The innovation of the electronic vote, used during the referendum on the regional self-government of Lombardy described from the inside: a chief electoral officer, our contributor, tells us about his experience, about pros and cons of the new system and, in particular, about the secrets of the new equipment compared to the “traditional” one, made of pencil and ballot paper.
The e-voting in Lombardy during the referendum of 22nd
October was a national premiere. In the end the experiment had both positive and
negative sides. On Saturday (the polling station is usually set up the
afternoon before the election), the greatest problems were faced at those
electoral divisions that had been chosen to use both tablets and audikits.
Audikits are the printers, connected with the cabins, that print the result of
the election at the closing time. In some cases the members of the polling
station finished working late at night, some even at 11 pm, because the
audikits weren’t working well. Apparently the technicians, young people
selected by a temping agency, weren’t able to solve the problems, because they
didn’t receive adequate training. On Saturday, minor problems were posed by the
turning on and the connection of the tablets as well –which, in my opinion,
could have been already inside the cabins- and with the usual operations of the
setting up of the polling station. Of course, detailed information was
available online (videos, handbooks, etc.), but in case of problems with the
voting machines after the turning on and the diagnostics, those technicians
would have had a hard time. This means that some have actually run the risk of
blocking the operations.
In
the end the counters of the voting machines, where USB keys (to register the
votes) had been connected, had to be fastened, and a report had to be written
up, describing all of the things included in the boxes with the tablets. The
operations required by the voting machines weren’t very difficult, in my
opinion, but they were so many, that, I guess, they gave more than one chief
electoral officer a headache.
On
Sunday, there were no major problems, except for a few elderly people who asked
for help on how to cast their vote (“I can’t read”, “I don’t know what to do”).
Actually,
the turnout at the polls was quite low (38.34% in the whole region, only 31% in
the metropolitan area of Milan), so it’s impossible to know exactly if there
would be greater difficulties during more important elections (general
elections, local elections).
Something
can be said about the registration methods for those who had just voted, since
it wasn’t necessary to show the voter ID card but only the ID card. This time,
a receipt had to be filled in, which contained the personal data of the voter
(name, surname, date of birth, number of the electoral division).
That
operation took longer than the usual one, which only required the number of the
Voter ID card to be transcribed into a special register. Eventually, waiting
for the poll stations to return the USB keys caused greater inconveniences in
big cities like Milan, while in smaller ones it didn’t take long.
Finally,
some things have to improve, of course, first of all the restitution of the USB
keys in Milan, thus the delay in communicating the results, and the filling in
of the receipts. But the system has some strong points as well, such as the
instant count and the impossibility for the party list representatives to
question votes during the scrutiny.
BEIJING, WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
Our correspondent has been to Beijing recently: whirling changes of China’s millenary capital city, between tradition and modernity, observed directly.
“China is close”. This is the most often used motto about this huge Asian country.
We can talk about closeness because of the many Chinese rooted in the Italian peninsula and because the “Middle Kingdom” (so Chinese call their country) reached economic development and widespread welfare that made the urban population live like us Westerners. This can be easily understood, when travelling to Beijing, by looking for the first time at the skyline of the capital city, where huge buildings stand, as tall as the ones in the most important European and American towns or taller. Symbolic places of the city are huge too: Tiananmen Square, the Temple of Confucius, the Lama Temple (popular name of the Yonghe Temple), the Temple of Heaven and other ancient sacred buildings, as well as the Great Wall, which can be reached faster at Mutianyu, 70 km away from Beijing. Some of these famous attractions require several hours of sightseeing but the deep differences between these places and those of our towns are immediately sensed. Most of these monuments, especially the holy ones, follow particular architectonic patterns which differ from the western ones. As said, except for a few small pockets of poverty, limited to a few beggars along the streets and the narrow alleys of the downtown (Hutong), where people still have to use public toilets, people in Beijing live the Western way.
When using the underground, for example, it’s easy to notice that a part of the passengers are constantly using their phone, exactly as it regularly happens on public transport in Milan. The underground in Beijing is technological and cheap, it’s easy to buy tickets, differently than in our main towns, where it’s difficult to understand prices you need at vending machines. Lastly some peculiarities of Chinese food have to be mentioned: local dishes are, besides rice, the roast duck, whose meat is similar to chicken, and other animals which we’d never imagine we could eat, such as scorpions, grasshoppers or cockroaches, even if the Chinese don’t eat them a lot; most often western tourists want to try new tastes. Restaurants in Beijing, moreover, are cheaper than Italian ones. In well-known places it’s quite easy to spend 10 or 11 euro per person. Last but not least, the helpfulness of the Chinese has to be underlined: they’re always ready to help you when you ask for information, even if they only speak Mandarin and don’t speak English. Friendliness and hospitality, however, have been noble distinguishing features of the Chinese for centuries.
The role and influence of mass media nowadays: watch your step!
One of the most remarkable achievements and innovations of our time is that we can benefit from live updates coming from all over the world by clicking on our phone while sitting on our sofa or in the Subway. Our society has to consume everything at the speed of light (news, but also fads, habits, songs, etc.) so, as unavoidable consequence, there is a huge mass media network that spreads new things and trends, reaching people as quickly as possible not only to inform them, but also to guide their way of thinking and behaving. In connection with this, the aphorism of the media mogul Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles’ masterpiece “Citizen Kane” (1941) is well known to the public: “I’m an authority on what people will think. Heh. The newspapers for example. I run several newspapers between here and San Francisco”. After 75 years it all seems obviously a lot more complicated and amplified.
Now, like and even more than then, there’s an always more urgent and inevitable need to do things in record time, considering the tight competition among television networks, websites, radio stations and newspapers to catch readers and listeners. But the spreading of news should be careful as well as immediate, without the speed damaging the truthfulness and accuracy or, even, good sense. In fact, if basic ethical rules of information are not respected because they are sacrificed to the logic of the audience, the result is that we are daily overwhelmed with an outrageous amount of information and don’t know, as public opinion, which source we should rely on anymore to give a certain degree of reliability to what we read or listen to. Basically, the media “overdose” we daily take drastically and inevitably affects the quality of correct information. Being more informed doesn’t automatically mean being better informed. It could sound like a paradox, but it isn’t. Linked to the superficiality of mass media is the question of privacy: minors, even kids, improperly used in commercials or unlimited advertising campaigns, which are sometimes resumed and relaunched on newspapers, networks, internet without any protection or filter. But not only kids. On this point, the first example that comes to mind, since it is linked to current events, is the case of the two Italian policemen who stopped and killed, at Sesto San Giovanni, the 24-year-old author of the massacre at the Berlin Christmas market. We saw the speed with which faces and names of the policemen were made public immediately after the fact, without any care about possible future repercussions on these people’s lives. The reason is easy to say: the manhunt sparked off by the investigators and emphasised by the media in the days after the attack gave rise to an almost hysterical delirium in the circus of national media at the moment of the “neutralization” of the person in question. However they were dealing with a member of the IS, not with general criminals. To tell the truth, members of the institutions were the first to reveal the identity of the policemen, so, we can say, the damage was already done. But the “information army” immediately seized the opportunity and published photos of these two people as well as things about their private life.
Last but not least, riding the wave of fears instead of controlling emotions or, even worse, giving rise to actual awkward and unwarranted mass panic are often the regrettable “side effects” of this hypertrophy of media. They fight against one another on the ground of sensationalism and words meant to impress. Here the logic of show business meets the one of the audience, and things come full circle, departing from the compliance with the ethical rules of the profession of a journalist, as well as good sense.
Italy is not a country made for young people (anymore)
"Lucky you, young people: you’ll have more than we have and more than your forefathers had!”: we’ve heard this refrain so many times from our grandparents and, in general, from elderly people only until 10 years ago! Our generation should have been the lucky one, with better prospects, better opportunities, initial wages, protection, etc. The reality we face every day in Italy, though, doesn’t correspond to this idyllic picture: digital revolution, the so-called new economy and its high-tech trade were not enough to guarantee growing employment and welfare, pace all those mass media that still persist in affirming the opposite. Last report from Caritas confirms that too: it states clearly that poverty is inversely proportional to the growth of the age. In other words: the younger you are, the less privileged you are. But the worst thing is that this course is bound to grow in the future. As if that wasn’t enough, the figures from the pastoral body of CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference) point out another very revealing thing: most of those who ask for help to help centers of the Catholic Church are still the foreigners (57,2%), but, against the current national trend, in Southern Italy Italian citizens ask for help more often than the immigrants. In fact in this part of the Italian Peninsula 66,6% of those who go to Caritas were born in Italy. Italy: an always poorer and unequal country. Native people and immigrants seem to share the same fate of precariousness and uncertainty. This is not the best encouragement to provide for social mobility and reshuffle in the ruling class. Italy, supposing that it has ever been one, is not a country for young people anymore.
ITALIAN OPERA HOUSES: A SYSTEM THAT DOESN'T WORK
Italian opera houses: no money to go on. In fact, only three opera
houses in Italy could balance the budget or make a profit last year: world famous "La Scala" of Milan, the "Teatro Regio" of Turin and "La Fenice" of Venice. Why are all the
other opera institutions, among which the prestigious names of the "San Carlo" of
Naples, the "Teatro Comunale" of Bologna, the "Teatro Regio" of Parma, the "Carlo
Felice" of Genoa, the "Petruzzelli" of Bari and others, in trouble? There are
several reasons: on the one hand the cuts the Ministry of National Heritage and
Culture made to the financing of the opera institutions, on the other hand other factors can
affect this crisis of the Italian opera houses. In 2016, for example, the Ministry of
National Heritage and Culture earmarked 183 million euro for the first 14 opera
houses, a smaller sum than the 191 million of 2011. Suffice it to say that the
opening show of the opera season of the "Carlo Felice" of Genoa (“La Rondine” by
Puccini), scheduled on November 9th, 2016, wasn’t performed. The
institution of the opera house in Liguria notified that the show was cancelled
due to the non-allocation of funds in support of cultural institutions provided
for by the Bray law (minister of National Heritage and Culture during the Letta
Government), because of several bureaucratic obstacles. The wording of the law
provided for a funding of 13 million euro for the Carlo Felice, so the pedantry
of Italian legislation had an hand in it this time too. Some think the economic
management of opera houses should follow the American model, which is centred
on the private sponsoring. This theory is supported by the cases of "La Scala" and the "Teatro Regio" of Turin, exactly two of the opera houses without a debit
balance, who can count important companies or private banks among their sponsors
(Finmeccanica, Intesa Sanpaolo, etc.). Among the other factors that affect the
crisis of the Italian opera houses there is, for example, the exorbitant price
of the tickets: for a seat in the stalls of the "San Carlo" of Naples you have to
pay between 80 and 100 euro, almost 90 at the "Carlo Felice". The price of the tickets should be
cut down because this would increase the number of the spectators; the use of
the already mentioned American model, in addition to the financing of the
Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, would avoid a reduction of the
receipts. It would be necessary to make young people always more
interested in opera and classical music in general. School and mass media
should enhance this important cultural field, so that opera houses don’t stay
empty in the next years.
A journey in the Ancient Palestine
Our
correspondent is just back from his trip to the Holy Land: here his
enthusiastic impressions!
A place
that is attracting and disturbing
at the same time: the Holy Land. We know the political problems of the area,
but the game is worth the candle. Jerusalem, the capital of Israel but claimed
by the Palestinian national authority, has monuments linked to the history of
the three main monotheistic religions (Hebraism, Christianity and Islam). Let’s
just think of the old part of the town and all of the places linked to the story of Christ and the Virgin (the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, the Tomb of the Virgin Mary) or of the Western Wall, with
Hebrews praying on the Holy Scriptures, or of the Esplanade of the Mosques, a
part of the town which is sacred both to the Muslims and the Christians. There
Jesus sent the merchants away from the temple. Not far from Jerusalem is
Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, that belongs to the Palestinian authority
and is kept apart by an imposing wall, with the Church of the Nativity and the
Chapel of the Milk Grotto. But there are a lot of other attracting places. On the outskirts of Jerusalem is the Dead Sea, with
his mild water, located at 400 m below sea level, summer tourist resort with
its imposing hotels and holiday villages. Then Jaffa, seaside resort in the
metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, for some reason similar to Jerusalem. Along its
roads you can see Christian churches and a mosque and ancient buildings from
different periods. In the end a few words about Tel Aviv, the economic capital
of Israel and an ultramodern city with a skyline made of skyscrapers, also on
the shores, that make this coast similar to the shores of Copacabana at Rio de
Janeiro or to the Costa del Sol in Spain. Of course, as said at the beginning,
the tension between Israelis and Palestinians is tangible and the employment of
the police of Israel and the surveillance cameras is imposing, in order to
prevent any possible attacks. But, sometimes, political conflicts can be
overcome by tourism: “business is business” . For example, in the Islamic
quarters of the old part of the town you can find shops selling objects that
are sacred to the Hebrews (yarmulke, menorah, etc). A trip to the main places
of the Ancient Palestine, point of contact of West and East and meeting place
of three religions, leaves, as inheritance, the charm of these territories,
overflowing with history with all of their contradictions and divisions that
persist nowadays. Divisions that, we hope, can be eventually overcome in the
near future.
Diary of an Italian Escort
We interviewed Rita, an italian escort who edits her personal Blog http://escortbbw.blogspot.it/, in which she writes freely her thoughts, reflections and life experiences:
1) Your blog looks like that of an italian “pretty woman”. Only mere need of expressing
your thoughts or also a kind of advertising?
The blog started 6 years
ago, when bbw or curvy were alien ideas no one even dared to think about, so the first astonished
one was me and I had to tell somebody. Then through force of circumstances I
had to add my contact because I couldn’t answer all of the private
messages I received. I haven’t got any commercial result done through the blog
but I met people I still have a deep-rooted
friendship with.
2) A lot has been said
lately about “baby escorts”. What makes a teen follow this path, in your
opinion? Just the wish for a designer item, smartphone, etc?
My daughter is the same
age as these girls and what I’ve noticed is that these kids have an
unrestrained need to pose as adults. My girlfriends and I, when we were 14,
used to mess up in the kitchen imitating our mothers’ recipes or we were proud
that we could clean a whole living room by ourselves; maybe nowadays there’s a
different example to follow. Fortunately I am a sound “jeans-and-sweater” kind
of mum in my private life, who buys sewing magazines, and my daughter’s
teachers reproach me for not making my daughter come out of her shell, but
there’s a time for everything and I don’t think it’s time for opening that
shell yet.
3) In your posts I read
you have a job. Did you begin your second life as an escort to supplement your
salary or just to be able to afford that “something more”?
To be honest I began this
activity without believing in it. Since I am a bbw I just wanted to have a man
who desired me for my body so much that he had to pay me. Then everything went
beyond all expectations and I admit I settled beyond what my job would have let
me until retirement.
4) In your blog you tell
about your experiences with your customers truly but also ironically, laying
bare their weaknesses. Are they readers of your blog too? What do they think when they read your comments?
The post is
generally written using different names and maybe different places and spots
from the one where the meeting took place. I sometimes write a draft and send
it to them per mail asking for their permission to publish it, sometimes they
ask me not to post it and everything is deleted.
5) How does
your profession as an escort affect your interpersonal relations and love life?
I can say
nobody has ever even suspected that I might be an escort, they maybe catch me
too prepared during talks about sex sometimes. Love and family life has been
sacrificed for a while because I was always hiding, with my second phone always
ringing, or I was gone for a couple of hours and nobody knew where I was. Then
I realized I was undoing my life of a normal woman so I released my grip a lot.
6) Your blog
begins with “A BBW escort is that kind of woman lots of men mock in their
respectable talks, but love cuddling in their forbidden games”. How do you feel
when these men come to you? A kind of revenge?
Of course! Everything
started from this.
7) In other
countries prostitution is legalized and regulated. What if Italy opened
brothels again or built dedicated districts?
Italy isn’t
able to respect the workers in general, there’s a lot of illegal work and
sweated labour in every field, so making prostitution legal would mean opening
a commercial business to exploit women. Only a few would change from what now
happens on the roads, they would invoice 3 customers but the woman would be
forced to have 10 ones anyway.
8) What kind
of relationship do you have with your customers? What kind of people turn to
you?
Men of ages
between 25 and 40, usually married or engaged, who don’t lack sex but that
girlfriend with whom they can talk about certain things or put some fantasies
into effect. They are men who are looking for a casual affair but don’t want to
have a lover who asks for more after a couple of months, so they prefer to pay
you, also once a week, without you pretending anything from that relationship.
Obviously they love large-sized bodies.
9) Are you
ever afraid something could happen to you? Which was the weirdest thing you
were requested of?
When somebody
on the phone doesn’t convince me, I say a very high price so they give up, or I
say I’m not in Puglia at the moment. However I’ve never met people who scared
me. The weirdest request came from a gay couple who kept me there like a
doll looking at their effusions.
10) In every
field Italy meets strong competition from Eastern Europe and China. How’s the
competition of girls from other countries?
Competition
for me doesn’t exist, because these girls work on quantity, they have an
industry of sex and, if I can use this word, they gather that kind of customers
who just need to empty out and go away. And, if there weren’t these girls
gathering this kind of men, it would be a problem.
11) Everybody
can see the economic crisis is gripping our country. How does this affect your
life as an escort in terms of number of customers and prices?
A lot of my
customers are experiencing the crisis, some receive redundancy payment, or, in worse
cases, have been fired or have closed their business. For sure some of them
will have turned to the foreigners and lots of them come less often. Obviously
there are those who ask for a reduction or a meeting for free in the name of
the old friendship, but I prefer to give up rather than sell myself off. I’ve
already had a lot from these people and I prefer to keep a good memory of them
rather than bringing it to an end in a miserable way.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento