Of jealousy and other ailments

No matter how relaxed you are with your partner, or ex-partner, hanging out with other people they may develop feelings for or start a relationship with, there comes a time when the idea eats at you.  There.  I’ve said it. On average I’ve always been open minded and as long as I wasn’t cheated on …

The rules of fire

Is neutrality a good thing?  A very eloquent friend claims his neutrality as the freedom not to judge and only take the best of people.  He says he prefers to look at life from a perspective of gain and personal growth, rather than with the need of cutting out people, places and situations just because …

Move over Marie Kondo: the ultimate list for finding inner peace.

Making lists helps us put order in our thoughts, and many of us make lists even when they are unnecessary. The protagonist from Caos Calmo (an Italian and French production, if you haven’t watched it do it) makes lists to remember things about his wife, who has passed away, leaving him alone with a seven …

How a podcast about Lyndon Johnson healed my broken heart

At all time low in my life I got into the car and started listening to an Italian podcast about American politics.  Not that, in any other emotional context I would have cared about what Italians say about American politics, but I was on my way to a meeting and felt that my recent heartbreak, paired …

Why an Italian atheist should thank France for the burkini affair

Yes, it's highly uncomfortable to swim in what basically feels like a bag of fabric that drags you to the bottom.  Possibly unsafe too.  Also, it defies the purpose of going to the beach... freedom, sun on your skin, getting tanned, dusting sand off with a hand. Then there's the feminist argument: all women should …

The red line that connects Cologne and Nauru

The cases of rape and abuse perpetrated by authorities go a long way back and have been/are being most often reported for what they are: the abuse from a person in a condition of superior power.  Is this a biased view?  Perhaps.  But in most cases it is correct.  The case of Daniel Holtzclaw, is the …

Il facile parallelo tra due bravi ragazzi – e ci dimentichiamo di nuovo di Giovanni Lo Porto.

Questo post lo scrivo in Italiano.  Perche' serve.  Almeno a me. In seguito al ritrovamento del cadavere di Giulio Regeni, morto in evidenti circostanze tragiche, Repubblica pubblica un'intervista al fratello di Valeria Solesin, dottoranda uccisa al Bataclan il 13 novembre 2015. Nell'articolo Alessandra Borella riporta le parole di Dario Solesin quasi ad azzardare un parallelo …

Parents: make sure your children get an education. Even if the alternative is becoming a reality show star!

Although I am perfectly aware that with two Russian planes shot down in a week, an ongoing war in Israel and the non-stop migrant flow in the now freezing waters of the Mediterranean, this is a small thing, but I think that you can never be too busy or overwhelmed with bad news to let …

Kunduz: the pathetic response of all of those who should have extended an apology rather than a justification

On the 3rd of October 2015, for a whole hour, the hospital of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) was bombed.  12 MSF staff died, 10 patients died and 24 people are unaccounted for. All I have heard in the past eight days has been a bland excuse for what happened: at first it wasn't …

Saudi Arabia: the land of plenty (for the few)

I just had an interesting interaction with two Italian bloggers who live in the Gulf (one of them in Saudi Arabia).  They mostly write about their families, the international schools their children go to, the play dates, the quiz nights, all the usual things expats use to fill their days (I do it too, so …