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California on my mind

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April 2005

THIS MONTH's THEME:

California on my mind

There is science, logic, reason;
there is thought verified by experience.
And then there is California

Edward Abbey


No kidding

Why "California On My Mind" and not "Georgia On My Mind"?
Well, dudes, I am not going to Georgia but to California, so that's no surprise.
What - I hear you say - is Luca going to the Evil Empire?
That can't be possible?
But it is. Believe me, I know myself pretty well, I know what I am going to do in the next weeks!
No this is no April Fool.
I am really travelling to California this month, and I could not, of course, resist blogging about it, even if I will probably not have the possibility to write for many days.
As usual, I am going to do it my own way, and will take a chance to express my thoughts, expectations, questions about California, and USA more in general.
But, not the least, about this very special event in my life, that could change it radically.
Stay tuned, more in the next days.


Pope on my mind, tonight

As you know the pope has just died, and even if I decided not to write about him, due to the constant and massive coverage in all media, I guess I am ending expressing some thoughts anyway. It is nearly impossible not to feel some compassion for this peculiar man, who managed to represent so much for our contemporary history, in both good and exceptionable ways. When I saw him few days ago, so suffering and frustrated I knew he would never accept to continue his life like that. He was too active and full of plans, to bear getting paralysed and passive. So, it seemed like he preferred not to fight any more and give in to the end of his life.
There can be some slight doubts about how appropriate the treatments and operations he received in the last times have been. But that would open a can of worms and all kind of conspirational theories, and there are already way so many regarding the Vatican and the ends of the papal lives. Not that they have not given some excellent reasons for that.
When I was at school many, many years ago (in 1978), I guessed the election of Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I , the one before, who lived only 33 days after being elected. We had religion time, and our teacher showed us a newspaper with the pictures of all the Cardinals. I inexplicably pointed to Luciani and said: "It's him!". Everybody looked at me like I was a lunatic, but it was the right man, nevertheless. Well, if I should try this time it would be even easier, as the next Pope will be Berlusconi, who can doubt about it.
Seriously, it is quite possible it could be an Italian again, other circumstances could indicate Ratzinger, but others also a Latin American (depending on to which extent the "coming back to ordinary business", after such a Pope, will weight in the decision). These are only rational thoughts anyway, and they are not so reliable in these matters.
This final agony of Karol Wojtyla has undoubtedly caused a lot of commotion, as it would have been the case for any man dying on this earth. As the Pope, in the end, is a human being. Or a poor Christ, as Luciani said about himself.


Would Hans Christian Andersen have liked California?

It is a nice and sunny Sunday, so I can allow myself to ask this highly hypothetical question.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN source

Yesterday it was 200 years since his birth and there will be lots of celebrations in Danmark, and his birthplace Odense no need to say, and in the rest of the world, all this year. Andersen was an incredible traveller, he spent something like 20 years of his life on the road, and writing down and painting his impressions.
You can even follow all his travels at the Odense City Museum site, he was constantly away and visiting all places in Europe.
So, what would have he said if he had a jet plane available and charterflying to California?
Considering we both have a big nose, and that he probably also travelled to this little village on the mountains, Olevano Romano, where both my father and mother have roots, and that some ancestors of mine guested the Danes travelling to Italy, and being a lovely Sunday, I think I have credentials enough to hazard an authoritative answer: he would have loved Las Vegas and Disneyland :-)
Well, it is said that Walt Disney got his inspiration from a visit to Copenhagen's Tivoli.
For the German readers: there will be a conference, on April 13th, in Köln about Olevano Romano,
"Olevano - Arkadia der Romantiker",
this village that was the favourite destination of painters for its breathtaking views:

OLEVANO ROMANO painting by Camille Corot


Terminator versus Lucantropo!

I'm a bit late tonight, because I am following the result of the Regional elections in Italy.
It is a complete disaster for Berlusconi. It seems like 12 out of 14 Regions will be governed by the center-left alliance l'Unione.
And even counting the votes, the center-left is now clear majority in the country.
The period with Berlusconi has been dreadful and a shame for all Europe, it seems even the Italians are starting to understand that.
So, I am coming to California with this good news, and Terminator is not so popular at the moment, after throwing the mask and showing his real Bushist face.
He was playing before, now he wants to show his muscles again and get the real power. Well, if you go to what claims to be his official site, Schwarzenegger.com,
you will think it is a joke, but it is not, he really shows his muscles so it hurts.
You can also read: "It's never been boring being Arnold Schwarzenegger"
It's never been boring being Luca either, just wait for me dude.


Multikulti versus globalisation

Today I read that Berlin's Mayor, Heinz Buschkowsky, should have said:

“Multicultural society has failed.”

I wrote 'should' because I read it in an article
{update: any reference to this has disappeared}
by the famed newspaper Jyllands Posten, famed for not missing a chance to write populist and not reliable articles.
In fact, this de profundis (death sentence) for the multicultural societies is the new trend in Europe, and some people really love to repeat this negative mantra of the impossibility to live in multicultural societies. People is killed every day by all kinds of criminality, there are political murders, bombs, intolerances of all kinds, and no one cares. But, as soon as the author of this facts has just the slightest appearance of a foreigner or, best of all, of a Muslim, then all those prophets pop up immediately and start crying about the fundamentalist threat, and how they will kill all of us, or bomb us back to stone age, or substitute our laws with the sharia and make so many children they will become majority.
Anyway, I obviously checked that mayor's opinions and you can read about that on Der Spiegel's site: "Integration in Europe: how Germany has failed its immigrants". You will read that Heinz Buschkowsky clearly sends an alarm and an invitation to take these problems seriously, but in a far more nuanced way than the Jyllands Posten typical ideological articles makes it look like.

In "Megatrends 2000" by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene I read:

“Asian immigration into California generates new vitality and creates important links across the Pacific
.... at least 84 languages are spoken by children in LA public schools
...Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles with about 65,000 people is known as Little Tapei, after the capital of Taiwan. Half its residents are Asian - the highest proportion of any city in America
... just west of downtown Los Angeles, along Olympic Boulevard, are countless blocks where virtually every sign is in Korean.
In parts of Orange County, Vietnamese is a common tongue
... the Los Angeles area is home to more Koreans than any place outside Korea and to more Filippinos than any place outside Manila. The LA area offers 300 Thai restaurants, 500 sushi bars, and 600 Korean eateries...“

This book was written around 1990, that is in another zeitgeist (spirit of the time) and I am not stating anything as good or bad, but, any case, may be some Europeans should travel the same route I am going to travel soon, and open their eyes into the big world, and what is happening there.


USA as a model for multiculturalism?

I am insisting all the time, from these columns, that the world has changed very rapidly in the last years and that globalisation is a reality. That's why I find it so boring and honestly appalling that keeping on fueling hatred and intolerance. There is no doubt any more we are on the same planet and what is important is not who we are and where we come from or where we are now, but that we finally solve all those practical and human problems that arise when different people live together. So, it is not any more a problem of 'if' but only of 'how'. Who says anything else, does that only for populist or interested reasons. There is no way to stop that evolution, no way, is it so difficult to understand it and accept it?

Is USA then an example of how to work together for the sake of a country's wellness? Don't know really, that's why I am so interested in visiting it, to witness with my own eyes how the American society works. On one side it is evident that there is a shared feeling of being all American. On the other, it is clear that there are also lots of problems, racism and discriminations and slavery-like situations.
I will report about which impressions I will get from this unfortunately short visit to California.

And I would like to state once more, as I have done all my life, that I actually don't believe in multiculturalism as a positive fact, meaning that all cultures are cages for the individual human beings.
So, the goal is to have a peaceful world where anyone can be him/herself and live a worthy life, no matter where on earth they are. Universal rights above rights for certain cultures.
Being most people identified with their own culture anyway, the middle-term goal now would at least be a peaceful life in between the different cultures and respect and support for each other.
Just to move a little step further from stone age.


California is my name

What is California actually? The very crowded Southern California or the less crowded northern one? The glamorous Hollywood or the hippie San Francisco? The posh beaches or the solitary deserts? There is quite a lot of variation in the country and how can one make an average of such things?

Even the name California, it is so familiar no one ever thinks about its meaning. What's the origin of it? Of course we don't know for sure. It existed already in the middle age, in some epic songs from the French Bretagne or Brittany (it was called Califerne).
Or was it Spanish, which wouldn't be surprising as practically all city names in California are Spanish, from 'caliente' may be, muy caliente indeed.
But, as usual, every time we think we have invented something, then we find out that the 'primitive' people had done it already long time before. So, just think there is something called 'kali forno', meaning 'high mountains', in the indigenous language.

Anyway, the colonizers didn't use so much academic time for these etymological discussion, they were clearly more interested in the Golden State, because there was a lot of gold in it, in fact.


Being in California, I won't be able to write about California??

Well, I am finally leaving tonight, so there won't be so much blogging in the next two weeks.
Unless I will manage to upload my daily blogs some way, I will just write my travel notes on good old-days paper and then report here when I will be back, around the 26th.
It's a pity, as I had a lot to write about, but I have got a life too, and a sentimental life in particular, so that has to have a priority, betraying my web aficionados for once.
See you later, the Gold Rush is calling me.