About Abu Omar again. His story I already covered in this post, but there's another sickening part of it I wanted to go over.
It's the one told in this old article from corriere.it, and it is so incredibly insulting I don't know what to make of it.
Well, the article is one and a half years old, and the story is almost four years old already. So maybe it is just the stench all around it.
What you gonna do. I was busy with other shit back then so it's now or never.

The article considers the point of view of one of the CIA agents who directed and organized the unlawful kidnapping of Abu Omar on Italian soil and who is now investigated by the Italian justice.
What is more disturbing is the tone of this article. It is difficult to describe, but very common in the Italian media. It is a bit of childish, a bit of intimidating, and all superficial. A typical deceiving propaganda piece even unaware of being propaganda.

"Bob" is the CIA agent in question. He is described as "never arrogant, sincere, practical", he "comes from the streets, loves action". Guido Olimpio, the journalist writing this piece while standing on his knees, draws Bob's bio as he was the character in foreground of a novel. And not the criminal that he certainly is (keep reading).

...and what he learned on the streets he took with him inside the "Company", the CIA. Since he was born in Honduras... he speaks perfect Spanish, one more reason to send him over in Central America on a mission. A special theater of operations. He... moves among despotic regimes, corruption, guerrilla groups. He loves action... He infiltrates an opposition group managing to gain control of it: they yell 'death to gringos', but they don't know it is a real gringo who is assisting them.

And so the brown-nosing vomiting goes on. Then Mr. Olimpio comes to the actual Abu Omar case and Bob's role in it.

Many of the inquiries about radical terrorism succeed thanks to his technical help. Spying devices so small they can be hidden in a copy of the Koran... pictures, names, electronic traces left by satellites in Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Iran.
For the U.S. intelligence Milan is an outpost of Al-qaeda and Abu Omar is the emir. They follow him since his days in Albania, when he was involved in a plot to destroy the U.S. embassy in Tyrana [note: As a matter of fact, Abu Omar used to work for the CIA back then, as we explained, a detail Mr. Olimpio seems to ignore].
The CIA decided to get rid of Abu Omar on the eve of the Iraq war, worried he could organize a retaliation against U.S. targets [note: Abu Omar was under surveillance 24/7 from the Italian justice and the CIA. I firmly doubt he could organize an actual attack against sensitive targets without having himself and all the other supposed terrorists easily caught, with a lot more evidence of him being a terrorist than any form of torture could ever provide]. It is Bob who sets the trap up, with the help of the "cavemen", the removal-team sent by Langley...

Abu Omar ends up in an Egyptian prison and Bob goes with him because he has to take part to the first terrible interrogations, accompanied by torments and tortures [the italic is mine].

So, this adventurous agent, this noble figure is actually one who not only helped to kidnap but also to torture Abu Omar.
It is all admitted, all natural. Everything is fine under the sky. "Bob" and the other thugs. Funny how all the evil is admitted but they won't give you the names.

What those tortures are about you can read it in the other article I already linked twice. It's all material for one of the many hypocritical tribunals, if they weren't just the lousy show-tribunals they are. I don't feel like commenting with anything else.

"There is an indifference that is more helpful than your blabbering about being humane, as the right hand pets some of us like Mother Teresa, and the left hand swings the sword of the tribunal against others. Little devils of goodness. Humanity hyenas. There is no one less open to suffering than you official humanitarians. Marsbodies that appear as the protectors of human rights... The people here have become as evil as they are not. And the war has made you tourists as evil as you are."

-- Peter Handke, Dugout Canoe, The Play About The Film About The War

You may be taught to believe that it is great how wealthy people donate amounts of their money and time to some "humanitarian" cause. But it's not. It's disgusting, instead. First of all, it is useless: the world is more and more divided among the lucky ones and the unlucky ones, so the system obviously doesn't work. But also, it is a race for hypocrisy so disgusting and shameful it can't even be called evil: it must be called shameful, so that we don't waste time with exceptions, like those who do it not because they're "evil" but because they're "good", those who didn't mean it that way, those who went there in person, those who just wanted to do good, those who "wanted to see", those who couldn't find a place for them at home, those who made so much money they "felt it was right to...", etc.
For example, on the past week's issue of TIME.

( Parenthesis: I made the mistake months ago to subscribe for $5 to TIME magazine in order to access their archive on line. I wanted to read some stuff happened on the year I was born. The stuff wasn't interesting at all, but I have been receiving their crappy magazine every week since then, although I have canceled my subscription as soon as the trial period expired. And every time I read it, I know there is something in it that gives me the creeps. )

So, on the past week's issue of TIME there was a list of the supposed 100 "most influential" people of the world. Well, typical TIME's crap, I guess. "Influential" according to their lousy point of view of course.
I browsed the article terrorized to find Berlusconi's face in it. Luckily there wasn't.
Among them though, looking upward so that his double chin doesn't show, with his "I'm so committed" smile, was obviously Bill Gates (and wife). They were on the cover of another disgusting issue of TIME with Bono few weeks ago already, and it was all about how much good they were all making to Africa. The caption about Bill Gates went: "Giving money and Hope to the world". See, he "gives money to the world". He's not part of the band of brothers who drain money from everywhere wishing for a crowded unhappy world where everybody uses his cheap products. He actually gives hope.

Not surprisingly, more than a half of the names in the TIME's list are of American fellows whose supposed merit is to give away part of their money to some "association". The fact is always citied among the great things they did in life for which they turned out to be influential.

It's interesting to learn why affluent men of rich societies tip around more than women. Even if they do it with all the discretion in the world, the reason is always public. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller explained why in his impressive and fascinating book "The Mating Mind" (a must read, first book I ever read to give a reasonable explanation to why creativity exists): tips and donations are part of a sort of "peacock tale" extended behavior. It is all about the show of fitness we use to extend our right of choice in our circles under many forms. Everybody does it, in a way or another, you know, just to be "influential" in his own way, just as we all do creative things or test jokes around to allure the other sex, or friends.
The way I see it, though, to donate to Humanitarian Associations is particularly hateful in the picture, even though is almost a must now, especially in the US. Because the unhappiness of the world is transformed into your personal triumph, and everybody would be disgusted and ashamed by the deal if it wasn't for the physical distance between the tragedies you throw money at, and the living rooms where you can announce how you threw the money.
After all, all you gave is just your money, but nothing permanently good can come from the money itself.

I always thought that most of humanitarian associations devoted to the developing of "peacock tales" of affluent or middle-class men around the world should be banished and neglected, so that the evidence of the problems our richness create around wouldn't have any excuse.

Now, when I read that this is a world where in survivors camps peacekeepers in Liberia exchange beer food and cigarettes -- and trips to town on large SUVs -- with sex with boys and girls and kids recluse into the camps, I am not really surprised. I can perfectly imagine how and why this happens. What strikes me though, is that nobody seem to notice how this is obviously in the nature of "Humanitarian" help. It is bound to happen in this context.

In the "Humanitarian" world, in fact, everything is supposed to relay on the "Humanity" of the people involved, because nothing else in the order of things is ever discussed: not the unjust world, not the wars, not the price some pays for our Oil or Gas or goods and all that sort of stuff. It all relays on the fact that someone is "Human" enough to go there and do something without changing anything in the long term. "Human" enough to go there and face all the problems knowing there's nothing effective to do about them, grinding his teeth for the moment he will be cheered getting back home -- that "human".
But "Human" is also sex desires, greed, perversions, deceit, the fascination of one self's power, the unbearable sight of others' pain, the long hot days idling far from everything you know, the routine of misery, the temptations of corruption etc. It's all so human, just like craving to be influential is. Because being human never meant being good, how come we always forget it.

-- in picture above: another engraving by Bruegel

I wish my typical paranoia was working in this situation, but it doesn't. She just goes and comes whenever she wants.

Yesterday, April 25th, was the anniversary of an important day for Italy, the liberation of Milan from the Nazi occupation (y. 1945), which is virtually considered the liberation of Italy from fascism. Every year in Milan there's a march in memory of that important day, and very often the march is an occasion of sparkles among factions.

Usually, since the end of April is a period of elections for Italy (soon we'll vote for the new Mayor here in Milan), a special act takes place on the scene of the march: some eminent member of the right-center coalition walks for a little while in the middle of the left-wing crowd, until people start insulting him, pushing him away, calling him fascist, sometimes coming to blows.
I have recorded episodes like these since when I remember. Since 1994 (the advent of mr. B.): members of Berlusconi's party, members of the Northern League, members of former-fascists parties, conservative journalists, Berlusconi's TVs' reporters... etc.

This happens every time, clockwork, at least when a right-wing representative shows up, if it is useful enough for him or her to run a little risk to gain a lot of respect.
This happens, because the left-wing marches are plagued by handfuls of imbeciles who feel very safe and strong in the crowd, and the examples are countless.

This time the right-wing candidate, the former Minister for Education who is running for Mayor, had to walk only few meters in the crowd before the insults started pouring down. She felt intimidated and left. From what I read, and pretty obviously, news headlines are making a party with it all over the place.
It obviously all turned out to be this huge, gigantic present of the mentioned imbeciles to the right-wing candidate, soon to be new mayor hands down. To humble her opponents even more, in fact, when she received the insults she was actually pushing in the crowd her father on a wheelchair, who is a survivor from a nazist concentration camp.

O-K.

Alas, this is not all. Later during the demonstration, some other imbecile decided to burn an Israeli flag in the middle of the march. Not very wisely, since the two imbecile acts got immediately linked in the news and in public imagination, and will forever be, whether they actually were linked or not. How burning an Israeli flag had anything to do with a march in memory of the liberation against the Nazism, anyway, it's everybody's guess. I think the only reason is what I said before, namely the perverse way by which one can feel safe and strong and cowardly protected in the crowd (reason why I avoid marches whenever I can).

(Mind you, I have many reserves against the Israeli government. I think they committed and are committing many crimes. And on the other hand I wouldn't find that insulting if someone, for example in Lybia, would burn an Italian flag during a march because of what we did there during Fascism. But, when the country you are protesting against is no larger than Tuscany and has thousands of enemies around the world already, and finds itself at the end point of a long line of persecution along the entire history of civilization already, it doesn't take a lot of courage or pride to add your own burned flag to the pire. It is almost convenient, in certain circles, more than it is political meaningful, which obviously isn't).

Anyway, the neat result of the whole thing is that, now, it is out of the question for the left-wing coalition to possibly ever take back Milan from the hands of the dull, greedy, insensitive, tree-cutting and shit-eating Berlusconian coalition. The easiest trick with milanese voters has always been to make one part look not 100% regular and reliable and middle-class. And the trick succeeded.

Not surprisingly, the most known and used tricks are the ones that work better.

Now, as I was saying, I wish my typical paranoia was working in this situation: I wish it was true that somehow these imbeciles were actually placed there in the march by some infiltrated group secretly working for the right-wing coalition. But it is not so. These imbeciles are a genuine product of the communist anti-fascist left-wing Italian galaxy.

Sure, all the left-wing leaders are censuring what happened after it happened: but with this, they just make everyone touch how much they are detached from the crowds.
Sad or not, it is a fact.

What I make of it? Well, I don't like what the left is in Italy right now: but probably I won't like what it will be tomorrow, reduced from the rule of the oligarchs, to the rule of the imbeciles. As Flaubert said talking about the radical left of his times, it's probably for the best, because the kingdom of idiots is always shorter.

-- in picture, above: detail from an engraving by Bruegel

I remember the old days when flash headlines all in red were dedicated only to very alarming news and happenings, like the planes smashing the twin towers in Manhattan and shit like that.
Now, this girl has been arrested, then released, for whatever the reasons, and this fuckers at corriere.it just scared me to death out of nothing.
Mind you, corriere.it is supposed to be the website of the most influential newspaper in Italy.

See, that's what I'm talking about here.
This country is a mess.

Funny coincidence today on the first page of corriere.it.
Main news, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declares that Chinese communists used to boil little children at the time of revolution. Which may even be true as far as I'm concerned, although it's hardly an issue for a Prime Minister of the third millennium.
Just below it, questioned about import-export duties, the Minister of finance indicates: "Beijing is eating us alive."

Funny. Is this a subtle way to tell us they want at least to be boiled? That China should at least boil Italy before eating it? Or that we should accommodate ourselves to the fact that it is good and right if we let our politicians to boil us?

Two news items from the super-vague and boring English news section of News Agency ANSA attract my attention today.
Considered that, as somewhere else I argued already, ANSA never reports what really happens in Italy because they don't want to disappoint anybody (i.e. government and finance forces), I see it as a pretty significant event that today you can find two anti-government news items in the even more censored English section of their Stalinist-like agency.
Elections are so close they must have felt the moment right to take a side, in expectation of serving the next government at their best. The sly foxes.
For much that I want Berlusconi to fall down and even more down, those signs of journalism subjection are always creepy to look at. Anyway, nothing really new here.

First news item, it's about the racist and moronic Northern League government party, a pretty powerful organization devoted to separate Italy in two parts (north and south), in order to keep the north richer and the south in misery, and make even more miserable the life of all non-Italian non-rich individuals who share the misfortune of living in our falling country. But you already know that.
The news is that their party is about to be suspended by the European Parliament, because of the too many racist and anti-Islamic stances. What the article don't say, is that the average Northern League elector will be proud of that. What they don't say but they know very well, is that the moderate right-wing elector will be very much pissed by this.
Well, what do you know. I've always been against suspensions, at least since when I was suspended from school when I was twelve (for saying 'fuck off' to the teacher, alas), and in this case I am against too. Because it is pretty hypocrite to suspend them now, they always said and did even worse during the years, way before European elections. The point is that Berlusconi was their strong ally, and nobody wanted to disappoint him for so little as some racist shows against immigrants whose train seats had to be 'disinfected' after the use (just an example of the happy political fights of this shameful organization).

Second news item, it's about another trial against Berlusconi. It's yet another story of corruption of magistrates and politicians, and dirty money's intelligent routes, nothing new from our beloved PM. Isn't it something all Prime Ministers and Presidents do? Well, probably not, but still, who wouldn't do the same in his position?
Once again, the only remarkable thing about this news item is that ANSA is giving it to the international public. They really want everybody to know they never supported Berlusconi. Oh, it would be nice to believe them, unfortunately we are out of gullibility right now. Under elections it goes away like bread, as we say here.
And with this we are finished with boring political journalism stuff for today. I am sorry I have inflicted it to you.

"Vegetation, it seems, releases methane - not just when it rots, but under normal conditions. And it's no small amount either - between 10 and 30 per cent of all the methane pumped into the atmosphere... methane... is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Time to rethink the Kyoto rules, then." (New Scientist)

"It is tempting to conclude from this new study that in some way we have been conned into thinking that trees were great for the planet when it turns out they might be helping to cause global warming. In fact, of course, trees are neither good nor bad. They are just there, and if they are producing methane now they always have been in natural conditions. " (BBC)

"...in a warming world, forests should be reduced, rather than extended." (Corriere.it *winner)