Trash in Lecco:
New Collection
And More Expensive Tax
Lecco like the USA:
the 24 hour store is coming
[To which I say: yay!]
Left: Hangs himself under the railway bridge at only 24 years because he’s gay. [Yes, it happens here, too, sadly.]
Colombo trial: Gilardi names Lecco’s leading citizens.
Right: Loan-sharking: Half of Lecco trembles
Crash on motorcycle: No hope for 20-year-old Lecchese
Mar, 2007 – (handwritten) Sunday [we’re] always open
[formal complaint to the police] – Too lively: the janitor insults and threatens the children
Writing and drawings defame the principal of Grassi high school
Mar, 2007 – Exhibitionist terrorizes [female] cyclists – denounced [formal complaint made to police]
Fines “Auxiliary [traffic police] [should be] more tolerant with the citizens”
Lecco, March 2007
Bread baker fired without reason – Now he’s full of debts
In Lecco a good 1,000 Alpini parade
Three climbers fall from the wall of the Medale and die
Girl raped near the Meridiana [local shopping center]
“They were absolved, but they are the murderers”
Raped in [town] center
The Sheikh in Lecco
The tragedy of San Martino [peak]: The truth in two nails [climbing pitons]
Post office: [office in] via Dante closes, but the ex-Piccolo [another location] does not open
Reader Stefano Tonti sent me this photo. The headline says “Doctor beaten with a shovel”. ata is a suffix you can add to many nouns to create a word meaning “an application of [noun]”. Badile = shovel or spade, so someone applied a shovel to this poor doctor (unfortunately, we didn’t buy the newspaper so we don’t know why). A more common construction is sassata, stoning – as in, throw rocks at – sasso = stone.
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April, 2007 – from left to right:
Usury [loan sharking]: half of Lecco trembles / Motorcycle crash – 20 year old Lecchese without hopes [of living – in fact, she died]
Abusive construction [i.e., without proper building permits] – the beach of the “Bear” [a local disco, Orsa Maggiore – Ursa Major] impounded
Old people, new center at Germanedo
ICI [property tax] and TARSU [some other tax] – The municipality on the hunt for tax evaders: wants to recover two million euros
Forza Italia [political party] at war for the presidency of the “twinnings” [?]
Falls while on motorcycle: grave [seriously hurt] girl of Lecco
The mayor: “We’re looking for the area for the new stadium.”
The case – ALER claims that Bodega [a former mayor] has the right to public housing at 28 euros a month
Soccer: The Lecco [team] goes to Biella with victory in its sights
Some years ago Silvia, who had been one of our tech support team (of two) at Incat, paid me the enormous compliment of saying that she considered me a role model. This from a woman with a laurea in physics who holds a managerial position in a team supporting HP servers, and certainly never needed any advice from me on how to do her job!
I was extremely flattered, of course, but startled: I had never thought of myself as a role model for anybody. But it now seems that I am, and the job comes with responsibilities. Such as, um, eating free dinners and giving speeches.
Amanda Lorenzani (whom I’d enjoyed meeting at barCamp Roma), organized Italy’s first Girl Geeks Dinner, which took place in Milan last Friday. And she pulled it off magnificently: sponsorship from Excite, Dada.net, and San Lorenzo (who contributed the bubbly) ensured a very good dinner, complete with wine (though my request for a gin & tonic was turned down on the grounds that “then we’d have to give the strong stuff to everybody”).
At least 60 people were present, most of them, indeed, women. By the rules of Girl Geeks Dinners, women couldn’t be fewer than 50% of the guests: each woman attending can, if she wishes, invite one and only one man. (My date, by his own request, was Luca Conti.) After years of attending tech conferences at which women are always a minority and often silent, I was thrilled to meet and talk with so many smart, capable women. They had plenty to say for themselves, all of it interesting. Conversation flowed easily for most; I did what I could to involve those who seemed to be shy, though I was constantly distracted by new/old friends, and my feet hurt (I’m not used to wearing heels, but Ross had insisted I should).
We didn’t have a main speaker (as Girl Geeks Dinners often do although, surprisingly, they often seem to be men), but Amanda had asked four of us to each say a few words:
My two-minute speech was neither as off-the-cuff nor as nervous as it probably sounded. I had been trying all day to decide how to translate that immortal line from Thelma & Louise
Then I could relax and eat dinner and talk with people rather than at them. It was great fun to see in person someone I’d been following on Twitter, Svaroschi, who is heading off to grand new adventures in the Big Apple.
Almost everyone in the room had a blog, several specifically food blogs, which I will now go and read although it’s dangerous for me to do so, especially now when I have no time to cook.
Apparently I terrified at least one person in the room. Sorry about that – totally not my intention. I was a little weirded out – though extremely flattered – by people coming up to tell me they admire me, and/or like my site. Okay, it wasn’t that many, but it’s a strange experience nonetheless. Am I really somewhat famous, or just a legend in my own mind?
I was therefore a little manic, and very tired – had woken up at 4 am from jet lag, still wasn’t well (and destined to get much worse the next day), and had to get home to Lecco, with Luca in tow (as our house guest) at a not-too-unreasonable hour because we had to get up for rItaliaCamp. I hope for the next dinner I will be more relaxed and awake. There were so many topics in the air that I would have liked to hear more about.
Just one example: Beatrice came to represent TechneDonne, a project to study gender (in)equality in the world of IT. Among other things, they are asking themselves: “Is software different when women write it?” Interesting question. These are the folks who have asked me to speak at FemCamp in Bologna on May 26th; by then I hope to have had some opportunity to explore the roles of women at Sun Microsystems – in one week, I saw more women there than in any other tech company I’ve ever worked for or visited!
Another nice ego-stroke for me was that Tara (of Passpack) told me she’s loving my unfinished fantasy novel, Ivaldi. And she hadn’t even got to the good part yet! <grin>
It was altogether a fun and stimulating evening, and I would/will be delighted to see all of these people again, and hope to have time to talk with the ones I missed this time around. In fact, I’d like to do it more often – maybe we can do regional lunches or aperitivi in between dinners?
April 2, 2007 – My pleasure in reminiscing on the joys of the dinner was somewhat soured by this:
(photo by fullo via Pandemia)
This group represents a new (and very laudable) initiative by Alberto D’Ottavi, Stefano Vitta, Lorenzo Viscanti, Luca Mascaro, Chiaroscuro and Emanuele Quintarelli to encourage the development of Web 2.0 in Italy. But, boys, what’s missing from this picture? That’s right… girls!
| by Franco Battiato – This song seems to be largely nonsense, but when I first heard it, it occurred to me that the chorus expresses something many people feel – unfortunately. Though the song is by Battiato, who is shown in the video here, musically I much prefer the Neri per Caso cover. | |||
Centro di Gravita’ Permanente |
Permanent Center of Gravity |
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| Una vecchia bretone con un cappello e un ombrello | An old Breton [woman] with a hat and an umbrella | ||
| di carta di riso e canna di bambu` | of rice paper and bamboo cane | ||
| capitani coraggiosi | Captains courageous | ||
| furbi contrabbandieri macedoni | Clever Macedonian smugglers | ||
| gesuiti euclidei | Euclidean Jesuits | ||
| vestiti come dei bonzi per entrare a corte | Dressed like Buddhist monks to go to the court | ||
| degli imperatori della dinastia dei Ming. | of the Emperors of the Ming dynasty. | ||
| ritornello: | refrain: | ||
| Cerco un centro di gravita` permanente | I’m seeking a permanent center of gravity | ||
| che non mi faccia mai cambiare idea | That won’t make me ever change my mind | ||
| sulle cose sulla gente | About things, about people | ||
| avrei bisogno di… | I would need… | ||
| Over and over again. | [surely you don’t need me to translate this line!] | ||
| Per le strade di Pechino erano giorni di maggio | On the streets of Peking there were days of May | ||
| tra noi si scherzava a raccogliere ortiche | We joked among ourselves gathering nettles | ||
| non sopporto i cori russi la musica finto rock | I can’t stand Russian choruses, fake rock music, | ||
| la new wave italiana il free jazz punk inglese | the Italian New Wave, free jazz, English punk | ||
| neanche la nera africana. | nor even the black African. | ||
| (ritornello) | (refrain) | ||
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