Le parole irritanti di Ruini

Ieri mattina il medico dell'ICGEB, il centro di ricerca dove studio, mi ha incontrato per la visita annuale a cui devono sottoporsi tutti i dipendenti del centro. Questa scadenza mi ha ricordato che e' ormai passato un anno dal mio rientro in Italia.
Ogni volta che un cardinale vaticano parla e le sue parole vengono amplificate dalle headlines dei giornali e dai primi servizi dei telegiornali, mi torna il desiderio di andarmene.
Mi riferisco alle parole del Cardinal Ruini, un vecchietto con un probabile passato pedofilo, che qualche tempo fa si e' pronunciato, da una delle sontuose sale affrescate del Vaticano, contro la proposta di Prodi di introdurre in Italia il cossiddetto PACS (Patto di Solidarieta' Civile).

The two junkies in the rain

juza2004: Hi Edwin, how are you today.
juza2004: Last night Johan and I went to the Tea Room for a beer.
juza2004: It started raining very hard when we noticed a couple of junkies, a man and a woman, staying in front of the bar.
juza2004: They were lying against the hood of someonelse's car, incapable of standing on their feet.
juza2004: Both of them must have been on drugs. But the woman looked worse than her companion.
juza2004: There was a pretty wide crowd of people outside the bar, trying to find some shelter from the rain under the roof overhang. Gradually, they became interested in what was happening.
juza2004: The woman looked as if she was under the effects of some poison that made her limbs numb.
juza2004: Apparently, she was still able to talk to her friend, but her eyes were clearly blind.
juza2004: She fell on the ground, and her friend helped her get up. Then she fell down again.
juza2004: The second time the woman fell, she scratched her knees on the wet sidewalk. She would wear a skirt and the blood from one of her hurt knees stained it.
juza2004: I asked the bouncer to call up an ambulance.
juza2004: In the pouring rain, the ambulance came a few minutes later and stopped in the middle of the street, blocking the cars that would come from behind. After a short argue with the man, the Croce Verde crew laid the woman on a stretcher, fastened a belt around her and quickly dragged her inside the back of the ambulance.
juza2004: Before she had disappeared behind the back door, I think I heard her mourning that she wanted to go home.
juza2004: The ambulance left with the blue lights flashing and the woman's friend stood on the sidewalk watching it go. Then he lit a sigarette.
juza2004: He had a smile on his face like as if behind that smile he could keep what was left of his dignity.
juza2004: When the woman fell on the sidewalk the first time, there was no trace of mercy inside of me. I just wanted to send those two away, far from my sight.
juza2004: And that is what I did, after the woman fell for the second time.
juza2004: Johan was paralyzed like most of the people outside the bar but he leaned down to help the woman the first time she fell. He did not say much.
juza2004: The rain quickly washed away the blood stains from the sidewalk, the people went back inside the bar and Johan and I rushed towards some other place.

About Populism

I wrote this letter to Mr. Edwin Leigh (www.edwinleigh.blogspot.com) to shed light on the definition of populism. He never replied but I am sure he learned the lesson.

Some days ago Mr. Leigh and I had a bit of an argument about the true meaning of the political doctrine called populism. The issue arose when, in replying to some of his considerations about the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, whom he defined a populist, I said that president George W. Bush (GWB) also could be perceived as a populist figure. Leigh promptly replied that I was completely misapplying the term “populist” and, as a support to his point, he thought it was a good idea to send me the link of an online dictionary (http://www.answers.com/topic/populism), where I would find the correct definition of the term. This that follows is the general definition the dictionary gives: “Populism: a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite”. Leigh argued that, according to this definition, a politician can be defined a populist only when his doctrine aims at protecting the common people rights from an economic elite, what we call “the establishment”; by this doctrine, the populist appeals to the poor and disenfranchised as a power base. Therefore, Leigh infers this definition cannot be applied to GWB, given that he himself is the establishment.

Now, I am sure Mr. Leigh is aware of the broad spectrum of historical contexts in which populism occurred and how this involved political figures of both left and right-wing orientation (the Russian Populism by the end of the XIX century, the nationalistic populism of the XX century regimes in Europe, the market populism in the United States in the Nineties, just to give a taste of the complexity of the matter). As one can see by observing the different forms populism took across history, the constant factor in the populist approach is the target for votes, namely the vast majority of the people, intended as the common people. On the other hand, what really varies depending on the historical and political context is the “enemy” towards whom the common people are directed by populists, often by means of demagogic rhetoric. The chosen enemy is always a minority which is thought to be unfairly privileged. This can be either an ethnic, economic or intellectual minority.

It becomes clear Mr. Leigh gives the term “populism” a definition which is too narrow and this is the reason why he thinks GWB does not fit the populist profile. On the contrary, it is my strong opinion president GWB as a politician falls neatly into the backlash populist category. In his political struggle GWB defined a political enemy against whom to rouse the american common people, his real base of power; this enemy is the liberal elite, identified as a class of intellectuals and seen as a disdainful privileged minority brought up in metropolitan areas and educated in top-ten universities, who likes ethnic cuisine and vacations in Europe. As the American writer Thomas Frank explains: “Against these maddeningly sissified tastes, backlash populism posits a true-blue heartland where real Americans eat red meat in big slabs, know all about farming, drink Budweiser, work hard with their hands and drive domestic cars” (T. Franks, Le Monde Diplomatique, February 2004). Exploiting the resentment of the common people due to their inferiority complex towards any privileged minority is an old political strategy for getting votes. In my next letter to Edwin, I will try to show the parallels with the current situation in Italy, whose government is led by president Silvio Berlusconi.

Sunday, September 04, 2005 1:45:48 PM

American Presidents

I have always had a hard time putting the American Presidents on the correct chronological order. I hope this might help. Note you can use the hyperlink to get more information.

Presidents of the US ordered by date:

George Washington, 1789-1797
John Adams, 1797-1801
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
James Madison, 1809-1817
James Monroe, 1817-1825
John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841
William Henry Harrison, 1841
John Tyler, 1841-1845
James Knox Polk, 1845-1849
Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850
Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853
Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857
James Buchanan, 1857-1861
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869
Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-1877
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881
James Abram Garfield, 1881
Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885
Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889
Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893
Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
William McKinley, 1897-1901
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
William Howard Taft, 1909-1913
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923
Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929
Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945
Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953
Dwight David Eisenhower 1953-1961
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977
James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989
George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993
William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001
George Walker Bush, 2001-

Words of today, 10 September 2005

Windfall

Sudden, unexpected profit caused by events not controlled by the beneficial person or company. For example, oil companies and their shareholders in the 1970s earned windfall profits because of oil prices increases.www.millennium-traders.com/Glossary/w.htm

Bonanza

the discovery of an exceptionally rich vein of gold or silver.members.tripod.com/~mr_sedivy/colorado41.html


Cronyism

favoritism shown to friends and associates (as by appointing them to positions without regard for their qualifications) www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.1

Down Payment

A sum of money put down to buy a house, car, or other large item. This is a portion of the purchase price which is generally required by the seller to be paid in cash upfront.
www.beneficial.com/learn/Glossary.jst

Red Tape

the pinkish-red tape that surrounded nearly all English and French legal documents that were also sealed with wax and stamped with an official government seal. Hence, to read these documents a person had to get through the red tape by breaking the wax seal and sliding off the tape.
pbsvideodb.pbs.org/resources/liberty/primary/gloss.html

Hobble

limp: walk impeded by some physical limitation or injury; "The old woman hobbles down to the store every day"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.1

Introduction-Introduzione-Introduction

I will use this blog as an advanced and interactive course in both English and Italian. The main topic discussed herein will be politics with a special attention on international relations.
This will serve as a base to refine my English and also as some kind of textbook for any English speaking person who is interested in improving his/her Italian. I will focus on the spoken form of the two languages, on their idioms, as well as on journalistic writing. My comments will be in both English and Italian and so will be the articles I will cite from some of the major American and Italian newspapers. I am also going to write some essays on books that I read and found interesting. And on those I will be reading.