Hamas infiltration into UK state agencies?

This comes from Britain, but it could just as easily have come from almost anywhere else in Western Europe or North America, and it is a shocking news: Treasury official Azad Ali, president of the UK Civil Service Islamic Society, complained in his blog about the British government’s response to “the Zionist terrorist State of Israel,” and said there was “much truth” in an interview with an Islamic extremist who said it is his religious obligation to kill British and American soldiers in Iraq.

Furthermore, despite the fact that until a few days ago he was regarded as a moderate Muslim who could help tackle Islamic fanaticism in Britain, he attacked moderate British Muslims as “self-serving vultures, feeding on the dead flesh of the Palestinians.”

As it was not enough, as a former chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum and the current head of its counter-terrorism work-team, he works with the Home Office, senior police officers and the Security Services—of course his aim is to combat extremism ...

This, according to Atma Singh (Ken Livingstone’s former adviser and Mayor of London contender 2012), who first acquainted me with this stuff via email, highlights “what I revealed about Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into UK state agencies and specifically in the Mayor’s Office under Ken Livingstone,” as well as “true nature of such Islamism turning into an advocacy force for terrorism.”

Meanwhile Azad Ali was suspended from his senior government job, and Tory MP Patrick Mercer, an adviser to Security Minister Lord West, questioned how this man could continue as a civil servant. But two British blogs don't agree with Mercer (nor with Azad Ali):

Harry's Place ...

Don’t get me wrong. Azad Ali’s politics are disgusting.
However, he has made absolutely no secret of them, at any point. Quite the opposite. The Islamist groups with which he has been involved proudly proclaim their support for jihad, in pursuit of the creation of a nightmarish theocratic state.
Nevertheless, despite his politics he has become the civil service’s “go to” Muslim representative of choice. I would like to believe that Gus O’Donnell was shocked - shocked! - to find that the man with whom he and his civil service and the police force have been turning for strategic advice on “Muslim policy” is a vicious extremist. If nobody in the civil service and the police force realised what this man’s politics were, then they must have been blind and utter fools.
I believe that the opposite is true. I think that Azad Ali was engaged with, precisely because of the nature of his affiliations, and his connections with organisations like the East London Mosque, which is a base for Jamaat-e-Islami. Now that his activities have been exposed in the Mail on Sunday, they have cut him loose.

And pickled politics ...

Azad Ali certainly holds some unattractive political views.
[...]
Azad Ali didn’t start writing Islamist material on his blog on Satuday December 27, the day Israel launched its air attacks on Gaza. What we should be asking is how Azad Ali managed to be selected as the Islamist of choice for so many government departments for this long.

How to save a friend from metal rock

What would you answer if someone—an Indian friend, for instance—asked you for a sort of introduction to Western music? And how would you act if you were willing to save him from metal rock? Well, you might want to explain to him that one of the characteristics of Western music is polyphony, and that this whole thing, of combining different melodies together, began in the Middle Ages, possibly by chance, and progressed in the subsequent centuries. Then you might want to tell him that Western music can also be monodic, the opposite of polyphonic … Or you might want to take a look at this post “before” giving a definitive answer. The latter is the option I would recommend ... ;-)

Thank you

Yesterday the winners and the final ranking of the finalists of the 2008 Weblog Awards were announced by the organizers. Wind Rose Hotel didn’t win in its category, but I’d like to thank each and every one of you, anyway, my dear and loyal readers, for taking the time to vote for me. I really appreciated your support and, in many cases, your personal encouragement.

However, believe me when I say that having been a finalist was great reward in itself. During the days of voting this blog had thousands of new visitors from all over the word, dozens of new links pointing to it, and as many new subscribers to its feed. In other words, I am very happy to have participated in such an important competition and I like to thank the organizers who made all this possible. It was a great experience!

Anno Zero: niente martiri, prego ...

L'ottimo Luca Ricolfi ha scritto su La Stampa di oggi che è “sbalordito” per quanto ha visto e ascoltato ieri sera ad Anno Zero. L’articolo merita di esser letto e meditato, e personalmente vorrei aggiungere che sono grato a Ricolfi per averlo scritto e per aver interpretato perfettamente lo sdegno del sottoscritto e di innumerevoli altri telespettatori.

Sbalordito per la partigianeria della trasmissione, accuratamente costruita per vedere le buone ragioni dei palestinesi e ignorare quelle degli israeliani. Sbalordito per il pochissimo spazio concesso al ragionamento e l’enorme spazio lasciato alle viscere. Sbalordito per la strumentalizzazione del genuino e umanissimo dolore di due ragazze, una palestinese e una israeliana, cinicamente buttate nell’arena come fanno gli organizzatori di combattimenti fra galli. Sbalordito per l’incapacità di Santoro di ascoltare una critica (a mio parere giustissima, ma comunque cortese e civile) all’impostazione della sua trasmissione. Sbalordito per la violenza con cui il conduttore, abusando del suo potere, ha più volte coperto la voce di chi esprimeva, o meglio tentava di esprimere, opinioni non conformi (Lucia Annunziata, prima; Tobia Zevi verso la fine della trasmissione). Sbalordito per le parole sprezzanti con cui Santoro ha risposto alle argomentazioni di Lucia Annunziata, accusata di ripetere «le solite scemenze» su Annozero, e addirittura di voler acquisire meriti presso qualche potente (presso chi? che cos’è questo modo obliquo di alludere?).

Che altro dire? Bah, niente, niente di niente, nel merito, è perfetto così. Ora mi auguro soltanto una cosa: che Berlusconi e gli altri della maggioranza non trasformino un’altra volta l’ignobile personaggio in un martire. Lo lascino stare, semplicemente. La sua punizione è esistere, la nostra soddisfazione ignorarlo. Che importa se il conto lo paga il cittadino contribuente? Con tutti gli sprechi di questo Paese, non meno scandalosi, non meno vergognosi, questo non ci farà andare in rovina (non più degli altri, cioè). Consideriamo la questione-Santoro alla stregua di uno dei tanti Enti Inutili, che sono lì da 50 anni e tutti lo sanno, e noi continuiamo a pagare, pagare ... Qualsiasi cosa, ma niente martiri: gliela darebbero vinta un’altra volta, e questo proprio non possiamo permettercelo.

Why should Hamas want a truce?

A few hours ago exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told Arab leaders, in an emergency summit on Gaza, in Doha, Qatar, that his group would not accept Israeli conditions for a truce. It’s bad news, but there is nothing surprising about that. What could be slightly surprising, instead, is that Khaled Meshaal also accused Israel of waging war against all Palestinians, including women and children. Why surprising? Simply because the accusation can backfire on Hamas, if only for the fact that a specular purpose can be traced back to Hamas charter itself:

Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”

As it was not enough, this document includes reference to the notorious anti-Semitic forgery 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' that is to say the myth of a Jewish plan to dominate the world (via Norm):

Today it is Palestine and tomorrow it may be another country or other countries. For Zionist scheming has no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there.

And that’s how the whole matter is summarized by Hamas charter:

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

So why on earth should they want a truce “before” they wipe out their hateful enemies from the face of the earth? And, what is more, why should they want to stop the suffering of so many people in Gaza when their sacrifice is being used to disseminate hate propaganda against Israel?

Galileo, 400 years later

2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei’s first observations at the telescope, and will be celebrated all over the world as the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The two-day official launch of IYA are taking place in Paris (January 15-16), but Tuscany will play a very special role in the yearlong initiative, as the birthplace and home of the great physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who is considered the father of modern observational astronomy, or simply the father of modern science.

In fact, as part of the celebrations, a new museum will be opened in Tuscany, where guided observations of the night sky and three exhibitions, part of 12-million-euro “Galileo Package,” will be also held. But the biggest show of the year will be a multimedia event at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi, starting from March, entitled “Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope.”

It’s curious that even Pope Benedict gives the impression of being well prepared for this appointment. “The great Galileo said that God wrote the book of nature—he said in his homily for the feast of the Epiphany—in the form of the language of mathematics. He was convinced that God has given us two books: the book of Sacred Scripture and the book of nature. And the language of nature – this was his conviction – is mathematics, so it is a language of God, a language of the Creator.”

Well, the days of the controversy between the Catholic Church and the Tuscan astronomer about heliocentrism are long over. Who does not remember when, back in 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed “regret” for how the Galileo affair was handled at the time, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary? But it is also worth recalling that all traces of official opposition to heliocentrism by the Church disappeared in 1835 when these works were finally dropped from the “Index of prohibited books.”

Yet, in a speech delivered at the Sapienza University of Rome on February 15, 1990, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger quoted a statement by the famous philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend: “The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune.”

Once again, the truth seem to lie in the middle, despite all extremist philosophical and cultural views, as even secularist and atheist Beltolt Brecht guessed in his famous play Life of Galileo. That’s why it is to be hoped that celebrations won’t be transformed into the umpteenth occasion for a confrontation between secularists and their religious counterparts.

It's time to see the Eternal City

The Eternal City, the largest archaeological site in the world, is unsurpassed in it’s architectural splendor. Take this mini Grand Tour on Cnn.com/Travel (source: Oxford Archaeological Guides: Rome, Oxford University Press, 1988), and you will enjoy the stunning view of the Roman Forum: the temple of Antonius and Faustina, the Temple of Vesta, in which a sacred flame was tended by the Vestal Virgins, the handmaidens of the hearth goddess of the Roman state, and that of Romulus, Pons Fabritius—that is the oldest working bridge on the Tiber, built in Julius Caesar’s time—and the Pantheon, originally built as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt circa 126 AD during Hadrian’s reign, and more recent architectural masterpieces.

Otherwise, if you are a history and architecture lover, but are more techno-oriented at the same time, you can enjoy Rome as it looked in 320 AD and fly down to see famous buildings and monuments in 3D. Just download Google Earth at http://earth.google.com/, then select the “Ancient Rome 3D” layer under “Gallery.” Some of the buildings even have interiors. Read this November 12, 2008 New York Times article to learn more, or watch the video below.

Bush's farewell interview

It was aired yesterday on Fox News Sunday, and it was what we might call a “farewell interview” (here is the transcript) with the outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, perhaps something like a moral testament. “We’ve got to be compassionate conservatives,” he said using the same phrase he used during his 2000 campaign.

It’s very important for our party not to narrow its focus, not to become so inward-looking that we drive people away from a philosophy that is compassionate and decent, […]. We should be open-minded about different people’s opinions.
We shouldn't have litmus tests as to whether or not you can be a Republican. And we should be open-minded about big issues like immigration reform, because if we're viewed as anti-somebody — in other words, if the party is viewed as anti-immigrant — then another fellow may say, well, if they're against the immigrant, they may be against me. We've got to be a party for a better future, and for hope.

“We’ve got to be open-minded, compassionate conservatives,” that’s what some of the Bush administration’s efforts, such as expanding the federal government’s role in education through the No Child Left Behind Act and proposing an easier path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, were all about. But that’s also what have come under fire right from some of Bush’s fellow Republicans, though evidently of different school of thought.

Was that internal confrontation only a prelude to the “final battle” which could be fought in the months and years ahead within the GOP?

Who is to blame for Gaza?

“Israel hasn’t killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn't kill them.
Hamas did.”

This is a must read, in my view: Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of Looking For Trouble, in the New York Post: (thanks: Sandra)

There is no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers. There is no gray area. There is no point in negotiations.

Hamas is a Jew-killing machine. It exists to destroy Israel. What is there to negotiate?

When Hamas can't kill Jews, it's perfectly willing to drive Palestinian civilians into the line of fire - old men, women and children. Hamas herds the innocent into "shelters," then draws Israeli fire on them. And the headline-greedy media cheer them on.

Hamas isn't fighting for political goals. "Brokered agreements" are purely means to an end. And the envisioned end is the complete destruction of Israel in the name of a terrorist god. Safe in hidden bunkers or in Damascus, the Hamas leadership is willing to watch an unlimited number of civilians and even street-level terrorists die.

[...]

All Israel can do is to fight for time and buy intervals of relative calm with the blood of its sons and daughters. By demanding premature cease-fires and insisting that we can find a diplomatic solution, we strengthen monsters and undercut our defenders.

And don't believe the propaganda about this conflict rallying Gaza's Palestinians behind Hamas. That's more little-brown-brother condescension, assuming all Arabs are so stupid they don't know who started this and who's dragging it out at their expense.

Gaza's people may not care much for Israelis, but they rue the day they cast their votes for Hamas. Hamas is killing them.

Do you like this blog? Vote for me for BEST EUROPEAN BLOG (Non UK) 2008. Voting ends Monday, January 12 at 22h00 GMT (11 pm in Rome, 5 pm in New York, 2 pm in LA)

How Leftists turned out to be humans

At last they got it right, and the old motto “better late than never” definitely applies here: Left and honesty, in Italy, are not synonymous, not anymore. So spoke the Economist, despite its distrustfulness, if not its ill-concealed hostility, towards Silvio Berlusconi and the ruling center-right coalition, and despite what Walter Veltroni, leader of Italy’s main opposition Democratic Party, recently asserted about his own party (“a party of good people”).

Italy’s center-left, writes the Economist, may be “a bit dull and worthy, and somewhat tarnished by the communist past of many of its leaders (including Mr Veltroni),” but “it has always seemed fundamentally honest.” Yet …

in little more than a month, that benign view has been swept away in a slew of prosecutors’ warrants and summonses. On January 5th the centre-left mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, unveiled a new and reshuffled city administration. There were six new faces in her 16-strong team. Four of their predecessors had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in what prosecutors claim was a plan for the “systematic looting” of public funds. A fifth had committed suicide after he too came under investigation for corruption and other alleged offences.

The scandal in Naples, which revolves around a €400m ($545m) public-services contract, is the most substantial but by no means the only one to have assailed the opposition. Since the end of November, centre-left politicians have been put under suspicion, or even arrest, in seven other cities and regions.

So, yet another myth—and that of the honesty of the left was a very though and persistent one—has been swept into the trash can. Not that, of course, such scandals are in my opinion a good thing in themselves, nor do I rejoice because my political opponents are in a very bad fix. Rather I rejoice because, if political myths can be understood as “narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world,” as political philosophy scholar Chiara Bottici puts it, they—or at least a certain kind of them—often are nothing more than “comedy of misunderstandings.” That is to say that they are more or less useless, if not pernicious, and that we can do well without them.

But that of the honesty of the left wasn’t the only myth to collapse, there was also that of the honesty of Italy of Principles, the party led by Antonio Di Pietro, a former prosecutor who leapt to national prominence in the days of Mani pulite (“clean hands”), the nationwide Italian judicial investigation into political corruption held in the 1990s, which led to the demise of the so-called First Republic, resulting in the disappearance of many parties. In fact, Mr Di Pietro too has now had his wings clipped:

His son, Cristiano, a provincial lawmaker, quit the party after he was caught up in the Naples sleaze inquiry. Transcripts were leaked of telephone conversations in which he seemed to be asking for jobs and advancement for his friends.

Who would ever have predicted that? Very few, actually. I mean, very few would have thought that things came before the courts—not just that the left might be involved in bribery or other official corruption, and believe me, there is a difference …—, given that both the left and Di Pietro’s party had always been in very good terms with the judges. But things have changed in the last couple of years, and some taboos seem to have fallen away in certain public realms, especially in the judicial one. That’s also why what looks like bad news could actually turn out to be a very exciting time, even though not for the left itself, nor for Di Pietro. Yeah, now everybody knows—even the Economist (better late than never!)—that they are humans, too, after all.

Do you like this blog? Vote for me for BEST EUROPEAN BLOG (Non UK) 2008. Voting ends Monday, January 12 at 22h00 GMT (11 pm in Rome, 5 pm in New York, 2 pm in LA)

Sarah Palin's interview

I must confess that I still cannot make out how it could have happened that, during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, so many intellectuals, academics and mainstream media so often showed their bias and a certain distrustfulness towards Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Ok, I thought at the time, they may want to be non-bipartisan, they have the right to be non-neutral in the presidential race, but they could be more decent and less black and white …

“If she were Obama’s Veep, would she have been savaged?” asks today Melissa Clouthier in her awesome blog—by the way, she is one of ten finalists for the Best Individual Blogger in the 2008 Weblog Awards, and also my favourite one in that category. Well, my answer is, I don’t think so. Not at all.

That is also why the video below is, in my humblest opinion, very, very interesting. It offers excerpts from Sarah Palin’s interview with filmmaker John Ziegler, for his forthcoming documentary “Media Malpractice,” in which the Alaska Governor, for the first time at length, takes on the media coverage of her and the 2008 campaign. It’s a rather shocking record of a media assassination—of Sarah Palin, her character and family—which remains “one of the greatest public injustices of our time,” as Ziegler puts it on his website.

Do you like this blog? Vote for me for BEST EUROPEAN BLOG (Non UK) 2008. Voting ends Monday, January 12 at 22h00 GMT (11 pm in Rome, 5 pm in New York, 2 pm in LA)

Islamizing Europe

Let’s update my previous post by linking to the Times and the Daily Mail, which reported about what happened last Saturday in Milan and Bologna, as well as about the Vatican’s reactions.

In particular we learn that the Vatican yesterday expressed its “unease” at the hundreds of Muslims who gathered in prayer outside the the Duomo in Milan and the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, with thousands of prostrate Muslims facing Mecca. In an interview with the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano, Cardinal RenatoMartino, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said: “For me the sight of people at prayer does not trouble me, it is good that people pray. But what really troubled me and left me uneasy was the fact that Israeli flags were burnt and there were slogans, all manifestations of hate and which followed a prayer session.” “What matters is the spirit in which one prays—and prayer excludes hate,” he added.

Monsignor Luigi Manganini, archpriest of Milan cathedral, said in turn he could imagine the Islamic reaction if Christians prayed en masse outside a mosque (well, er, actually I think there are very few people who would have difficulty in imaging what would have happened …).

We also learn that the rally in Milan was led by the city’s Muslim Imam Abu Imad, who, as MP Maurizio Gasparri noted, has been convicted in Italy of terrorism related offences, and that, according to the Imam, the demonstration had ended up on the cathedral square “by chance” at the hour of prayer, “and so we prayed, there was no provocation or insult intended,” he said. Fantastic.

Yet, Gasparri thinks that “when 10,000 Muslims arrive in front of Milan Cathedral, led by an Imam who has convictions for terrorism then public order needs to be looked at,” and that “it is evident that this was intended as a threat and the decision to pray and hold the rally in front of the Cathedral is very significant.”

Who do you agree with? Abu Imad or Gasparri?

Do you like this blog? Vote for me for BEST EUROPEAN BLOG (Non UK) 2008. Voting ends Monday, January 12 at 22h00 GMT (11 pm in Rome, 5 pm in New York, 2 pm in LA)

'They want to Islamize Europe'

Last Saturday thousands of people marched in cities across Europe to demand a halt to Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip. In Paris, for instance, more than 20,000 demonstrators, many wearing Palestinian keffiyeh headscarves, marched through the city center chanting slogans such as “Israel murderer!” Expectedly, groups of protesters clashed with police, some cars were set alight and some others overturned by demonstrators, etc.

They seemed quite routine events, but they weren’t, at least not all of them, not what happened in Milan and in Bologna, Italy. In Milan the protesters, mostly young Arabs and Muslim families, had gathered in Porta Venezia, obviously waving banners and flags, and chanting slogans such as “Bush, Barak, assassins.” Normal. Ah, I forgot, they obviously set fire to some Israeli flags. Perfect. So what? What’s new? Well, the demonstration came to an interesting end when the protesters reached Piazza Duomo, in downtown Milan, and held a collective prayer session right in front of the cathedral. Even the parvis was occupied, so that the cathedral turned out to be closed.

What happened in Milan was very similar to what happened in Bologna at the same time: thousands of Muslims gathered right in front the Basilica di San Petronio, Bologna’s great cathedral, to hold an analogue collective prayer session.

Are the two events connected? What’s their real meaning? When asked in an interview with Il Resto del Carlino newspaper about the meaning of the event, Assistant bishop of Bologna monsignor Ernesto Vecchi, said:

This was a signal to ponder upon. This is not simply a prayer, this is a challenge more to our democratic and cultural system than to the basilica. […] From what happened in Bologna, but also in other cities, we received confirmation that here is a project piloted from the outside. What is it all about? What is it aimed at? They want to Islamize Europe.

This recalls a Friday Sermon by Hamas MP and cleric Yunis Al-Astal, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on April 11, 2008. A clip is available to paid subscribers of MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (via Paolo Guzzanti). Here are some excerpts from the address:

Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion, so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security, and consolidation of power, and even to conquests thorough da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world. Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam – this capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.
I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our Jihad and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our Prophets, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire on the brink of which they stand.

All the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit together. Don’t they?

Do you like this blog? Vote for me for BEST EUROPEAN BLOG (Non UK) 2008. Voting ends Monday, January 12 at 22h00 GMT (11 pm in Rome, 5 pm in New York, 2 pm in LA)

Best European Blog

I got the news a couple of days ago that my blog had been named as one of ten finalists for the Best European Blog (Non UK) category in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

This was totally unexpected but highly welcomed! In fact, the Weblog Awards are the world’s largest blog competition, with over 500,000 votes cast in the 2007 edition for finalists in 45 categories, and in the past I have perused them over the years to discover some great blogs to add to my blog reader. So I am both stunned and honored to be considered worthy of inclusion in the list of finalists for the Best European Blog.

There is a small window of opportunity for readers to vote for their favorite nominees (January 5th through the 12th). I have added a direct-link badge in the right sidebar to make it easier for you to vote.

Voting rules:

1. You may vote once every 24 hours in each poll.
   
2. After voting in an individual poll you will be locked out from voting again in that poll (on the computer you voted from) for 24 hours.
   
3. Each poll has its own separate 24 hour lockout control. Voting in, for example, Best European Blog will not lock you out of voting in other categories.
   

Needless to say, I would be very grateful and honored if you would consider voting for me ...

Moral clarity in Gaza

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer in yesterday’s Washington Post:

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy non combatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage -- or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb -- will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel. [...]

The full article is worth reading from beginning to end.

Mysterious Italy!

It’s a commonplace that Italy is a beautiful but strange, unmanageable, unreliable country, and that it was just its own oddness that recently led—after a spectacular post-war growth record—to a gradual impoverishment.Italy and its economy are like the Titanic hitting the iceberg,” said once Gianni De Michelis, deputy prime minister in 1988 and 1989. An he was right, at least in part.

That is also why the kind of news we are getting these days on the economic front have the power to overtake us, I mean news such as this. So we learn that the GDP (gross domestic product) per average Briton, which was $45,970 in 2007, is expected to slump to just $35,243 this year, “lower than even Italy”—as the Telegraph puts it—on $37,866 the fifth-placed economy. And Britain falls into sixth place for the first time since 1996. Ok, this is because of the plunging value of the sterling, but

[e]ven stripping out effects of the currency, all economists predict that Britain will be hit hard this year, with forecasting house IHS Global Insight predicting the economy would shrink by an alarming 2.7 per cent, causing the country to suffer from the deepest recession since the Second World War.

Who would have ever predicted this? Certainly not the British newspapers (er, no, actually …) neither the Italian ones, to speak frankly, nor the Italian bloggers. Mysterious Italy!


P.S. I would like to say “we Italians got it right this time,” but the truth is that, this time, the Brits got it wrong. So sorry my British friends …

Canova and Neoclassicism

A. Canova, Love and Psiche, Louvre, Paris

It is not just because Antonio Canova was born in a small village located a few miles from the North-Eastern Italian town where I live that I feel the need to write this post, but rather because he is the greatest Italian sculptor of modern times, the artist who in 1802, by special request of Napoleon I, went to Paris and modeled a colossal figure of the emperor, which on the fall of the emperor himself was presented by Louis XVIII to the British government, which in turn gave it to the Duke of Wellington—sic transit gloria mundi … but Canova’s time of glory was destined to last far longer than that of Napoleon! In 1818 he was also commissioned to make a heroic statue of George Washington for the State House, Raleigh, N.C., while his “Bust of Napoleon” is in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, and other masterpieces are in the Vatican and in the Louvre Museum.

Ok, I don’t want to indulge in unnecessary vaunting (and parochialism), nor do I want to beat about the bush … the reason of this post is an upcoming exhibition in the North-Central Italian city of Forlì, starting from January 25 through June 21. The exhibit will be focused on the ties between Antonio Canova and international neoclassical art. Don’t miss it, if you can help it. Read here to understand why.

Time to pay the bills

“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy,” once said Margaret Thatcher. Maybe that’s what the difference between Europe and America is all about. But what the “American Philosophy”—or better still, if you prefer, the American Spirit—is all about? As a European by birth and an “American by philosophy,” I’d have some ideas about how to answer, but this piece by David Ignatius, focused on the ongoing financial crisis and government bailout, can be helpful to get a down-to-earth picture of the whole thing in a socio-economic perspective, which at the moment is almost certainly the most topical one.

Happy New Year!

If the new year comes a second later

Are you eager to put 2008 behind you? I mean, are you, for example, a Wall Street analyst, a stockbroker, a financial reporter, or still worse, are you people who lost a fortune trusting the above mentioned “experts?” Well, tonight you have to hold your good-byes for just a moment, one second, to be precise. In fact, the international authorities—the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), namely the world’s official timekeepers—will add a single second to our lives to keep our clocks in sync with solar time used by astronomers.

It will be the 24th “leap second” since 1972. That’s because, “sometimes, the Earth’s rotation on its axis can take longer or shorter than 24 hours, depending on factors such as the breaking action of tides, snow or the lack of it at the polar ice caps, solar wind, space dust and magnetic storms.”

So, please hold on, and pray the new year brings a better economy. When economics fails, prayer can step in and do the work …