Weekly Review - Cruising Hall

Officials in Malden, Massachusetts, were uncertain what to do about a city-hall bathroom after a gay website said the bathroom was a good spot for cruising.[Boston Herald]

Weekly Review, Harper's Magazine, 28 febbraio 2006

Weekly Review - Cave Nun

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo declared emergency rule after an attempted coup by several politicians, military officers, and a former nun.[Reuters]

Weekly Review, Harper's Magazine, 28 febbraio 2006

Este lugar, sabes, está vacío sin ti

"Keith Richards, a su vez, cantó Empty whitout you ("este lugar, sabes, está vacío sin ti''), aunque todo el mundo hubiese querido oírle aquellos versos de "ey, quiero decirte por principio que soy el peor muchacho que debería estar contigo", pero de todos modos la muchedumbre lo acarició con sus aplausos en premio a su grandísima consecuencia."

Che bello leggere, su La Jornada, del concerto dei Rolling Stones a Mexico, D.F.

Los Rolling Stones se reivindican con México, La Jornada, Jaime Aviles, lunes 27 de febrero de 2006

Right turn on red

Per un attimo ho dimenticato che esiste Google.

Alvy Singer: "I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light".(Memorable Quotes from Annie Hall, 1977)

Full circle

Per Woody Allen (in quale film? non ricordo), l'unico dettaglio degno di nota della California è che lì puoi voltare a destra anche col semaforo rosso (ora anche nello stato di New York, ma un tempo no).

Per me, automobilisticamente parlando, il vago situazionismo dei "four way stop": in quattro si ha lo stop, parte chi arriva prima, se due auto arrivano insieme si genera una certa ambiguità.

Ora, racconta il L.A. Times di oggi, stanno diventando di moda anche là le rotatorie. Personalmente trovo fastidiosa questa globalizzazione dei dettagli.

"A trip to Long Beach might turn up two artifacts dating to the 1930s that say something about the technology of that era. One is the Queen Mary, an Art Deco masterpiece. The other is the Los Alamitos Traffic Circle on Pacific Coast Highway."

Traffic circles, like giant ocean liners, are back in vogue. Safety advocates tout circles for reducing accidents and moving traffic more efficiently than stop signs or signals. But American motorists are skeptical about circles, and many don't know how to drive them.

What a brilliant, lousy idea looks like, Ralph Vartabedian, 22 febbraio 2006

СП по обогащению урана

Se andrà in porto, l'accordo tra Russia e Iran per creare una società mista che si prenda in carico, in territorio russo, dell'arricchimento dell'uranio iraniano, rappresenterà una notevole vittoria per la diplomazia russa.

"Россия и Иран достигли принципиального соглашения о создании совместного предприятия по обогащению урана на территории России."

[...] "По словам руководителя Росатома Сергея Кириенко, почти не осталось проблем технического, организационного и финансового характера для создания СП по обогащению урана для Ирана. Вместе с тем он напомнил, что создание СП - "это лишь один из элементов решения ядерной проблемы Ирана".

Вести, 26 febbraio 2006

Desert Sturm

L. Paul Bremer III ha scritto un libro di memorie: "My Year in Iraq". A me era sempre sembrato l'uomo sbagliato nel posto sbagliato.

"For a memoir, this is a remarkably unreflective book. The aides gathered around President Bush are known for their loyalty; Bremer's case seems to be one where fealty to his superiors — or a desire to keep his job — overtook the needs of Americans and Iraqis on the ground".

Desert Sturm, Review by DEXTER FILKINS, The New York Times, 26 febbraio 2006

Concentrar la gestión importadora

Come gestisce il commercio estero Cuba? In modo centralizzato, con centralizzazione crescente.

"El titular del MINCEX comentó que la reorganizació emprendida en ese ministerio ha posibilitado concentrar la gestión importadora en un grupo de empresas, con lo cual se consiguen mejores precios, más favorables condiciones de pago y líneas de crédito y se rebajan los gastos administrativos en la compra para el cliente final. De 192 entidades facultadas para importar en el 2001, el número se redujo a 87, apuntó".

"Aclaró que esta tendencia a la centralización en la importación no es exclusiva de Cuba, pues ocurre a escala internacional, donde grandes compañías asumen la compra y venta de mercancías toda vez que cuando son adquiridas grandes partidas de un producto se obtienen mejores precios".

Ancora han l'idea dell'"import substitution":

"Señaló que para aumentar la participación de los proveedores nacionales y sustituir importaciones, se han implantado diversos mecanismos, entre los cuales aparece la protección arancelaria para los productos con competitividad en el mercado nacional".

Crecimiento de exportaciones compensa compras en el exterior, Gramma, 23 febbraio 2006

Rivoluzione in Nord Corea

E ufficiale: dopo anni e anni di studi, il Nord Corea ha optato per gli esami "multiple choice", al posto delle vecchie domande aperte. Interessante la motivazione: essendo più rapida la riposta, lo studente può rispondere a più quesiti, e in questo modo la valutazione dipende meno dal caso. A quando "mostra e dimostra"? (solo i conoscitori di Charlie Brown possono capire)

"By the former method, a student should solve the examination question advanced in the form of treatise and write it down from beginning to the end. But by the new one, the examinee should select the correct answer among various given answers or fill the blank points with proper letters or marks. The new one is aimed at making students display their intelligence to the full by applying their knowledge in a comprehensive way."

New Exam Method Introduced in Middle Schools, Korean News, 22 febbraio 2006

Tetti

Una delle tante cose che non capirò mai della Russia è perché là vi siano così tanti crolli di tetti.

Va bene la neve, ma la neve c'é tutti gli anni. Questa volta, al mercato Бауманского di Mosca, 13 morti.

При обрушении крыши в Москве погибли не менее 13 человек, Вести, 23 febbraio 2006.

Summers si è dimesso

Alla fine ha gettato la spugna. Bella l'immagine della "seconda" firma sulle banconote.

His well-known desire to change Harvard's culture, which he saw as complacent, was accompanied by slights to some faculty members and missteps like his statement last year that women might lack an intrinsic aptitude for math and science.

Dr. Summers was more successful with students, who thrilled to the sight of the president's showing up at dances and study breaks, and signing dollar bills that bore his signature as Treasury secretary. In a weekend poll by The Harvard Crimson, the student daily, undergraduates backed him three to one.

Dr. Summers also offended some with what many saw as a style more suited to Washington than to Cambridge. He was driven in a black limousine with a license plate reading "1636," the year of Harvard's founding; Dr. Bok, by contrast, had driven his own Volkswagen bus. And Dr. Summers hired his own public relations adviser, who had worked for Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain; she has since departed.

President of Harvard Resigns, Ending Stormy 5-Year Tenure, ALAN FINDER, PATRICK D. HEALY and KATE ZERNIKE, The New York Times, 22 febbraio 2006

Proprio in Texas?

"All the 5 billion people on the earth could live in the state of Texas in single-family homes with front and back yards and be fed by production in the rest of the United States."

The Kingdom Come, Harper's Magazine, febbraio 2005

E i francesi che s'incazzano, che le balle ancor gli girano..

Quando i francesi fan casino, dà un po' di gusto, no?

"Les tribulations de l'ancien porte-avions Clemenceau ne se sont pas achevées avec la décision de le rapatrier en France. En panne de contrat de remorquage, le navire n'avait toujours pas pris le chemin du retour vers Brest, vendredi 17 février, où il sera accueilli, dans quelque trois mois, avec des sentiments mêlés. Avec émotion par les marins qui ont servi à son bord, mais sans plaisir par le maire (PS), François Cuillandre, qui refuse la perspective de voir "la carcasse du Clemenceau pourrir dans un coin de la rade de Brest pendant un temps indéterminé".

Les tribulations du "Clemenceau" ne font que commencer, Laurent Zecchini, Le Monde, 19 febbraio 2006

XX съезд

Il XX Congresso - XX съезд - 50 anni fa. La notte del 25 febbraio 1956, in seduta a porte chiuse, Хрущёв lesse le sue tesi sul "culto della personalità e le sue conseguenze".

В ночь на 25 февраля на закрытом заседании съезда Хрущёв прочитал знаменитый доклад «О культе личности и его последствиях». Речь шла о Сталине, на которого и повесили весь негатив предыдущей истории СССР, прежде всего массовые репрессии.

Номенклатурные сатурналии, Литературная газета, febbraio 2006

Weekly Review - Sign this, sign that

Author Margaret Atwood was planning to avoid book tours by signing books via remote-controlled robot

Weekly Review, 21 febbraio 2006