Blunt and Disorderly

RSS Feed Homepage

The Next Revolution
2008-01-25 15:33:00
Last week I was telling a friend of mine that if it weren’t for the fact that Italy is a democracy, there would be a revolution. The issues facing the country are deep and permeate the whole of society. They reach far back in history and cannot be summarised easily. There is the crisis of refuse collection in southern Italy which reaches far back to the re-creation of the mafia near the end of
More About: Revolution

Dating - second episode
2008-01-22 14:26:00
This dating thing is not going too well. The first time I logged on I felt really awkward. Most people don't write much. Some are overconfident, some try not to undersell themselves by adding 'my friends say', some stick to plain descriptions and some paint a rather boring picture. You end up looking at a series of photos, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I cannot look at people as if I
More About: Dating , Episode

smile
2008-01-21 13:47:00
From a colleague's email: A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for cancer research?" I said, "All right, but we won't get much done." - Jimmy Carr
More About: Smile

The information market
2008-01-21 08:10:00
Sometimes I come across rather frightening blogs where the author twists the information, has no regard for objectivity, historicity and is filled with paranoid propaganda. The sad aspect of this is that the authors of such blogs/sites and many of their readers believe their own nonsense. Ideology and propaganda have always been around, but the new means of information have much wider
More About: Information , Market

A good music tip
2008-01-18 14:48:00
I was going to write the story behind this, but it could be misinterpreted, so to those of you who know me, just ask! I cannot access this facility any longer from my laptop, but you won't have problems. Go to yahoo italia (click on musica on the left hand column and then video). Once you've launched a video, you can search the music you like. I would strongly recommend the following: Carmen
More About: Music , Good

Is Muslim the new 'Communist'? Who is the new McCarthy?
2008-01-16 13:06:00
I’ve come across an e-mail with rumours that Obama is a Muslim . The details can be found at Urban Legends and more on CNN, Washigton Post etc. It is clearly a paranoid attack trying to induce fear in the electorate. The most uncomfortable aspect of it is the fact that it implies that American Muslims are not American. It is rather reminiscing of the McCarthy era, although I doubt this is what
More About: Communist

So I joined a dating site ...
2008-01-15 11:02:00
I’ve been nagged left, right and centre about registering with a dating website, so in the end I did. I lied a bit about location & name given that I’m likely to be the only Italian Jewish woman living in Cardiff. I still manage to come across people I know and, worse still, who know me. Lucky I didn’t talk myself up at all, in fact I told the awful truth pointing out that I’m awkward and
More About: Dating , Site

Clinton vs Obama in the 21st century
2008-01-11 13:30:00
Yes, Clinton is arrogant, she's not a good communicator and is seen as divisive, but she has brains and substance. More importantly I don't think Obama can win. Europeans are holding the breath and crossing their fingers hoping for something good to come out of the Primaries and the election later this year. After all, the rest of the world is affected by the choice of President Americans make.
More About: Century , Linton

Science, religion and the Golden Compass
2007-12-29 20:49:00
This was one of those times when I wondered why I still bother going to the cinema at all. The Golden Compass is visually unimaginative, the acting is perfunctory, the script is bland and the morale utter trash. The experience is made worse by the tendency of cinema theatres to keep the volume ridiculously high. I’m not sure whether that is done to compensate for lack of substance or to keep you
More About: Science , Religion

What is intelligence?
2007-12-29 19:59:00
Professor Flynn’s ‘What is intelligence?’ is not a book about intelligence. It’s a book about IQ. The Flynn effect deals with the rise of average IQ test scores (see below for more info). The problem is that IQ scores do not measure intelligence. Flynn himself argues that IQ tests measure only a minor sort of "abstract problem-solving ability" with little practical significance. The problem is
More About: Intelligence

Welsh role models
2007-12-14 10:06:00
The newly appointed Children's Commissioner, Keith Towler, has called for better role models for youngsters. Here is my nomination of Philip Jones Griffiths. I learnt about him a long time ago, when I was still a teenager from an Italian magazine. I've never come across anything else about him here in Wales or indeed Britain. It takes Italians to appreciate a good Welsh man! :) Philip Jones
More About: Models , Role

Best Christmas card ever!
2007-12-14 09:34:00
I find Christmas cards a bit impersonal. It's customary, but I get lots of them from lots of people, more as a matter of form. I prefer substance to form. I prefer people remembering my birthday. Above all, I don't understand why people who know me don't cross the word Christmas on the card and write Chanukah for a change!!! Anyway, here is the best Christmas card ever!!
More About: Card

Is Christmas under attack?
2007-12-09 19:14:00
Zaki Cooper, on the Guardian reminds us that 'some of the staunchest supporters of Christmas come from other religions'. 'Support' seems to imply that Christmas is somehow under the prospect of being cancelled. Undoubtedly renaming Christmas ‘Winterval’, as Birmingham Council did some years ago, allegedly not to offend people of other faiths, is simply barmy. However, this does not mean in any
More About: Attack

Climate Change Petition
2007-12-08 21:34:00
I support Al Gore's call for a visionary global treaty to be completed and brought into effect by 2010, please sign the petition below: http://www.climateprotect.org/standwithal
More About: Climate Change , Climate , Change , Petition

Nick Cohen: left, right or wrong?
2007-12-06 01:10:00
Nick Cohen , the Observer’s journalist, has taken to caricature the Left as a fascist cohort supporting militant Islam. I went to his talk at the Café Philo in Hampstead a week ago or so. He started his talk on 'what's left of the left' by expressing his shock and surprise at the support leftwing politicians and intellectuals give to militant Islam. Not sure what is surprising about some
More About: Nick , Wrong

Trafficking of women - is anybody listening?
2007-10-29 11:00:00
No, this is not a feminist issue. It is a morality one! Let's not forget the violence the living suffer: the estimated over 50,000 rapes women suffer every year in the UK alone, the women who are beaten and die as a result of domestic violence and the women and, indeed, children trafficked and used as sex slaves. Why is nobody doing anything? Here's an interview with Emma Thompson. Here's her
More About: Women , Listening

Abortion rights and wrongs
2007-10-22 14:54:00
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote a very measured piece on the Observer yesterday about modern attitudes towards abortion. He expressed concerns that there has been a “weakening of the feeling that abortion is a last resort”. He laments the fact that there’s no longer the presumption of marriage as a lifelong union, that marriage and family are no longer seen as the “
More About: Rights , Abortion

Liberal Democracy and multiculturalism according to the Chief Rabbi
2007-10-21 18:04:00
Jonathan Sacks, Chief Orthodox Rabbi , has jumped on the latest bandwagon blaming multiculturalism for the demise of society, morality, the nation and all things Tory. There are so many things wrong with his piece that it’s difficult to rebut concisely, but here are a few thoughts. According to Sacks, multiculturalism, notwithstanding the good intentions, has resulted in segregation of groups,
More About: Liberal , Democracy , Multiculturalism

Science and prejudice
2007-10-20 22:48:00
James Watson, Nobel prize for discovering DNA (thanks to Rosalind Franklin’s research), got himself in trouble by suggesting in an interview with the Independent that blacks are less intelligent than whites. This is only the latest in a series of very unscientific statements. As detailed in the Independent, In 1997 he suggested in a newspaper interview that a woman should have the right to abort
More About: Science , Prejudice

Liberal Democrats Italian style?
2007-10-16 11:22:00
The Lib Dems have managed to lose three leaders in a couple of days; it shows how much a small group of determined people can achieve given the chance. I wish we were like that at election time. Lembit Opik MP resigned from his leadership role of the Welsh Lib Dems, Mike German AM announced he will step down as leader of the Welsh Lib Dems in the Assembly next year and, of course, Menzies
More About: Democrats , Style , Liberal , Italian

...this is fun!
2007-09-25 18:46:00
You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland! by Lewis Carroll After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser, you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that it's

Which country are you?
2007-09-25 18:39:00
...it turns out that I'm the UN ... oops! You're the United Nations! Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of beating each other about the head and
More About: Country

Abortion, the Catholic Church & Amnesty International
2007-09-19 17:25:00
If it weren’t for the Guardian, my pedantry would be forever frustrated. I share, at least in part, Zoe Williams’ indignation at the Catholic Church ’s opposition to Amnesty International due to their campaign in support of safe and legal abortions for victims of rape and incest. However, this latest episode has nothing to do with faith schools. As far as I understand it, government funding to
More About: Abortion , Catholic Church

Bin Laden on 9/11
2007-09-11 15:32:00
Bin Laden appears to have released a video eulogising the 9/11 attacks. Dead or alive, even terrorists are broadcasting only repeats these days! Conveniently, no comment has been made on the pro-Taliban suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 16 people today. Not to mention all the blood that has been spilt around the world in the name of 'resistance'. I wonder whether we'll ever evolve morally.
More About: Bin Laden

Faith schools ought to be funded by the government
2007-09-10 17:56:00
With the document ‘Faith in the System’, the Government is moving to support more faith schools, in particular for ‘under-represented religious groups. As reported by the BBC: "The government recognises that, in relation to the overall size of their populations, there are relatively few faith school places in the maintained sector available to Muslim, Sikh and Hindu children compared to the
More About: Schools