The measure of man

Man is the measure of all things (Protagoras).

It's two hours that I am waiting and who cares if they look at me, I grumble in a low voice while I look for a corner in the mirror to check my hair and adjust my tie. There are several things in the mirror: synthetic material backs showing off branded jackets, legs slipped in linen trousers because summer is approaching, strange structures, vaguely anthropomorphic, to support shirts or sweathers, those ones that must be carried carelessly on one's shoulders, and there, between two pairs of moccasins, there is also my head, my face a little nervous, serious, hopeful.
People stare at me, somebody smiles, others give a nudge with the elbow to a mate to make him look at me, and I know that it's not because for what I am wearing. Dressed or in the nude i am not going to pass unnoticed. I collected some flowers in the nearby park, nothing exceptional, simple flowers that were there, easy to pick up. I don't even know their name.
Will she come? I doubt it, because I know how difficult it is to overcome a fear that is not fear, a shame that is not shame, the most innocent guilt. I doubt and, to win the distrust of the hours spent in waiting I light a cigarette. Now I attract much more the looks of the passers-by. It's always like that. "He's smoking", "He's eating", "He's crying". Anything I do it's always like that.
All of the sudden I look at the bunch of flowers and i notice that my hand, instead of holding, it grinds them, it chokes them with that minimum violence enough to defeat their fragile plant necks. I smile thinking how they wither in such a minimum lapse of time like the flags of an as much minimum and defeated army, and their ragged petals tell me that it's time to start my retreat.
I throw the flowers in the first trash bin and I go away, followed by the looks of the passers-by and their voices that say: did you see how the dwarf threw the flowers away? Did he have a date? With a dwarf-girl? They left the dwarf in the lurch. Dwarves are strange, and other comments on which stature i wouldn't and shouldn't say anything.

Luis Sepúlveda, La lampada di Aladino (Italian translation of La lámpara de Aladino) - English translation of mine.

Some time ago I watched on the TV program "La Vita in Diretta", this interview with Marco Sessa, vice-president of AISAC, Associazione per l'Informazione e lo Studio dell'Acondroplasia [Association for the Information and Study on Achondoplasia].
Usually i am not very interested in this gossip program, but in that occasion it had been suggested to me by a very close person, a mother of an achondroplastic boy, who knew that interview was scheduled for that day.

I'll spare you a search on Wikipedia: Achondroplasia is a genetical disease, a form of nanism. It particularily affects the limbs, that develops much less than the rest of the body (for whomever is interested here is the link.

Besides the medical side and the problem of the architectural feature that denies

access, what surprised me in the interview was the observation of how, although I have a case so close, I have never before considered the humiliation of who is affected by this syndrome. Every time they are mentioned as abnormal phenomena, the dwarf is considered a freak, and that word is lost in insult. I think to circuses, but also to other works of any cultural level (Snow White fairy tale, Lord of the Rings saga, Fantasy Island tv series, the song Il Giudice by De André...).
Or even the implicit offense towards them when they are compared with disdain to Berlusconi (psycho-dwarf), with a bad taste comparable to the one of Berlusconi himself towards the color of Obama's skin (sun-tanned), almost like if the physical stature was some way a mirror of the moral one...

Since that day I am trying to learn to weigh better that word.

Yes, we are different!

The Idiot

The first Afro-American President of the United States has been elected.
Yesterday Berlusconi, unfortunately the Italian Prime Minister, during an official journey at Moscow was asked in a press conference what he thinks about Obama. The idiot answer was "He is young, handsome and suntanned".

This statement is racist, but not only. This statement is absolutely disrespectful of the role of the United States and their President. Moreover, the tone of gratuitous derision is drastically amplified by the official character of the situation, that would have demanded a totally different code of conduct.

The deplorable behavior of Berlusconi, as one can imagine, immediately turned around the world, and the Italian People, that some way he arrogates the right to represent, has to suffer the shame.
Not at all intentioned to apologize for the unpopular quip, he laid it on thicker defining his own words "a compliment".
Today an American journalist in a press conference asked him if it wouldn't be the case to apologize with Obama, and the arrogant and angry answer by Berlusconi was "Please... please! You should apologize with Italy instead!", offending once again.

Well, i don't believe that this man could ever arrogate himself the right to represent me and many other Italians in front of the rest of the world. It can also be elected democratically, but his own behavior discharges him, atleast morally.

And for this reason i subscribe with pleasure the initiative thought by the blog friend Silvano and born in this discussion at Il Russo's blog, which goal is to diffuse to some international media a message of dissociation from the "compliments" of Berlusconi.

A blog had been created in order to organize the practical details of the initiative, and to collect subscription at this address:

http://yeswearedifferentit.blogspot.com

Yes, Berlusconi is an Idiot.
I am different.

Barack Hussein Obama

Barack Hussein Obama

I wanted not to blog about the election of the president of the United States, but... i am not exempt from the enthusiasm that is overwhelming everybody.
My American friends for sure would be surprised noticing how much interest we have, on this side of the ocean, about the election of the American Presitent.
I believe that the citizens of the United States are more involved by a possible change about the big subjects of the internal politics, education, health care, public safety, on which i don't dwell upon, admitting my ignorance about them.

For us, instead, these elections deal about the role of the United States as the dominators of the world.

Nevertheless i believe that the President of the United Stats is not the one that really has the power. World economy is an interest much bigger than American democracy, and it's exactly this interest that determines the world order.
This raises to me doubts about Obama, as a possible renewer of the world politics. If there will eventually be a significant social change worldwide, it will be due by the achievement of an interest of the big multinational companies. And about this i fear that the will of the President doesn't have a big influence.
Even less the one of the electors.

Anyway, i like Obama. More than McCain. Infinitely more than Bush. I like Obama because he's black, and i hope that this feature of his will give a shake to all the consciousness of the world, especially over here in Italy, agains any type of racism. I like Obama because he has the image of a pacifit and environmentalist, although i believe that about these themes the image doesn't match with the real programs. I like Obama because of his human face, that doesn't work to hide his tears behind a plastic smile. In conclusion, i like Obama not because for a trust in a real change, but because he reflects a hope in a change that comes from the deep of the consciousness of the common man. A change towards a more imparcial, more peaceful, more environmentalist, more human society.

A change, in a society like ours, can happen only if it comes from the "high" of who handles the levers of the world capitalism. But a line on the sand that shows the direction of a change towards a more moral world order could be drawn only by the consciousness of the common man. And the image of Obama is a reflection of it.

Today i love the American People for having the courage to choose for that change.