For the Artists

What does formal education mean? What does it signify? Does it mean you are smart if you have it and stupid if you don’t?

Whatever your answer to that question is, one thing is for sure—schooling shapes every person. Like cookie-cutter forms, the school system shapes everyone to think, do and behave in a similar way. There are many options of what to study, many paths to follow, but the process is always the same. The problem is, we are not all the same and we don’t all process information in the same way.

For a true artist, the school system can be the most soul-crushing, demoralizing experience. I know because I am an artist at heart. Fortunately, I was able to get through school by my insatiable curiosity and being an art major! Over time, I have been able to strike a balance of artistic and academic worlds by writing--and I am able to express my art through the written word. But not everyone is so lucky. So this post is dedicated to all you artists out there, struggling to make it in the “real world.”

The Italian Spring?

It’s no surprise why the Italian economy is in trouble. Like many of it’s European counterparts, Italy has been subject to credit rating downgrades, hyperinflation with the switch to the euro, excessively high unemployment rates, soaring public debt and a slew of austerity laws in the works to really put the squeeze on the people. Where Italy differs from the others, however, is the gross economic inequality between the working class and the ruling class.

Italians have the lowest salaries of Europe. The average salary for an Italian is 1,000 euros a month (if they’re lucky enough to have a job), from which they pay 22% percent sales tax; rent or mortgage and property tax; annual trash tax; Italian television tax (RAI); the highest rates on electricity, gas and petrol than any other European state and to top it all off, about 36-42% income tax. Could you pay all that and live on 12,000 euros a year?

“I’m tired of seeing people lose their jobs…lose their homes!”

-Beppe Grillo

In sharp contrast, the Italian parliament members make some of the highest salaries in Europe, ranging from 6,000-16,000 euros a month. With the addition of allowances and credits, their pay scheme is an enigma that a specially formed committee couldn't even figure out. Not to mention the end of term pay-outs they receive which can range from 30,000-83,000 euros in one fat check (this gets repeated with each term they complete). This is compounded by the fact that parliament is made of 315 senators and 630 deputy ministers. Let’s do a little math: 945 members of parliament x (I’ll just average) 11,000 euros salary = 10,395,000 euros drained each month from the pockets of the people (for more information on parliamentary salaries, click here). A funny side-note: I multiplied this by 13 for the annual cost, but my calculator gave me an error message that the amount was too large to display! But they contend that they work hard and deserve every penny...

Book Review: "Inter Rail"

Traveling by train in Europe is an incredibly unique experience. Inside these comfortable steel tubes speeding through the countryside, the outside world becomes vague and blurred as it rushes past the windows. Whether lost in a book, or in good conversation, time takes on a different form while on a train and journeys of several hours and hundreds of miles can pass by in matter of moments. Most often however, this small bubble in the time-space continuum is shared with a complete stranger. This forced intimacy can easily be ignored with the help of ipods, books, computers, etc. or it can be embraced as an opportunity to get to know a random stranger.

But what kind of relationships can be formed from the crossing paths of random strangers? Francesco, the main protagonist in the book “Inter Rail”, by Alessandro Gallenzi, discovers just this when he boldly buys himself a rail pass to travel Europe.

Italian Liberation Day

April 25 is a national holiday in Italy. 

In my day-to-day business, all I have heard this week is "Mercoledì è festa" (Wednesday is a holiday) and who is going where on vacation. But does anyone ever think of what this date means to their lives? Probably not.

25 April 1945, was the day the people of Italy were liberated from their Nazi occupation and it forever changed the course of their lives. In La Spezia, there is a very rich history of WWII stories, as it was the main naval base for northern Italy. L'Aresenale was not only a large Mediterranean port, it also housed the Italian ammunition bunkers, a large ship repair port and it was the seat of the German occupation for the area.

A Skeptic's Rebuttal

Just a few short months ago, I wrote about the uprising in Sicily that was not getting any news coverage--internationally or even here in Italy. And once again, real current events were left to us bloggers to spread the word. In the buzz that spread across the web, my humble little post, A Sicilian Revolt, was linked to by Joanne Nova, who wrote an excellent piece on the revolt and the current state of Italian journalism and media coverage (I highly recommend reading it). I was very flattered to be linked to by such a well known and popular person with a website of well over 200,000 viewers.
  

Of course, I researched a bit about this scientist/journalist/author/public speaker that linked to my little post in her in article. I discovered that Joanne Nova is the author "The Skeptic's Handbook" (you can download it from her website), which denounces the theory of global warming being caused by CO2 emissions and 'greenhouse gases'. Her firm stance on global warming has made her widely famous and certainly a favorite among American conservatives in their constant battle against environmental protection laws. With this discovery, however, I feel compelled to speak my mind on this subject, lest anyone assumes that my admiration of her afore mentioned article signifies my complete agreement of her environmental stance. I still admire Ms. Nova because I am a big supporter of intelligent discourse (something I feel this world lacks more and more each day) and I am in no position to argue over scientific findings. However, I disagree with the overall argument which, on a surface level, raises doubt about man's damaging effects on the environment and fuels the fire between environmental protection and corporate placation to "big oil" and power companies.
  

A Sicilian Revolt

  

It’s called the Movimento dei Forconi, or the Pitchfork Movement. It started as an uprising by the farmers because the cost of transporting food in and out of Sicily surpassed the actual price of the food. In complete disgust and a general consensus of being fed up with the multiple tax increases and lack of pay, people took to the roads and freeways to block any further transport. It was then fully supported by truck drivers. It started as a protest, turned into a demonstration and quickly spread across the island into a full revolt. Now, more than two weeks into the complete blockage of transport, most grocery stores, from the neighborhood market to the huge supermarket have baren shelves and all the gas stations on the entire island are dried up.

The beginnings of this “revolution” was kept rather hush hush. The national news refused to cover the story, either because they didn’t think it was serious, or more likely, they didn’t want the idea to spread. But thanks to the internet and again, Facebook, pictures, reports and videos spread like wildfire and most of the country knew about the revolt before the news said one word about it. Now of course, they keep constant updates on the ‘situation’ in Sicily, but what they feared the most was inevitable--the idea caught on. Now, truck drivers are parking their rigs from Trentino to Ventimiglia, blocking the borders and preventing transport. Here in my city, there are already lines at the gas stations and there have been warnings to fill up our cars in case we don’t have gas for a while.

The Liebster Blog Award

The Liebster Blog Award is for smaller blogs with fewer than 200 followers. Together, we can help each other network for greater visibility. So here are the 'rules' of accepting the Liebster Blog Award:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award.
2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
3. Copy and paste the Liebster Blog Award on your blog.
4. Reveal your top five blog picks for the award.
5. Let them know you selected them by leaving a comment on their blog.

I am happy to have received the Liebster Blog award from Sam of Two Black Doggies, a fun blog filled with tales of European travels (especially Italy) and of course, her adorable two black doggies. She has also helped spread the news of the floods in the Cinque Terre and this has helped immensely. Thank you so much Sam!

Here are some really great blogs that I think everyone should know about (some were impossible to see the number of followers, so hopefully they fit the qualification):

Cancer Strikes Again

 
Death is inevitable. It is the only thing you can count on in life—it will happen to me, it will happen to you, it will happen to everyone. The only thing we don’t know about death is when it will happen. The other night, this world lost yet another great physician. Last night I learned that my former boss, a talented acupuncturist, passed away on New Year’s eve after a two year battle with cancer. Knowing him was a pleasure and an honor. He was a great boss--fun and laid-back, interesting, brilliant and a very unique person. He was one of those geniuses that functions at a different level than everybody else. While that made him an exceptional healer, it also rendered him a difficult business owner. If it wasn’t for his incredibly competent and capable business partner and wife, the clinic would not have lasted very long. He was at times absent-minded and completely lacked an awareness of time. This caused many headaches and frustrations for his wife, his patients and the office manager (myself for a few years). Part of my job was to stay on top of him and constantly try to keep him on track—something that was pretty much futile. He meant well—we got him to set alarms on his watch, then on his iphone, but inevitably he would have patients or his kids waiting 30 minutes, 40 minutes.... His reasons for this were always due to his complete fascination for an ailing patient and what the key underlying factors could be. Like a compassionate Dr. House, he would ponder all the organs, all the factors at play and then write and rewrite herbal formulas. And, like Dr. House, he had his adolescent ways, a crass and at times inappropriate sense of humor. But behind the goofy, 6’5’’ bear, was a warm, caring, sensitive, intelligent and talented doctor. He loved to spend time with his patients, working on them, massaging them or just chatting with them. Just as Dr. House has his flaws, he is incredibly endearing and my boss was as well, plus he had a warm heart, was a big teddy bear and was someone fun to giggle with during down time.
  

Europe: Pessimo Politics

  
Embarrassing moments this morning in the Italian Senate as Mario Monti’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by members of the Lega Nord, an extreme right political party. As Monti kept on with his monotonous speech on Italy’s relations with the EU, heckling and posters continued to interrupt him despite the futile pleading for order by the president of the senate, Schiffani. 

There are definite positives to having a new government made up almost entirely of professors--not politicians--but in situations like this, Monti was a fish out of water and looked confused and disheartened to be heckled during his speech. While he is used to academic conferences and civilized EU meetings, the Italian senate is more like a jungle. It is a theater of roosters where each has to splay their feathers and make a lot of noise. Not to mention the cock fights! Just the other week, a couple senators came to blows on the senate floor (again involving the Lega Nord). It is just no place for a patient and composed professor.