In these days about 345 millions of people are called to chose the members of the European Parliament. In the Netherlands and UK they have yet voted.  Of course in the newspapers I read that many are disaffected with EU institutions and will not vote, others will vote for so called eurosceptics parties but I think that after all this is a great thing. Our lives are affected by choices made in this parliament more than we could think of, maybe sometimes are treated questionable matters (as for example names of wines) but also more importants issues like economy, environment, human rights and so on.

I found some days ago this nice website who tells you where you are in a political spectrum comparing various european political parties positions on different topics. I had yet made my own choice but I found it interesting anyway.

Before the theft Joshua Alston installed on his laptop LogMeIn, a suite of softwares providing remote access  to a computer. Since the thief wasn’t so smart to reformat the PC’s hard-disk (or at least to check the software on it) the victim had free access to it. Alston installed remotely other softwares that allowed him to collect enough informations about the location of the laptop to send police to get it back.

Raffaella Piccinni, a Lega Nord (North League) candidate running for the provincial council of Milan proposed to reserve some subway wagons to Milan’s citizen. Matteo Salvini the party’s deputy secretary affirmed that is “a provocation” but that this may become reality in ten years “if we don’t put an end to immigration”.

So this is only a provocation by a candidate in a minor local election or more probably the well-known fifteen minutes of fame to gain a handful of votes showing how tough they are. However in my opinion isn’t wise to evocate the ghosts of a past that I think every sane person doesn’t wish back.

Image: Bus station in Durham, North Carolina, May 1940 (Wikimedia Commons)

Of course with the ongoing economic crisis it’s not so strange to hear about entire blocks of abandoned houses in the USA where all this started just from the real estate market but the idea that now is cheaper to demolish buildings than to sell them it’s quite shocking to me.

On the original article from the LA Times is explained that the residential complex was started some years ago when the housing bubble wasn’t still so severe and there were hopes to sell those 2 story buildings  at about $300,000. In summer 2008 the prices for this kind of estates in that region were almost halved and so the construction was stopped. Since four finished buildings contained rich interiors they started to be an attraction for vandals and thieves so to put an end to this the bank that owns the failed project decided that was cheaper to demolish them than to pay someone to look after them while trying to sell.

33 years ago a devasting earthquake shoke most of the region where I live, 989 died and uncountable damages to the artistic and historic heritage.

This picture was taken in Gemona, close to the epicenter 3 weeks ago. Gemona was all rebuilded but the step and the door of this church were left just as they were after the earthquake, as a memorial to the disaster. The cross of candles on the steps was put there by some Gemona’s inhabitant just after the Abruzzo’s earthquake that also happened exactly one month ago.

The two main ideas behind creating an account on WordPress were basically: practising my written English since I read quite much in this language but I’m less accustomed to write in it and try what means to keep a blog. I think I will write here about various themes; probably here you will read just my own business or my opinions; so nothing of new,  surprising or exceptionally bright. I cannot predict the frequency of my post, I only guess that it would be very very variable.

So let’s start!