Iran: this is no time for hesitation

Former prime minister of Spain José Maria Aznar in today’s Wall Street Journal: (thanks: Teresa Gomez)If there hadn't been dissidents in the Soviet Union, the Communist regime never would have crumbled. And if the West hadn't been concerned about their fate, Soviet leaders would have ruthlessly done away with them. They didn't because the Kremlin feared the response of the Free World.Just like

The “necessary” blog

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. Glenn Reynolds asks whether there is one for inappropriate apostrophes, too—ah the “human insatiability”!

Rainbow alphabet doggerel (I,J)

I is for ImmodestInside, outsideUp and down,The inane KingCan't find his gown.His courtesansHave no right to frownBecause he wearsHis royal crown.___J is for JumpJack was a judicious manAnd just the job as a judge,Although he joked and jumpedAbout at each trial,His wig never seemed to budge.___Mother made a jelly,Jimmy jumped for joy.Mother, joltedDropped the jelly.Jimmy is a clumsy boy.Text &

UK Embassy workers arrested in Iran

— BREAKING NEWS —— Staff working at the British embassy in Iran have been arrested: — Iran “must free UK embassy staff.” EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that “harassment or intimidation” of embassy staff would be met with a “strong and collective” response (BBC).— Riot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters..Riot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near a mosque in north Tehran

'Killing Me Softly'

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~“Killing Me Softly” was a hit song popularized by Roberta Flack back in the ‘70’s. It can now be the theme song for what the Democrat Party and Barack Obama is doing to Liberty in America.This past Friday, June 26, 2009, the soft tyranny of Statists was strengthened. Even though there was no public support for it, and massive opposition (

Italy's Dolomites a new World Heritage site

Well, of course I’m not neutral about this particular issue, and therefore I feel like I am not responsible for any exaggeration I might be guilty of in dealing with the decision taken yesterday in Seville, Spain, by the United Nations agency’s World Heritage Committee: Italy’s Dolomite mountains have been added to the World Heritage list!I think it’s simply great that one of the most beautiful

Ahmadinejad, a dreadful video

In his Facebook page French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy has a video, which was clandestinely shot and brought out of Iran, showing “president-non-elect” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—as Lévy himself calls the Iranian despot—while announcing to his most loyal followers and in the presence of his mentor and spiritual adviser, ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, “un grand bouleversement sur la planète” (a

Who is shaking the Iranian regime?

Not Obama, nor Bush, nor Twitter, nor Facebook. It’s women who are shaking the regime, wrote Anne Applebaum in last Tuesday’s Washington Post. Years of work and effort lie behind this public display of defiance, as much as “there is a connection between the violence in Iran over the past week and the women’s rights movement that has slowly gained strength in Iran over the past several years.”

Good luck mediating, Mr Pottering!

—Hans-Gert Pottering, president of the European Parliament, has offered to lead a mission of EU lawmakers to Iran. “We are willing to offer our support and mediation to bring about a peaceful solution,” he says. Meanwhile, eye witness reports from Tehran indicate that the Police are assailing unarmed protestors with axes. As Emanuele Ottolenghi puts it, “Good luck mediating, Mr Pottering!”—An

How to win elections while losing them

Just a quick update on the results of Italian local election runoffs at the weekend (30 cities and 62 provinces), with both the government and the opposition claiming good results—a classic case, no doubt, but this time it should have been much harder than usual for one of the two sides (the center-left) to do so, given that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the winner is, once again, the

Rainbow alphabet doggerel (G,H)

G is for GhostI once played hostTo a ghastly ghostAnd offered him some tea.With a gruesome voiceHe refused my choicePreferring eau-de-vie.___H is for HeavyHoggish HarrisHad heaps of pastaOn his holidaysIn RomeAnd becameSo huge and heavyHe had a hard timeGetting home.___Text & image © Mirino (PW) image © Claire. June, 2009_____I and JE and F

Do you know the land where the lemon trees flower?

“See Italy and Die” (Voir l'Italie et mourir. Photographie et peinture dans l'Italie du XIXe siècle), Musée d'Orsay (Exhibition hall), Paris, April 7th through July 19th, 2009.Images of Italy based around several recurring themes and fantasies: archaeological and antique remains, major sites of European culture and the continued presence of the ancient world among today’s population.What the

The Iranian Tempest

By an artist friend of mine, the petition that only needs one signatory.

Letters from America - 1

I had thought there could be no one more self obsessed and camera hungry than Bill Clinton; or a Press that could be so supportive and such apologists. Was I wrong. We now live in the “Age of Obama”. All Obama all the time. This guy is in every news story all day every day. He infects every aspect of our lives.ABC news has been dubbed the ‘All Barack Channel’. It’ll be doing a special from the

Rainbow alphabet doggerel (E,F)

E is for Empty Empty, fullEarly, lateEasy, hardLove or hateEast or WestBeginning, endOdds or evensBreak or mendEver, neverDislike, enjoyEnter, exitGirl or boyExpand, retractEnemy, friendEase, discomfortEarn or spend___F is for FindFat, thinFuture, pastFront, backFirst or lastTrue or falseFoolish, wiseFact or fictionFall or riseLost, foundFriend or foeSucceed or

An Age of words

“ An education in things is not. We are all involved in the condemnation of words, an age of words. We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years & come out at last with a bellyful of words & do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods. We cannot tell our course by the stars, nor

Hope and Change -- but Not for Iran

Charles Krauthammer in today’s Washington Post (also here):Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.And what do they hear from the president

Service

I am not an expert on voluntary service, unless I consider what I’m doing a service, and I must admit that I am often tempted to do so. I am a blogger, and blogging is not only a voluntary form of self-expression, it may also be a voluntary form of service, a way of contributing to the common good. But that’s not what I want to talk about this time. I’ll talk about “service” in the strict sense

The fresh breeze of change..

Witnessing the unfolding of events such as those of Iran. Having this increasingly sophisticated access of information, one is aware of the velocity in which the world is changing.To try to block this access as part of a futile attempt to perpetuate unsubtle myths such as the clumsy scenario of 'Iranian democracy' only increases one's awareness of this fresh breeze of change. Naturally it also

When Left is right & Right is left

Roger L. Simon on President Obama’s reaction to the current situation in Iran:What Obama wants more than anything is not to be seen as treading in the path of George W. Bush. Democracy promotion is not his game. That’s neocon stuff. Barack’s not going there, no how, no way, as he made clear in his Cairo speech. It would undermine everything he pretends to stand for, everything he proclaimed in

Rainbow alphabet doggerel (C,D)

C is for CucumberThe crazy cook would prepareHis favourite dish with great care-Curried crab with cold custard,Crumble cake with Colman's Mustard,Chocolate and cheese with codAnd sliced cucumber (which seems odd)All clumped together with clammy rice,The taste of which he claims is nice.___D is for DoThe little riddle of exampleIf I doWhat you doAnd he doesThe sameThen they doWhat we doWho first

And ‘The Doctor’ said ‘mamma mia!’

Okay, I’m 24 hours late here, but it’s just for those who might have lost it.BBC:Of course there will be people who say otherwise, but, honestly, after that race, and that incredible performance by Rossi, can anyone seriously argue against Rossi being the greatest ever?That last lap had me jumping up and down screaming. My heart rate went into the red. Utterly fantastic. The Times:“In Italy, for

Breaking (good) news from Iran

Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and the man who has the final say on all strategic matters, has reversed his earlier decree that the disputed election result was fair—urging the country to unite behind Ahmadinejad—by ordering the powerful Guardians Council an investigation into the vote count, thus carrying out Mousavi’s (the defeated candidate) allegations of vote-rigging.In the

Iran. And yet something has changed

Notwithstanding the doubts and concerns the United States and other Western governments expressed, and in spite of the fact that several leading reformists have been arrested on Saturday night, after violent clashes following the disputed election result, les jeux sont faits in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This was not, of course, the result the West was hoping for: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won

Mirino's Rainbow alphabet doggerel

Alphabet poems written for young French children to widen their vocabulary and help them with their English pronunciation. Young Italians might also be interested to use them to practice their English, provided their English teacher is with them to listen and correct them when necessary.

(Click on the above titles to go to the next two letters, or use the links below)


A is for Anagram

An

Scuola d'inglese

Con il prossimo post Mirino inaugura la sua collaborazione con questo blog. Si tratta di una doppia novità, in effetti, essendo la prima volta che la firma non è quella del sottoscritto, e poi la finalità, e soprattutto il target, cioè, rispettivamente: insegnare l’inglese e i bambini (ma non esclusivamente, perché se degli adulti si vogliono aggregare non sarò certo io a vietarlo, anzi, direi

"Italy's Obama"

“To tolerate illegal immigration above all harms those who enter our country with the desire to work and integrate themselves and to have a normal life.”“The problem is that these people don’t have papers, they are very poor, so either they must steal to eat or they are exploited by employers who give them very little money and don’t care if they die.”The person who spoke those words is Sandy

'We're understanding what Obama is...'

“I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.” —Evan Thomas, editor of NewsweekImagine for a moment that Limbaugh or O’Reilly or Malkin had uttered these little bits of adoration about Dubya. And now guess what the New York Times and CNN (or the Guardian if you are a Brit, or la Repubblica if you are an Italian, etc.) would do…

How to lose elections while winning them (and how to win them while losing them)

This time the lefty Guardian is right about Italy: in any other country the fact that the prime minister’s Freedom People movement took just over 35 per cent of the vote—only a couple of points below the party’s showing at the last general election and nine points ahead of the main opposition group, the Democratic Party (while in other countries the governments lost their consensus)—might be

Born Again American

Born Again American, which started at the beginning of this year, is “committed to the rebirth and re-expression of citizenship through informed and thoughtful activism.” Through its interactive website it offers visitors the opportunity to pledge themselves to be “their country’s keeper” and to reaffirm their belief in American values that hark back to the Declaration of Independence.The Born

The Greatest Among You

“But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” This famous statement by Jesus has been adopted by Steven Dexter, a longtime friend of this blog, as the leitmotif of his new blog, whose title echoes the motto itself: The Greatest Among You. In fact the new blog is about Service. “My intention—wrote Steven in the first post—is to create an environment that will be used by organizations

Sharks (and other underwater creatures)

I must admit that I was not pleasantly surprised, but rather quite disappointed, when I heard that Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini, with reference to the muckraking campaign orchestrated by some British newspapers (the Guardian, Times and Independent) against Silvio Berlusconi, had said the country could not ”leave the last word to the network of those who hate Italy.” It was, in my

When life was simple...

“ The object of education is to give man the unity of truth. Formerly, when life was simple, all the different elements of man were in complete harmony. But when there came the separation of the intellect from the spiritual and the physical, the school education put entire emphasis on the intellect and the physical side of man. We devote our sole attention to giving children information, not

The vengeance of the Shark

Just a quick update on the Berlusconi-Noemi Letizia issue. Not that I have any wish to look after this, and besides I think I said everything I had to say about this subject, but, you know, The Times is the Times, even under Mr. Rupert Murdoch, isn’t it? Er, actually, I am not that sure anymore, but who cares? What matters is the substance of their comments, and the substance is a shower of

Il Berlusca e il mentecatto

Dove eravamo rimasti? Con i post in italiano, intendo dire…, dall’ultimo essendo passata tanta di quell’acqua sotto i ponti che quasi non riesco a capacitarmi di come abbia potuto lasciar passare tutto questo tempo. Il fatto è che è più difficile di quel che pensassi tenere in piedi un blog bilingue: questione di atteggiamento mentale, di frequentazione e reperimento delle fonti online, di