

First of all, what's with youTube? Because this cover is obviously an homage to youTube, right? The word "you" with that graphics, the player tool, even the font.
Are they taking youTube as a symbol of net democracy? A service already bought by CIA-Google and which is buried under an avalanche of lawsuits and which will probably soon die of natural death inside Google-Video's womb? And isn't it funny they decided to promote this brand as soon as Google bought it? I bet youTube could use some clamor before, when they were forced to sell because of all the lawsuits incoming.

The blurb says: "You control the information age".
"The age of information is the end of the age of knowledge." said someone else.
This supposedly free "information age" seems to me more like a playground where all the tools are bought and owned by the same two or three players, which are using them to control all the activity going on.

Meanwhile U.S. politicians such as McCain or Al Gore are actively working to dismantle Internet freedoms with the excuse of pedophiles and terrorists.
And TIME magazine, as usual, averting its eyes. Cooking propaganda.

I am a blogger and this cover is dedicated to me too, right? Well let me tell you, I'd rather have faced another pukesome Bono-Gates cover than having this chilling slap on the back.

"Information age", my ass.

"Only the paranoid survives"
-- some guy from Intel corp.

I'm unplugging myself from this blog. I wish I wasn't, but I just have to. The thing has been ruined, and I can't do anything to avoid this. I mean, I tried. I really did. I know that this is likely to be another thing I will regret tomorrow.

Yet, here we are. A new blog of mine is going to be opened somewhere else, with a new name & graphics. This one will be stripped of all the personal stuff, and I don't know what will be of it. It may produce new material, you know, like a boring column about the falling country, or it may sleep forever from now on. It won't be the same thing anyhow. Completely in the opposite direction, actually.

I'm not going to publish the address of the new blog, unfortunately. I just can't. I hope you will understand. First of all the new blog ain't ready yet, second of all I don't want to be traced, see. I want to dissolve and disappear against the background of blogland. I don't want to be followed because I can't afford it.
If you think that this is unfair, put yourself in my shoes. I am not getting any new readers. I am dropping them all.

Actually, this is not accurate, because I promised to some of you the new address, and I think I will keep my word. Also, if anyone else wants the address, you can just write me an email. To my discretion, I may pass you the address, or I may not. For all of you, anyway, there will be a transition period during which you will just have to wait.
Please do know that I am terribly sorry for all this. I am heartbroken, actually.

You know, this blog was going to be one year old in two weeks. It covered quite some road, gathered strength thanks to you all. This is the worst thing that could happen to it, the most wasteful, and it's happening.

Holy shit!

I am not going over the reasons once again. I made a mistake, and I can't write what I want anymore. Real life got mixed with its cyber dramatization, so to speak. On top of this, someone just made it all the more stupid and bitter by harassing my feelings about the whole thing, and my feelings are important to me.

Now it feels weird, like I don't know if I am sober or drunk. Oh, doesn't matter. It is all for the best. Just in case, I'll see you all privately. You have my email.

If it was closing time now I'd simply ask you to kindly step forward and please reach for the exit, that the cashier isn't working but the doors are closing already. Yet the truth is that it's me the one who's going away. So I'll just say, thank you, forever thank you guys. Much love to you all.

"There are persons who love life. I'm evading it.
I never understood why folks are thrilled by society events. As far as I'm concerned the restaurant is for eating. I suspect who thinks otherwise. Public relations make me sick.
If one wants to take drugs and listen to music he can do it at home, there's no need to go to the disco. You can hang out with a couple of friends, or even better, alone.
But discobar culture is blossoming in Milano. In spite of the blood-curdling quality of life people goes out to socialize, without even dropping by at home after work to cry, as they should. Moreover it seems that most of the people don't use tranquillizers. These are disturbing facts. One asks himself what their eyes are seeing, Laguna Beach? (...)"

The usual Beppe Grillo, very famous Italian comedian & blogger, in this quite O.K. although scary post wishes for the all the planet's fossil fuel reserves to finish, so that pollution, deforestation, desertification and all that crap may come to an end.
For as much frustrated as I can be with this crazy non-stop consumerism, and for as much I can loath cars as well 'cause in the long run they make everything miserable, I must say it'd be no use to favor such an outcome. We might as well wish the end of humanity and of any animal on the earth.
In fact, following what I just learned from this beautiful book, which I just finished to read (mind you, it is not a book about environmental issues, but about how life came to be on our planet: it's six-hundred pages long), if all the fossil fuel of the world was consumed it would be the end of any living species that needs oxygen.

Incidentally, having said that oxygen is produced by green plants and algae, it is an oversimplification to leave it at that. It is true that plants give off oxygen. But when a plant dies, its decay, in chemical reactions equivalent to burning all its carbonaceous materials, would use up an amount of oxygen equal to all the oxygen released by that plant during its lifetime. There would therefore be no net gain in atmospheric oxygen, but for one thing. Not all dead plants decay. Some of them are laid down as coal (or equivalents), where they are removed from circulation. If all the fossil fuels of the world were burned by humanity, much of the oxygen in the atmosphere would be replaced by carbon dioxide, restoring the ancient status quo. This is not likely to happen in the near future. But we should not forget that the only reason we have oxygen to breathe is that most of the carbon of the world is tied up underground.

(From Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale, p. 565)

So, waiting for our fossil reserves to finish it's like waiting the end of humanity to see what happens next. Only you can't breathe it to the next scene.

This is supposed to mean we should do something regardless how much fossil fuel reserves we have left, but personally I think there is more or less nothing we can do for the sake of humanity or the planet: I think that we will screw it all (for just a while of course, a glimpse of time before Life continues luxuriantly without us) no matter what we try to do to avoid it. Because O.K., species destroy their enviroments and then go extinct, that's what they do if they have no predators. Nature is that dumb. Those who just try to get richer and richer regarldess the sake of the environment are stupid and egoist, but they have a lot of arguments on their side: the most important of all being that God gave us this planet.
I often thought that the idea of creatures from Mars coming to destroy us came to people's minds when most of us realized we were going to be too many, and nothing was really going to change that. I think deep down we were craving for predators, and we still do because we know it would be right to have them, so we just tried to summon them from outer spaces, since on the earth they are nowhere to be found.

Anyway, just for the sake of Beppe Grillo's argument, on my side I'd favor forbidding cars: I'd make them taboo. Only kings cardinals politicians showbiz kids and mafia bosses could go around with cars. We all could kneel or laugh at their passage, depending on how we feel, and as they would rapidly disappear pushing the crowd aside, we could regard them for what they really are, those who are not unimportant enough to walk.

Since this new blog address is somehow like a fresh new start for the whole italy-is-falling thing, I'd like to make more changes with it if that's OK with you.
So, I am getting rid of the link list on the sidebar, that "collection of blowjobs" as someone would have called it.
Yes, goodbye to my blogroll.
Instead, I will pay my debts to the blogs I read and to the blogs that link to me by referring to them more often in the posts, what do you think. After all, those in-post links are much more important, if only because you have to give grounds for them.

Thus, today I am suggesting you all to pay a visit to the magic work, the evocative prose and the disturbing beautiful paintings of Birds will peck you (see picture above). I got caught into this great blog coming from Dennis Cooper's blog, where a lot of other outstanding artists and aspiring artists hang around.
I will link lots of them in the future because I'll need their attention here, or so I hope. And this will be real slutty blogging, I know.

-- picture thanks to Birds will peck you