Italy elects a new prime minister - Antonio di Pietro

June 6, 2007 · Filed Under Funny · 1 Comment

Milan, June 2006.

After the collapse of the Prodi goverment as a result of the embarrasing Visco affair the results from the general election held last weekend are finally in. It is a landslide victory for Antonio di Pietro, and his ‘L’Italia dei Valori’ - Italy of Values - party, which now has an overwhelming majority in both houses of the Italian parliament.

The former Milanese magistrate who was heavily involved in the ‘mani puliti’ - clean hands - anti-corruption trials and ex-infrastructure minister in the Prodi government has vowed to stamp out all vestiges of conflicts of interests in the Italian parliament. Indeed the people he has nominated for senior positions in his government do not include the names Prodi, Rutelli, d’Alema, Fassino or a host of other faces who have, for many years, refused to hand over power to replacements.

Di Pietro stated in his first speech after confirmation of his sweeping victory came in that he was itching to initiate his party’s comprehensive reform program. He also declared that that he and his party were going to turn Italy into one of the economic and social powerhouses of Europe.

The Economist recently reported that di Pietro was possibly the only Italian politician who could drag Italy out from its economic doldrums and firmly into the 21st century.

Crowds of young Italians were celebrating di Pietro’s victory in major piazzas throughout Italy until the early hours of yesterday morning. When asked why they were partying so hard, a young man, Antonio from Bergamo replied ‘It’s the beginning of a new era for Italy. Finally things will be done.’. This opinion reflected the attitude of all those found at the celebrations.

Car horns were being blown in many major cities in Italy and it sounded more as though Italy was celebrating a new world cup victory than the election win of an Italian political party. Such is the air of hope an enthusiam which seems to be filling the country.

Whoops! Sorry I was dreaming. Hope springs eternal.

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Tags: Italian, Italy

Setting up a school blog

June 6, 2007 · Filed Under My son · Comment

I spoke to some of the admin staff at my son’s school today about my idea for setting up a parent maintained blog which would contain announcements and other general information and act as an unofficial school web site. One of the staff, a teacher I think, seemed to think it would be a good idea, where as one of the other admins was ‘Oh, we’ll have to speak to someone about this. I’m not sure.’. In other words, quite negative, but I was expecting this.

In any case, to get them to email me information will require some form of approval, although I could probably go ahead all the same. However, having the backing of the school would be nice. A blog would also be an advantage for them as it would mean that parents would be able to find out about events and be prepared for them, whether the events relate to school activities; school trips and the like; or information about strikes.

Using Wordpress, it would be relatively easy to set up a system which could provide information on a class by class basis, if necessary. I just have to check whether there is an Italian version of Wordpress.com. Hope so.

Then, I will need to find some volunteers who would be prepared to receive emails and update the blog, and it would be nice to have a teacher participating in the process too.

It may be possible, but not with Wordpress.com though, to add Adsense to the school blog and use the revenue as a way of supplementing school funds, although I’m not sure just how much revenue such a blog could generate seeing as its audience would be quite limited.

Really, every school, in parts of the world where Internet is widespread, should have blog and I’m pretty sure many do. Setting up and running a blog would be a useful experience for pupils and would give them an insight into using technology. A parent run blog would enhance relations between the school and all those whose children attend the school (or schools) in question.

In effect all a school blog is is a virtual notice board, only you would not have to actually go to the school to see it.

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