THE WAR ON TERRORISM AS A PARADIGM (Part 1) Excerpt:     Did the war in Iraq (ides of march 2003 ) increase terrorist attacks in the world, as many allege, or was there a previous trend?   The mystery replied through facts and not through the sibyls: charts showing the amount of terrorist attacks and worldwide victims from 1970 till 2004 included.   Charts above and below from the MIPT Terrorist Knowledge Worldwide Data Base (TKB)     Graphic of amount of terrorist injuries from 1970 till 2004 (TKB).   Should we judge terrorist activity by its amount of victims or by the number of incidents necessary to yield them? The former is probably a more signifi... Topic: 9 Tuesday January 30, 2007 - 09:02:42
Visitors: 28,797 Comments: 0 LEONARD SMITH, 2821522: THE PRIVATE THAT COULDN'T BE SAVED - RESTING AT THE ANZIO BEACH HEAD COMMONWEALTH WAR CEMETERY Excerpt:   BEACH HEAD COMMONWEALTH WAR CEMETERY   ANZIO, ITALY     LORD OF THE HOSTS, HEAR US!   «THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT»   IN REMEMBRANCE OF PRIVATE LEONARD SMITH,   SON OF WALTER AND ETHEL,   HUSBAND TO AGNES.     AND IN REMEMBRANCE OF ALL   THOSE WHO ENDURED THE UNENDURABLE,   TOGETHER WITH THEM.     TO SET US FREE - N... Topic: 29 Monday April 2, 2007 - 18:40:23
Visitors: 18,404 Comments: 1 VELOCE, CON FUOCO: PENSIERI PER OGNI INIZIAZIONE Excerpt: For English Version click here     « "Capitano io non mi muovo di qui!"   "Capitano è uno schifo, è uno schifo!! ci ammazzano tutti quanti!!"   "Spostatevi!!!"   "Capitano, rimane solo quest' acqua fra noi e l' Onnipotente!"   "Ogni granello di questa spiaggia è stato messo sotto tiro. Se resti qui, sei un uomo morto."»     da: "Salvate il Soldato Ryan" (Steven Spielberg , 1998)   Spesso ci viene chiesto: scrivi qualcosa, ma sii breve e semplice. Se mi si consente la battuta, è un po' come commissionare un delitto in un film giallo: fai un lavoro veloce e pulito.   D'altra parte Atena, la dea greca della sapienza e delle lettere , non era forse una dea guerriera , che uccide, raffigurata dalle iconografie con elmo scudo e lancia? Cercherò di essere breve, ma quanto alla semplicità sorge un problema. Si può essere semplici fino ad essere elementari, e si può essere elementari fino ad essere primitivi, ma giunti... Topic: 4 Saturday March 17, 2007 - 20:16:13
Visitors: 12,579 Comments: 0 FANATISM IN THE INTERNET AGE: STANDARDS THAT MAY KILL (part 1) Excerpt: Forgive my english, which is not my native language.     I do not care where I would be placed by surfers or by more seasoned web developers - whether in hell, or purgatory, or paradise; whether in the seclusion of the amateur , in the dregs of the parvenu , in the empyrean of the professional , or onto the paths of the lonesome geek ; whether in the no man's land of the nonsense and of the freak , whether in the cellar of the immensely talented hermit , or rather onto the pillory of the immensely despicable blackguard .     I can live with my own self esteem without the avail of my narcissism and of the appreciation of the others both.     So, I guess, I can entertain my fearless perspective also if it is not going to sound particularly popular among my fellow developers (though some would almost agree with me, and some ... Topic: 7 Friday January 19, 2007 - 14:17:00
Visitors: 12,555 Comments: 0 PACMAN AND THE MAZE: DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS AS LABYRINTHS, METAPHORS AS DATAGRAM PACKETS Excerpt: «Don't you remember that love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature? You see how I can fight you with your own weapons. (...)     Once one becomes interested in the game, there is no knowing where one will stop. (...)     But tolerance I see as no more than dangerous frailty when it brings us to look with equal favour upon virtue and vice. (...)     You were the topic of our conversation, to which I contributed not the good opinions I have of you, but the good opinions I don't have of you (...)     I have never believed in these sweeping and irresistible passions, which seem to have been agreed upon as a convenient general excuse for our misdemeanours (...) as if a thief could be justified by a passion for gold, or a murderer by a thirst for revenge. (...)     But this chimerical perfections exist only in their imaginations. Out of their heated fancies they produce charms and virtues, with which they adorn the man of their choice according to taste, decking out what is oft... Topic: 38 Friday April 13, 2007 - 19:17:16
Visitors: 11,133 Comments: 0 ALGORITHMS ARE PRAYERS: ALGORITHMS, RECURSION, RATIONAL NUMBERS AND GRAVITATION Excerpt: Best viewed listening to the Goldberg Variations by J.S.Bach   Algorithms are prayers.   It is quite possible, like a few argue as if it were particularly reassuring, that within ourselves we obey to an algorithm of unflinching, consequential mathematical logic; but the mathematical logic that pertains to such algorithm doesn't demand of us to be mathematicians, but prescribes us to be poets.     The biblical book of the Song of Songs (a recursive title, you see, although some versions just title the book The Song of Solomon) is considered, in the exegesis, as the most mysteriously profound book along with the Genesis and the prophetic book of Ezekiel.   In such song the most awkward verses indeed can be found, and not at all the most poetic ones as those who read it assuming they are supposed to see in it a poetry which is not there believe. Among them one puzzled even Gregorius Magnus:     "Thy nose is as the tower of Libanus, that looketh toward Damascus."   (DRV, Song of Songs 7... Topic: 39 Thursday April 19, 2007 - 10:25:00
Visitors: 9,975 Comments: 0 The fight between the private eye and the eye witness: painting and photography in Jehan Legac's Art Excerpt: IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE INSIGHT «The history of photography could be recapitulated as the struggle between two different imperatives: beautification, which comes from the fine arts, and truth telling (...)   A moralized idea of truth telling, adapted from the nineteenth-century literary models and from the then new profession of independent journalism. Like the post-romantic novelist and the reporter, the photographer was supposed to unmask hipocrisy and combat ignorance. This was a task which painting was too slow and cumbersome to take on (...)   Hawthorne writes about a young photographer , Holgrave, who remarks about the daguerrotype portrait that "While we give it credit only for depicting the merest surface, it actually brings out the secret character with a truth that no painter would ever venture upon, even could he detect it."(...)   For it is in the nature of a photograph that it can never entirely transcend its subject, as a painting can .»   Susa... Topic: 30 Wednesday April 4, 2007 - 21:31:46
Visitors: 9,731 Comments: 0 PROUDLY UNEMPLOYED: THE JOBLESS WORLD OF THE TALENTFUL BEGGAR Excerpt: Dear Friend,     you are disappointing me: so, don't you know that all plays are played again in every play, that the less we have faced our supposed enemies the stronger our opinions about them, and that what makes us original are not our goals but our difficulties to attain them?   But I am so much disenchanted with this old story, that you really ought to take my humble opinion with some grain of salt.     Do you remember how Marilyn Monroe replied to that man who said he was looking for a faithful, honest woman? "To do what with her?"   So, you say you want a job. May I ask: to do what with it?     How disingenuous on your part sending your qualifications to those firms, alleging you did so because they posted an online ad asking for resumes. Do you think you may use this argument as a justification for your inexcusably naive behaviour?   They probably didn't read even one of the resumes they got so far: who told you that men mean what they say, know what they want, and ask for what they... Topic: 13 Thursday April 26, 2007 - 15:52:00
Visitors: 9,132 Comments: 0 AMERICA ALL WAYS: NAZISM, COMMUNISM, FUNDAMENTALISM: THE USA JUST BEFORE THE WAR WITH THE ESKIMOS (part 1) Excerpt: «The passage from autocracy to democracy was slower than that from democracy to autocracy; and this was because autocracy is imposed, whereas democracy has to be learnt.»   (Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social Conflicts)   «A society whose members are impotent, is in want of idols.»   (Erich Fromm)   «Nonetheless they are to become his slaves, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving kings of other countries.»   (Bible, Chronicles II: 12 ,8) So, you thought you live in a dictatorship, you western professional protester?   So, you thought it was just about the jews?   So, read it all now .   From Peter Calvocoressi, Second World War:   «It would also contain the other nordic races, who were only a little inferior to the Germans (...) suitably regrouped and assigned to their economic functions, would be the helots. These sub-human varieties would be kept in subjection by, among other devices, depriving them of education. As Hitler himself put it, t... Topic: 32 Friday April 6, 2007 - 13:39:44
Visitors: 9,098 Comments: 0 FANATISM IN THE INTERNET AGE: STANDARDS THAT MAY KILL (part 2) Excerpt: TO THE FIRST PART All the sites flagged as «invalidated!», obviously did not validate !     With the exclamation mark as the W3C parser adds, to convey the righteous sense of urgency and emphasis that such grievous an issue involves for all those dumb humans that were visiting such resources, and who yet never realized the dangers they were being exposed to. For these resources weren't valid , while these humans none the less went on browsing them smoothly and with such temerity !     At least till September 2005, fully within the Era Of The Standards, they did not validate ! And yet they have been online and viewed since ever ! You may even find out that what validate... Topic: 8 Friday January 19, 2007 - 14:16:39
Visitors: 8,831 Comments: 0 Blog Space 1: Exploring The Blogsphere In Search Of The Lost Word Excerpt: NOW REVIEWING: ADVANTAGE AUTO QUOTES Advantage Auto Quotes makes us wonder again about an old question: what's the fascination with cars? Roland Barthes even reserved one of his essays collected in his book titled "Mythologies" to "The New Citroen"; and he said that the relationship that entwines a man with his car (because you won't dare argue that we are politically uncorrect, once you see magazines prosper on the match: cars and women) is similar to that that may connect him with a spouse .     Whenever you see a car, no matter whether modern or old, you seem to partake of an immemorial vintage: as God took Eve from Adam's rib, so modernity took the car from another of man's ribs - we ought to have 18 left methinks.     The man leaning on his sport car, maybe nearby a disco or a nightclub, with a cigarette pending... Topic: 41 Thursday August 16, 2007 - 18:35:39
Visitors: 8,562 Comments: 0 Cinque pezzi facili facili: Machado, Lorca, Neruda, Ungaretti, Verlaine Excerpt: "You are like a moth to a flame:   You just never wane."   Jamelia Studio 1: Per la velocità della mano sinistra "La piazza e accesi aranci   con i loro frutti rotondi e ridenti.   Tumulto di giovani collegiali   che nell'uscire caotico dalla scuola   colmano l'aria con i clamori di una voce nuova.   Gioia infantile tra buie strade   in una città deserta...   Qualcosa del nostro ieri, che tuttavia   ci ricompare, errabondo, per desuete vie"   Antonio Machado Le poesie elegiache si fanno invise presto.   Esaurendosi tutte in effetti d'ambiente (perchè lo struggimento è una categoria della reductio: come un acido dolce, esso corrode tutte le scorze che incontra per lasciare solo un nocciolo levigato), si negano ad ogni chiarificazione esplicita delle soluzioni esistenziali che evocano o dei problemi che sottendono, affidando interamente la consegna del messagg... Topic: 25 Thursday March 29, 2007 - 00:13:18
Visitors: 8,428 Comments: 0 Snapshots Of A Broken Speech: Fashion And Nature Excerpt: Fashion, it is a lame duck, it is needlessly lofty: its lavish portents are unbearably powerful to no effect, for who is to wear those clothes in actuality?   High Fashion, it is a blank carrier, whose each aircraft can never fly; it is the albatross of the poem by Baudelaire, whose wide wings stretch thus far to allow for a take off only if the bird hadn't the disadventure of hitting the ground.     Of course, fashion implies an intentionality in the messages it conveys: no piece of clothing goes unwarranted as far as expressionism is concerned. This intentionality actually implies an intensification: the message must be a blitzkrieg which seizes the eye, which conquers it. Divide et Impera becomes Ravish and Impera.     On the one hand, fashion is not just futile, it is somewhat counter-educative: in the multishaped waltzer of its colours, it fabricates fake, phony identities to sell: thereby men and women get educated to compensate with an appearance which can be bought, the inner... Topic: 27 Saturday March 17, 2007 - 20:07:37
Visitors: 7,890 Comments: 0 THE SECOND WARDENSHIP: THE COUNTER-ELITE INITIATION Excerpt: «That from which you are running is within you. Reform your own self.(...) Live with a hangman and you will never get rid of your cruelty. The miser, the swindlers, the bully, the cheat, who will do you much harm by being near you, are within you. (...) Nature has brought us forth brave of spirit and, as she has implanted in certain animals a spirit of ferocity, in others craft, in others terror, so she has gifted us with an aspiring and lofty spirit, which prompts us to seek a life of the greatest honour, and not of the greatest security»   Seneca, Epistles Freemasonry "c'est moi", and thou shalt have no other FreeMasonry before me.   I want to ask you: how many among you would have found acceptable a statement of such a kind? Am I very far away from the truth if I respond: nobody?   And in this Lodge, you are all freemasons.     A... Topic: 42 Monday September 3, 2007 - 11:46:12
Visitors: 7,366 Comments: 0 LA PRESCRIZIONE DELLO STUPORE NEI RITUALI DELLA ANTICA LIBERA ACCETTATA MURATORIA: UN LEGGERISSIMO FREMITO DI FEDE Excerpt: Il ruolo rivestito dal senso dello stupore nella codificazione dei rituali massonici è tanto negletto quanto evidente. Talmente evidente, che mi pare assumere piuttosto i connotati di una implicita, precisa e deliberata prescrizione deontologica, tramandata dalla Antica Libera Muratoria.     «Fratello Primo S. si batte alla porta del tempio da profano» - come se non lo si attendesse.   «Un profano alla porta del tempio? Potrebbe essere un nemico!» - come se la fase di delibazione del postulante non avesse già esitato nel decreto della sua iniziazione ed idoneità a bussare.   «Fategli domandare il suo nome e cognome» - come se non li si conoscesse a menadito e con tanto di carichi pendenti immacolati.   «Chi è là? Un profano che chiede di essere ricevuto Libero Muratore» - come se non lo si fosse condotto scientemente alla porta del tempio proprio con tale proposito.   «Come ha osato fare questa domanda?» - come se non fosse già avvenuta la tegolatura, e si precipitasse da un... Topic: 40 Sunday May 20, 2007 - 04:34:41
Visitors: 7,362 Comments: 0 FROM HANS DRIESCH AND ERNST HAECKEL TO FREUD: POLITICS NEGOTIATION CORRUPTION: A TRUE POLITICIAN NEVER LIES OR CORRUPTS Excerpt: Original Italian version «Politics, when it's grand politics, is always clean.» (Mikhail Gorbachev)     «Beware of that young man so full of energies. If the revolution starts again, he will get the all of us beheaded.» (Stendhal)     «It is not that persons are uncapable of pursuing their own interests: it is that too often they have complete misconceptions about them.» (Theodor Adorno) POLITICS AND PSYCHOLOGY Thoughts and actions might be the catabolites of the complex.   There is an underground reality beyond conscience, which is that of the intrapsychic complex bundles, which does not attract towards itself our thoughts orientating and warping them acc... Topic: 45 Saturday September 22, 2007 - 19:03:01
Visitors: 7,165 Comments: 1 THE INITIATORY MONOGRAM: AN INQUIRY INTO AN IMMEMORIAL MASONIC EMBLEM Excerpt: The initiatic monogram (or trigram, but from now on I consider it as a symbol meant to be handled as a whole, for the monogram is unsuitable to be intended as disaggregated) isn't but that punctiform tripartition ( .·. ) so familiar to the Freemasons and by which they perform those abbreviations apparently meant to preserve and shelter the confidential nature of initiatic terminologies. You can thereby find curious expressions, and actually widely known also outside Freemasonry, such as:     W.·.M.·. for Worshipful Master   L.·. for Lodge   G.·.L.·. for Grand Lodge     Indeed the utility of these formulations rests also on the fact they allow Brothers to talk of masonic arguments in a crowded environment without fear that eavesdropping ears may clearly comprehend the topic of the dialogue. I myself took avail in an analogous circumstance (case in point: a public bar) of the locution WM not only to the effect that I could deal with an initiatic issue without others being aware of it,... Topic: 22 Monday February 26, 2007 - 06:21:31
Visitors: 7,078 Comments: 0 Wartime Stories: The Americans In Rome. See, My Monkey: These Are The Guys We Wanted To Face Up Excerpt: There was this guy on the Italian TV, a respected anchorman, respected by all political sides too, named Corrado Augias: you know, the type of guy who is always picked to lead TV transmissions on cultural events, a dash of elegant formality, some white hair with some strange shade of sort of light blue shimmering streaks fathering light blue sparks, and a consistent amount of appreciable culture and personal education. Fine suit, traditional tie.   This TV program was on the newest books currently in the bookstores.     "Let me tell you a story before I introduce this book" Corrado Augias said.   "I want to tell you because many of you are pretty young, you lucky - but I bet what I'm going to tell you is something that, arguably, you've not been taught at school.   In Italy during the war we had really very few things. Most of the things you have now were not simply absent, they just were downright impossible even to conceive. We lacked many things, so many that the fascist government inau... Topic: 36 Monday April 9, 2007 - 12:32:40
Visitors: 6,875 Comments: 1 IL SAPERE RIVOLUZIONARIO: SAPERE POTERE RIVOLUZIONE E INIZIAZIONE Excerpt: POTERE E POTERE Il verbo è l'elemento di maggior carisma addentro all' ordine del discorso: poichè è proprio il verbo che gli conferisce tale ordine, irrompendo sulla scena del discorso per inalberarvi un dominio che gli conferisce una legge ed una direzione.     Il verbo dirompe circoscrivendo l'afflato di una sfera entro la quale effonde il suo pneuma.     E' pertanto un elemento maschile, laddove nella sintassi il suo omologo femminile è dato dalla aggettivazione: è l'aggettivo che si amalgama suasivo alla determinazione che il sostantivo connota, e coronandola di cosmesi e di fulgente bellezza, al massimo del suo prestigio sembra restare ancora un comprimario: la costola del discorso.     Se il verbo denota l' azione poichè anima il discorso, il sostantivo ne descrive piuttosto la stasi. Il sostantivo grava, il verbo solleva.     Pertanto se io concepisco la parola potere pensandola come un sostantivo, io resto immoto e non provo alcuna emozione: sono pronto a riten... Topic: 1 Sunday August 5, 2007 - 18:17:06
Visitors: 6,871 Comments: 0 AB URBE RECONDITA: ROMA REDUX Excerpt: PARTE 1 Il Tramonto Dell' Occidente, c'è già stato. Il Rex Tremendae Maiestatis delle Apocalissi e dei Requiem, ci ha già sterminati tutti.     Roma, Roma la Eterna , Roma La Millenaria , Roma «il cui passo stupiva la terra» (Cesare Pavese), soccombe in un mattino solo .     Quando nel 476 DC il barbaro Odoacre depone l'ultimo Imperatore di Roma (un uomo che portava un nome che sembrava già una risibile caricatura vezzeggiativa dei fasti augustei trascorsi: Romolo Augustolo anziché Augusto ), e lo depone senza spargere una sola goccia di sangue , egli si limita a notificare a Roma un dato di fatto evidentemente consolidatosi da un pezzo: Roma, Roma la Eterna, è ormai esangue , e si spegne inerme dando in un patetico, commovente singulto . Inizia la sincope del Grande Impasse, iniziano mille anni di medio-evo , che fagociteranno duecento generazioni.     Si dice che ciò che ha compromesso Roma, sia stata la schiavitù . Ma non occorre rifarsi a Nietzsch... Topic: 2 Tuesday January 9, 2007 - 09:52:01
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