don’t G8 me, please…

Mobile phones scrambling. Delegations with all their buro-paraphernalia filling the lobbies at Via Veneto’s hotels. Dante’s Inferno crowds at Fiumicino airport. First ladies planning sightseeing in Rome.

The coming week seems even messier. Rome could be hit by the tsunami wave of sherpas, delegations and bureaucrats escaping from l’Aquila if nerve-racking (and security apparatus stressing) earthquakes shake the G8 show a bit more.

Also, we’re out of Schengen, for a couple of weeks we’ll be needing to show patte blanche and brandish our passports for any tiny transfer within compact Euroland.

Don’t G8 me, please…

And let the poor tortoises alone, they seem trapped into the logo’s fishing nets. Like L’Aquila citizens, unwilling extras in this tragi-comedy.

cats in the earthquake

A friend from the IOL forum highlighted today that the famous Largo Argentina Cat Sanctuary association has rescued some cats from the L’Aquila earthquake and they are available for adoption, since it is difficult to find their owners.

You can find all the information on the Association on their website …

Next time you are in Rome, come and distribute some extra cuddling to the Largo Argentina cats…they need you!

intensive car

In the press they talk about The Great Deal (Fiat-Chrysler), talks are underway today in Berlin on the future of Opel.

But only on Beppe Grillo’s blog I can read today some news on the price increases applied by the italian motorway companies. Oil is cheap, and it won’t last long. So toll rentiers seize the opportunity today to levy more taxes on the italian public.

Alitalia and Air One are lame ducks, public transport does not get the necessary investments, people who need to be on the move are forced into using the car.

In the meantime our real unemployment and our real inflation are figures never published in the press…not only the politicians but also the journalists indulge in abundant Schadenfreude, about the 6% GDP fall estimate for Germany, the 20% unemployment rate in Spain but…what about us? No real figures on our own inflation and unemployment, Keine Weltanschauung for the way forward.

Listen to the Sage from Omaha. He says that the only certainty about our future is inflation…(or read “Weimar, utopia and tragedy”).

concrete thoughts about concrete

Magnitude 4.9 – 09/04/2009 – 21:38:16 CET

Swinging lamps, shaking doors, moving sofa. We stared at each other. It went on for quite a bit.

How reinforced is the concrete of this building? How long does reinforced concrete last…more than 70 years? We wish we were in swampy, mashed-potato, soft old Berlin now…

Meanwhile, on TV interview with a student who left the l’Aquila dormitory last weekend because she grew afraid of all the vibrations in the building since the start of the seismic activity (oct 2008) and especially in the last week of march.

(fatality – preparedness) = disaster

Once again the italian cookie-cutter uber-cynical tag line for handling fatalities: “Earthquakes cannot be forecasted properly, so there’s nothing to discuss”.

You just insert the first word, dear politician/local bureaucrat/journalist, we know the story. We’ve heard before other versions of it. “Hydrogeological disaster -”. “Factory explosion -”. “Workers poisoning -”. “Dioxine leak -”. “Dam collapse -”.

Now, once more after a rich track record, it’s “earthquake”.

Fatality cannot be forecasted. Yet there is a difference between fatality and disaster. It is preparedness. You can call it risk management too. It has something to do with statistics, information, prevention, simulation, evacuation plans, training, building permits and anti-seismic regulations.

My father was not happy when he got the hefty bill for the anti-seismic refurbishing of the family house in Friuli, North-Eastern Italy, but he appreciates that the Region obliges everybody to respect the regulations, so that not only his house, but also the neighbours’ house must comply with the post-1976 earthquake regulations.

earthquake shakes up rome

04.40 am CET, back in our 5th floor flat in Rome, after an hour in the street in pajamas. One hour ago I woke up feeling the bed shaking from right to left, shouted “it’s the earthquake!!!”, MeinMann and I  jumped out of bed and run to the traegende wand or muri portanti, the thickest wall. We heard cracking noises from the building structure. It was bloody long and strong, and shaking like waves. It lasted who knows, maybe a minute, maybe les, but it felt like a minute. We were staring at our X-shaped laundry thing in the corridor, it moved fast, with an oscillation of at least 5cm, as though someone was shaking it.