I'm writing this weekly post, like usually on a monday, that in Australia happened today be a bank holiday (i.e. queen's birthday), I've been working the whole day in a restaurant, and as an unwritten rule on those day, the place is packed with young family coming for a meal on their day trip to the city or on their way back in town...

However I'm glad that days like this attract people from all walks of life bringing then consequently their children along, and the range of age is always wide spreading from few weeks of life to big grown~ups.

And I'm always keen to welcome their young children quickly starting to make funny face or pantomimic joke, usually very well appreciated from their parents.

Within the many I'd like to speak of this young family either not too rich nor of a low income. They stop at night to rest and feed after a long day rounding around the city on one monday part of a trip to Melbourne that brought the two little sister Annabel and Chelsea through Zoo, Aquarium, Stadium, Boat and now to the restaurant, I know this because the little 4yo Annabel told me and showed me the evidence on her handmade journal where from the Quantas airplane to the unfailing family depicted in a beautiful painting. (Each of the two had their own unique journal)

We had fun and I've listen with eager interest to all what the young talkative Annabel had to tell me and eventually the grown up managed to place the order : )

but as the picture I've presented at the beginning want's many more kids around, and truly many more were, if I'm however sure they are all good boys and girls, I cannot say it for sure, because if at the sister table watercolor and journals were towering, and did help the talkative little one to tell our stories each other, is true that on the table next to this one a much more common Nintendo DS was the central piece telling his own story to a taciturn little~player and already tired~thumb little boy who's name I ignore.

And the "DS lite" helped nevertheless as a double wall more then a dual screen... a double layer of thick wall that buried the little diner too far away to reach, for not just myself but his parents as well.

At a stage I get so confident with the young family that I shook the chair of my "short" new friend just for the sake of that and to surprise then her, move this one that burst straight away into a quite loud and authentic cry, to which I must admit we all reacted very well able to came quickly back to hour laugh.

But, then as soon as the good mood was re~establish, the little Chelsea summoned me back at her table, inquiring the reason of such behavior~! And suggesting if I was playing a certain sort of game...

..."Which yes I was" I promptly answered

At this stage she made me speechless informing me that if nobody told me yet, then I should keep in mind for the time being as a matter of fact that is Prohibited to play a game in a restaurant~!

Ahahahah she was bloody right, I'm still laughing and I should have make her speak with the young~man of the neighbor table : )

~The Man and the Lion~

A man and a lion were travelling along together
one day when they began to argue about which of them was the stronger. Just then they passed a stone state of a man strangling a lion.
'There you see,we are stronger than you,'
said the man, pointing it out to the lion.
But the lion smiled and replied:
'If lions could make statues,
you would see plenty of men under the paws of lions.'

Aesop's fable VI century BC.

I wouldn't like to sounds rhetorical but I think that in this old vignette we could reflect our back to the future life, where what has been pubblished or rather told us is what became regarded as real and trustworthy but it doesn't means that is.

So became crucial to search information properly on the first place, share them, and then say what we think about that. In doing so we must only have to learn how to communicate and do it quickly, I'm always amazed and frustrated in realizing how my time his running out.

I pretend to be a player and not just an, user. I chose to play a role and then accept the event of a possible lost, but I PERENTORIAMENTE refuse to be just an user.
I'm now yes speaking about the big picture of the news, where I try to read and filter what the mass media is try to sell me, but at the same time I've learned to better use my time with the people around me, pulling out what I think and doing my best in listening.

A handy example reading whatever today newspaper around the world is surely enough the so deadly swine flu that so many people are scare of, epidemic that probably does exist but has grown at least dozen of time bigger then it should be, because is of somebody interest in doing so. Is a very long list indeed of people that are becoming more and more rich on putting citizens on alert, and you will find always space on the first page for news that spread panic and fear, but not that often when is the moment to call those very same news back.

Now that I've remarked again my point of view on this issue so much important for me I rather close the laptop, and spend the rest of this day with my friends.

"Losing a game, means that you were on the pitch fighting to win it"

What my last post meant (to me : ) is simply that now days we have reached a momentum when the most advanced communication tool available match to be the most popular as well.
Internet allowed me to publish and share my thought at once, ready to be read, mocked, criticized, but still listen.

Beppe Grillo who's suppose to be just an italian Comedian and has been since ages banned from any TV show especially if live: He's the foremost example of what this media can accomplished, Beppe speak every single day through his Blog to an audience of millions that chose to read, comment and then lively research on their own the sources of what has been debated.
When the status quo wanted him turn down to MUTE. But here he's speaking in many languages every days~!

This is democracy, to its greatest level and it's easy and free. The big point now, the huge difference between yesterday and todays it's that all this is stream~live and if the boundless speed let us cope whatever distance separate the users from the fact or just from the narrator, there is something even more important that make the gap with the past deeper, and it's intrinsic of the very nature of this media...

That is the Two~ways (CHOICE) against just One~way (DICTATION)

If the TV of my childhood taught me what was cool (MTV uber allen) or what was wrong (or apparently so), I would sit in front of the screen like millions and millions more, growing up listening from this side what was happening around me, giving the impression of good information or entertainment.

But was given to me, what was put around me, all around me was a circle, a circle of option scarcely wide enough to let me breath, because what we had was One~Way stream with no possibly way to interchange the process. No hope to stand into a different side, no hope to believe in something else or rather to NOT believe.

The newspaper before and the TV have brought us a tailored information which could had sounded wide but was and still his pretty tight and just make~up ready to be used news, to somebody else purpose, to somebody else interest.

Again now, because of the Two~Way process we can say what we really think, Blog, e-mail, comment, tag, video, Social Network, mobile phone, online community, voip, are all but different dress for the same figure or language.

I do firmly believe in all this and what I think, what I'm concerned about, what actually fright me to the bone it's that we have such power, such potentially available that first of all we don't even realize so, and then sadly when we come to use such tool, all we can do is to forward a bloody chain~mail, spend hours on a stupid test, watch again and again the same funny video, sport results or the last season hot young lady, and slowly most of us without even realizing are loosing an opportunity that his STILL available and of limitless power.

So again the message is to abruptly shift from the one to the two~ways system, because not doing so would mean to go reverse instead of forward.

26th of April of this year, just about 3 weeks ago Edouard was born, turning me in an uncle~! This didn't happen in Australia, where I'm living at the moment or even in Italy where our family lives, but in Canada, Montreal, where he born surrended by people who already love him, and were long waiting for him to come~!

But for as many were ready to hugh him, as many were far apart, like me for instance. Anyhow few hours later a text message travel all the way across half the world and pingponging from country to homes finally reach my mobile phone making me aware of the blessed event.

I felt and still feel quite sorry I won't be able to meet my nephew for many more months to come, and if is true I won't hugh him for now it's a fact that just few hours after his first angry scream I was already able to admire his pictures just logging into my~facebook and even before ever speak since the birth with my brother or Caroline I found myself watching a video on Youtube celebrating Edouard first 48h.

Then because I've linked the video immediately after on My homepage, thousands of more people connected through various accounts could became aware of what had just happen, and virtually join me.

So I'm entitled to say that when my nephew made his debut in this old world with as mush vehemence he made a second one in the new one that only exist online which doesn't belong to him or neither to me but that everyday more and more skim his border from the one on this side of the window.

Now even if I must admit to be highly addict to the real~live~life and I hardly can imagine myself without a mobile phone, there`s been a day not much long ago when this was not true, when things were running slower but still pretty much in the same direction. My generation has grown up without those tool and then, found itself a shortcut to boost what we normally were used to do or eventually we would do even without.
I'd like to remark ~eventually~ without because could you imagine yourself seeking for a job without internet~? Or starting a relationship and being put in the situation when you canNot phone your partner~? Do you actually have anymore a partner if you don't specify that on your social~network~profile~? How do you relate now days to somebody that was your friend once until you had a fall out~?

If the answer is to removing him or her from your friend list, cutting this person out of your virtual social network, does that means you will not speak with together anymore when you bump into each other in real life~?

So for my generation those tools have been very useful indeed on the first place, but they soon became important as much as the message they are carrying and like the old and still unbeaten pen if used in the wrong way can be very very dangerous.

My question is what does wait tomorrow the generation that like my little family member has just born online and will not have any memory of a past without an everyday and everywhere full on connection~?
I can see and fear social networks growing much beyond today level and to play a prime~time role on our real~time~life.
I fear that we may interact just through social networks, opening the door to a world where whoever and whatever is cut off of the net doesn't exist anymore.
So Edouard I simply wish you what I do wish to myself, that is:
Be able to get the most out of those tools to express ourself, because they are powerful and could help us to reach millions in a twinkle, but at the same time never stop to relate to people on real life and don't forget to live yours.

A presto.

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like;
and I like less then half of you half as well as you deserve"

This is how Bilbo Baggins start his farewell speach at his birthday party in "The Lord Of The Rings" and in spite of not being one of the most exciting moment of the saga is one that I always remember and really liked since I've first red the book as a teenager.

I was use to find it quite amusing and I still do, and if is still true that the story started way before, this sad farewell mark itself a new start if not the real one.
It's therefore quite important.

EEBBENE, like Bilbo, i've recently developed a funny feeling that could be quoted INCISO something like that:

"I remember not half of the thought that bump into my mind;
I start not half of what happen I do remember;
I then manage to succeed not half of what I then start."

As i felt for BUON VECCHIO Bilbo I feel now for myself, a bit sad and a bit amused.
But just like in the book where the speech was just a new beginning, lets' start again to post on this blog, ending this too long silence.
And hopefully will turn out to help me in not forget whatever potentially bump in my mind or where I bang my head in.

H.a.IV.s.IV

An eagle build a nest on a tree, and hatched out some eaglets. And a wild sow brought her litter under the tree.

The eagle used to fly off after her prey, and bring it back to her young. And the sow rooted around the tree and hunted in the woods, and when night came she would bring her young something to eat.

And the eagle and the sow lived in neighborly fashion. And a grimalkin laid her plans to destroy the eaglets and the little sucking pigs. She went to the eagle, and said:

"Eagle, you had better not fly very far away. Beware of the sow; she is planning an evil design.
She is going to undermine the roots of the tree. You see she is rooting all the time."

Then the grimalkin went to the sow and said:

"Sow, you have not a good neighbor. Last evening I heard the eagle saying to her eaglets:
'My dear little eaglets, I am going to treat you to a nice little pig. Just as soon as the sow is gone, I will bring you a little young sucking pig.' "

From that time the eagle ceased to fly out after prey, and the sow did not go any more into the forest. The eaglets and the young pigs perished of starvation and grimalkin feasted on them.

Fables, Tolstoy.

Freedom to blog means freedom to think!
I can't believe that in Italy with no shame at all, and actually with a hint of proud our politician are ready to endorse a law that will bound the freedom of speach.

What does scare me on top of that is to know that the hand which is trying to narrow our blogs and somewhere try to tax us even before any mere profit has been made is the very same one which fork out hundreds of milions every year to support the already rich Newspaper cosporation!

And again with stile very much from this government "add insult to the injury" those pseudo politician, mask everything as an act of glory!

NO COMMENT! Send your photo here.