THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Sep 13, 2020 | ITALY

Fa’ la punta alla matita
corri a scrivere la tua vita.
Scrivi parole diritte e chiare:
Amore, lottare, lavorare.

Point the pencil
run to write your life.
Write words straight and clear:
Love, fight, work.

Gianni Rodari is always very topical in my opinion, but probably not even he would have imagined a time when the pencil, like all the rest of the material, would have taken second place compared to the bags that will contain them.

Each of us keeps the memory of the first day of school, how was yours? What is the first image that comes to mind?

Mine is distant in time and belongs to a time when notebooks were small, and only two: one lined and one checked, and for a moment I felt lost in the midst of children I did not know.
If I close my eyes I still smell the scent of the offellas that my mother had wrapped for a snack, making me a surprise.

In middle school, on the other hand, I felt great closing the books of the first day with those elastic bands with the clasp in front and going towards a new adventure.

At my high school debut I was alone again among unfamiliar faces, but that was the important day I met the one who would become a Great Friend for life.

But tomorrow?
What day will tomorrow be?
Paraphrasing Rodari: what kind of life can children write who tomorrow will face their first day of school with the long list of rules to respect and things not to do in hand?

Will we be able to make sure that our children can write as a “clear word Love” before FIGHT and WORK?

For once adults will be able to set the right example, will they be able to learn from mistakes, will they be able to use progress, knowledge, and above all experience, for a first day towards a better society, seriously, at least this time?

I would like it so much, and you?

 

CIGARETTES AND COFFEE … NEVER AGAIN?

CIGARETTES AND COFFEE … NEVER AGAIN?

Jan 25, 2020 | ITALY

The Swedish model keep going on to seem an example to follow and the mayor of Milan drew inspiration from it by proposing to extend the ban on smoking even in open spaces: at bus stops and for those who are queuing for the use of public services, for reach by 2030 a total ban in any open place.
This announcement, followed by an inevitable aftermath of controversy, comes precisely in the occasion of the fifteenth birthday of the Sirchia law, named after the Minister of Health who proposed it, i.e. the ban on smoking in closed public places, which entered into force on 10 January 2005.
The Higher Institute of Health, taking stock of the statistics originating from that date, reports the following data:
During these fifteen years of application of the anti-smoking law, sales of traditional cigarettes have gone from about 92,822 tons in 2005 to about 67,460 tons in 2018, with a decrease of 27.3%. On the other hand, there was an important surge in sales of shredded tobacco (including pipe tobacco), which in the same period recorded an increase of over 500%.
Beyond the statistics, I am particularly interested in knowing your opinion since, for those who smoke, the cigarette is notoriously consequential to coffee.
As far as I’m concerned, the behaviors of smokers that I observe already contemplate respect: no cigarettes in the presence of children, no cigarettes in the car in the presence of other people, no cigarettes in the homes of others etc.
In the meantime, the new budget law has further raised the amount of minimum excise duties (already increased with the 2019’s budget law) by raising the basic rate of cigarettes to 59.8%, a good bit of a deterrent I would say.
… so, the back and forth through my mind of Seven Nation Army is intended to be no longer behind a cigarette?

RADIOACTIVE COFFEE

RADIOACTIVE COFFEE

Jan 6, 2020 | ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, WORLD

What do the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents have in common? First of all a number: they are both level 7.
The Chernobyl accident occurred in 1986 and according to the Greenpeace report thirty years after the catastrophe over ten thousand square kilometers are unusable for economic activity, more than one hundred and fifty thousand square kilometers are the contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and five million people live in areas officially considered contaminated. Due to the high levels of plutonium contamination within 10 kilometers of the plant, the area cannot be repopulated for the next ten thousand years.
The recent HBO series has given us the opportunity to live again through images, those days that have changed everyone’s habits.
Thousands of miles away, we have avoided foods such as vegetables and milk, in addition to special measures for children.
As regards Fukushima, according to the Greenpeace report, the government’s decontamination interventions have been fragmented, inadequate and there is a serious risk of re-contamination of the already decontaminated areas. Despite massive effort and expense, decontamination is likely to become an endless process. Furthermore, decontamination efforts without being able to ‘get rid’ of radioactive contamination, i.e. simply moving it to other places such as temporary storage sites, continue to pose a danger to local communities and the environment.
The risk is that Japan will decide to discharge the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.
The water that from the day of the accident, that is, from 11 March 2011, was necessary to pump on the reactor to keep the core temperature low: more than 220 cubic meters per day. Can you figure how big the quantity can be?
According to Tepco’s forecasts, the storage limit will be reached in 2022.
This problem affects the whole world even if only South Korea seems to worry about it for now.
Not to mention the perennial risk that this thousand tanks represent in a seismic area.
Meanwhile, some newspapers are already reporting that tritium is “relatively toxic” and minimizing the impact of disposal at sea since it would have a short life, of course, a decay of just over 12 years is nothing compared to ten thousand …
Recall that tritium was used for fluorescence in watches and that use has been interrupted.
Now the question is simple: if it is really so harmless, why storing it for nine years?
I would say that when we talk about nuclear power plants, even Einstein‘s phrase is no longer enough, we are not even like rats that build a trap for themselves, we went further.
The lightness with which the construction of these plants is allowed, knowing that in case of accidents there is no way to shelter, it is as disgusting as appealing to the causes of force majeure hiding behind the fact that the real effects on health do not appear immediately.
People will get sick and die, but someone will have earned money. As it always happens.

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