words of the week

These are this week’s words. A train of thought, framed for a snapshot.

Many thanks to Wordle.net (and to MeinMann, who found the application I was looking for)

BlogPalast!

One year ago BerlinRomExpress was born, on a hot Roman evening. Time goes by, many events have unfold since then. The Crisis. The total disappearance of the Palast der Republik in Berlin and the appearance of a big green meadow. The Macro opening postponement in Rome. And so on.

We took this picture 2 years ago, during our holiday in Berlin in August 2007. Would it be crazy, we thought, to consider Berlin like our home away from home?

democracy, activism and social networks

There!

It’s exactly what I wanted to elaborate yesterday in my post (but we had an invitation to dinner and had to rush ).

The economist Loretta Napoleoni tells it very clearly today on D di Repubblica. “Is internet shutting activism down?”. Check out the article here (and babel-fish it, it’s in italian), issue n.652, page 19.

Basically, what she says is that participation (to democracy) is not the same as being connected online. You do not discuss themes which impact society in the same way if you are at dinner with friends, online or in a public gathering (a political party meeting or an assembly). Some things need to be done by being physically there, in the street.

On the other hand, two important events this year.

The Obama election. He’s no Gandhi, ok. But maybe this time the grass-roots movement (especially for the financing of the campaign) really made the difference. And the fact that he was online. The web was not a sticker on this candidate product. It was part of him.

Second event, the Tehran events on Twitter. When I read an account of the precise events of Paris, May 1968, what struck me is the fact that demostrants had to resort to Ancient Greece methods to communicate, namely: run. Run between one barricade and the other, bringing messages and information on where the police was. Even in the WWI trenches the transmission of messages was more efficient. But hey, these boys and girls could just use telephone boots and tennis shoes. Now Twitter brought us the events unfolding in Tehran before CNN. If we want to talk things italian, since we are approaching another G8, it’s on YouTube that you can find the reportage of what really happened in Genoa that night at the Diaz school and in the barracks of Bolzaneto (english witnesses).

I guess that social networks should be an additional mean towards participation and information but not an objective per se. I blog, I twitter therefore I can act. But sometimes the illusion of “feeling in touch with others” can be predominant and annihilate participation. As Napoleoni says “in the end, you are in your pajamas, at home. Alone”. So get in those jeans and get out and meet those people.

Because the Divided Cities exist. The fact is that the wall is not a vertical one that you can stumble upon when walking. It’s horizontal, above our heads. And we move like little ants or busy bees under the slab of grey reinforced concrete that we call “democracy”.

PS
I just saw by browsing on bora.la that the foreign minister Frattini is Twittering from the G8 in Triest…beware…

TriestBerlinExpress!

The BerlinRomExpress is for the moment only a blog and not a reality. Yet now there is an Autozug linking Triest to Berlin! From the beach of Triest to the beach of Berlin…Wannsee!

Am Autozug-Bahnhof in Berlin-Wannsee werden die Kunden mit Prosecco, Orangensaft und Salzgebäck begrüßt. Während die Gäste die Getränke und die Sonnenstrahlen genießen, werden Motorräder und Pkw auf den Zug verladen. Am nächsten Morgen – nach einer 17-stündigen, sanft ratternden Fahrt auf Schienen – werden sie am Bahnhof in Triest von einer kleinen Musik-Kapelle empfangen, die italienische Schlager schmettert. Dazu gibt es den weit über die Landesgrenzen hinaus berühmten San-Daniele-Schinken sowie Weißwein aus der an Slowenien und Österreich grenzenden italienischen Region Friaul-Julisch Venetien.

E’ arrivato oggi alla stazione di Trieste il primo treno con il servizio Autozug auto-passeggeri di Deutsche Bahn, che colleghera’ fino a ottobre il capoluogo giuliano a Berlino, Amburgo, Dusseldorf e Francoforte. Ad accogliere i primi turisti sono stati i rappresentanti di Deutsche Bahn, Trenitalia, Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia, Comune di Trieste e Agenzia Turismo Fvg, oltre a una banda musicale. I treni (tre o quattro alla settimana) sono composti da quattro carri (per un totale di 48 auto) e da 4-5 carrozze con cuccette, un vagone ristorante e alcuni vagoni letto. Il costo per persona del viaggio notturno parte da circa 60 euro, mentre il trasporto di una macchina costa 149 euro. Il servizio e’ gia’ attivo ad Alessandria, Bolzano e Verona.

TTT, or the tokyo temptation

I saw yesterday that Rome-Tokyo return is about Eur 387. I am indeed tempted to fly across Siberia, see the dawn on Khabarovsk and land a bit stoned but happy at Narita airport. And if it is as rainy as Rome, walk around Ebisu with one of those Courreges-like plastic umbrellas, then slide my Pasmo underground smartcard and cruise by metro across the bay…

No, I’m not going off-topic, Let me show ya…. all the roads lead to Berlin!

all roads lead to Rome…er…one at a time please

Photo: Di Tomaso /Franceschi published on Repubblica

It’s not that I’ve been lazy.

The kick-off with bad macroeconomic news was a bit of a hard start of the year, after the savvy but calm no-man’s-land of the Zwangurlaub, home-sweet-home holidays.

Then it’s been raining almost all week (again!). Manic depression etc.

And on wednesday evening I was almost run over by a motorino, while crossing a street on the stripes. I jumped back – like a wild StripedCat – with a “OooH??” while the girl on the motorino screamed in panic behind her rainy visor “Non t’ho vistooo!!” (I didn’t see you). It’s good to have a feline nickname.

And then some ‘internal consumption” political news on which I will write later on.

Too many emotions this week. Not far from home, this tram/train crash, quite a bit of damage, many wounded, just in front of Porta Maggiore, on roman roads.

One at a time. Please. Too much free riding in Italy…

Train of thought

What a week in the financial markets…my blog on Rome and Berlin – already running late – came to a complete halt due to the sleepless nights spent looking at Reuters pages and bad news unfolding rapidly. Let’s hope that Merkel’s call for better and more geographically balanced controls (ie where Europe has more to say, than just Wall Street and the City) will produce some sound measures.

On another note, talking with german counterparts about the forthcoming Deutsche Bahn IPO, I recorded that their opinion on the quality of service is the opposite of mine. “Maybe you only take the ICE, that’s why you find the service quality good! But try taking other trains…Foreigners will like the IPO, because of the globalization, the logistics and so on…but not locals!”.

Well…I’m sure that even a good service has room for improvement. Maybe they never took italian trains. For sure italian trains are out of the spectrum of comparison and that seems quite logical eh eh! “Nivelisation par le bas” is not a good way to judge, as there’s no limit to bad service.
For sure they are comparing with the Swiss train system, or the Shinkansen. Good benchmarking.

Nevertheless, this won’t stop me being enthousiastic about ICE. My very personal Alitalia boycott and the nice holiday ICE experience prompted the start of a new season for my business travel. From now on, between Paris and Frankfurt it will be white/red ICE and not even charming bleu outremer AirFrance or VorsprungDurchTechnik blue/gold Lufthansa. Still, CDG is one of my favourite airports…but avoiding the rush to the peripherique, what a luxury!  And did you notice that the last G8 meeting started on a TGV taking the ministers from Paris to Avignon? Subliminal logistic message…