Month: July 2005

It’s a shame

I sympathize with British people, specially Londoners, and with the police too, submitted to very difficult situation and stress.

I know that mistakes, sometimes horrible and dramatic mistakes are possible, and it is very sad when innocent people are involved.

But the phrase of Mr. Blair (as reported by The Guardian), after expressing soreness for the death of Jean Charles De Menezes is a shame:

“I think it is important that we give them every support and that we understand that had the circumstances been different and, for example, this had turned out to be a terrorist and they had failed to take that action, they would have been criticised the other way,” he said.

And the fact that this news -8 bullets shot at the head of this young guy guilty of wearing an heavy coat in London-, was not among the main news in the home page of The Guardian web site and was not at all present in Times home web page today contribute to the sense of misery.

And the ‘scoop’ on him being a student and on his supposedly expired student visa is desolating.

On the same web edition of The Guardian, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty, said she was “disgusted” by the suggestion that someone’s immigration status might have any relevance to the value of their life.

At last, the declaration of Mr. Straw, Foreign Affairs Secretary as reported in Italian by L’Unità, that
the request for compensation will be treated in a short time and with the most of goodwill is the final injury.

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Formentera


No, we aren’t there, slightly more south, among Ivory Coast and Congo, but we were in that island just some weeks ago, and the photo could be a folklorist post-card.

All the elements are there, the savage nature in its multiform tint and the human labour, refined by centuries of tradition.

Notwithstanding the outbreak of motorbikes and Italian tourists, the island keep a certain charme and simplicity. Especially in June.

Is this justice?

While in Spain, I read an article about a woman. Her daughter, about thirteen, was raped by an old man.

He was put on trial and sentenced to several years of prison.

After a while, he enjoyed of some preventative measures and was freed.

He went to the neighbourhood where the other family was living. In a bar.

The girl saw him and informed the mother.

She went to the petrol station with a bottle. Filled it up with petrol then went to the bar, spilled the petrol on the man and put him on fire.

I couldn’t avoid sympathizing with the woman.

But I wouldn’t like to live in that neighbourhood.

Quebra pedra

While the little Paula is struggling for her growth, myself decided to avoid the nuclear therapy recommended by an urologist (it seems someone studying remote planets and strange life forms) to destroy my stones and to make use of the traditional knowledge of Brazilian Indian populations.

Therefore, we asked a Copacabana UN blue helmet going back home to find the quebra pedra, forest plant with evocative name (break stone) and curative properties, in order to prepare infusions and compresses.

Let’s hope everything will turn out well (especially for Paula).

Big Brother knocking on the door.

It’s not a substantial problem, seen from here, but the other day, at Barcelona airport parking, while retrieving the ticket at the entrance, the machine looked at our plate number and registered it on the ticket (and somewhere else, I suppose).

I didn’t feel comfortable.

At my bank, in Italy, to enter you have to put your finger on some sort of futuristic device in order to leave a trace of yourself. The service is not so futuristic, though, and many times you leave there also a lot of time and money for different kind of ‘fees’.

Nonetheless, even if the service would be much more efficient, we pay it with the progressively stronger invasion of our privacy. I am not sure it is worth it. I am not sure it is constitutional. I am not sure I like it.

Sooner or later we shall have to choice: or enter clandestinity, using only cash, switching off the computer, wearing big hats and sunglasses or try to mislead them, creating hundreds of alias, opening counts everywhere, using internet for any transaction, but always with different identities.

Ah, chiare fresche e dolci acque