Mirror Neurons

In 1992, three Italian researchers from Parma, Italy, were studying the motor cortex of monkeys’ brains - a region that until then was supposed to deal exclusively with movement. Through electrodes implanted in the brain, they could “see” neurons firing when the monkey did a simple action, like grasping for food. The surprise came when the monkey’s neurons fired as one of the researchers reached for his own food.

Further research revealed the true nature of these neurons. If the researcher put his hand in a box containing a banana, the neurons fired. If the box was empty, and the monkey knew it, the neurons did not fire. Putting a hand in a box is the same movement, whether or not there is a banana – but is not the same action. The monkey understands, through these new kind of neurons, that the researcher is going to grab a banana. The monkey can build “a true representation in the brain of the action itself”, as the scientists wrote recently in Science magazine. It was not a mere observation of the movement: it was the understanding of the action that made the neurons fire.

The neurons were then called Mirror Neurons and have been regarded with increasingly more interest by the community of neuroscientists around the world. They have recently been said to be for psychology what DNA is for biology. This year, the three researchers – Giacomo Rizzolatti, Vittorio Gallese and Leonardo Fogassi – received the Grawemeyer award for psycology.

From imitation to language

It was Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California San Diego, who in 2000 drew a parallel between DNA and mirror neurons. The title of his essay “Mirror Neurons and imitation learning as the driving force behind the great leap forward in human evolution” is self-explanatory: in Mr Ramachandran’s opinion, “they can provide a unified framework [in psychology] and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments.”

Mr Ramachandran is only one of the most prominent scholars who looked at mirror neurons as the discovery of the century – why so much excitement? Because mirror neurons, apparently, are responsible for the comprehension of what other people do. When someone else smiles, our cortex runs a simulation of the expression, making other parts of our brain understand the message: “I know what you are doing”, says the brain, “because I do the same in similar conditions”.

It is possible to understand the message behind the smile because the same mirror neurons activated in our brain when we smile are activated when others smile. There is an empathy that allows us to understand others’ mood with expressions alone. And expressions are proto-language – if we do not speak the same language as someone else, we can use expressions to communicate simple concepts.

The mirror neurons provide a neural basis for some simple interpersonal relations, like communicating happiness through a smile, on which more complex ones are built, like language. “The billion dollar question,” says Richard Ivry, director of the Cognition and Action Laboratory at The University of California, Berkeley, “is to understand if it is possible to link comprehension of actions to language. Few scientists care about how we understand actions”, he says, “but we all care about how we developed language. That is why what really drives the research in mirror neurons is [research into the] development of more abstract thoughts”.

The human Big Bang

In little more than 100,000 years, human beings have become one of the most successful animals on earth. One hundred thousand years ago the human population was about one million, concentrated in Africa. Now we are 6,000 times more and we have colonized the whole planet – plus the moon. How was it possible? Prof Ramachandran and others think that mirror neurons are the key factor to understand the passage from a smart primate to a human being.

Archaeological studies show that around 200,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was genetically very similar to us. Nevertheless the Homo remained all but sapiens (wise) for more than 100,000 years. No advanced tools, no painting, no language… then, suddenly, the first signs of wisdom appeared. About 100,000 years ago “multi-part tools, tailored clothes, art, religious belief and perhaps even language emerged, quite rapidly”, writes Prof Ramachandran.

Prof Rizzolatti wrote that “200,000 years ago Homo sapiens can be characterized by a further evolution of the mirror neuron system, which corresponded to an increased capacity for communication.” But that did not correspond to the immediate invention of the language, for which the humans had to wait some more 100,000 years. For Prof Ramachandran, the mirror neurons originally created the opportunity to have a mimicking culture for Homo habilis (about two million years ago) and then the evolution of language for the Homo sapiens.

While we may see a sudden appearance of culture (technology, religion, politics etc) in the archaeological record, the reality may be different. Culture is knowledge based. The more I know the more I invent. The more the society knows, the more the society will advance. Passing, with the same 1500 cc brain, from a society without tools to a society with complex tools, is the same leap forward as moving from a society with complex tools to one with nuclear bombs. Then, wrote Prof Ramachandran, “inventions like tool use, art, math and even aspects of language may have been invented ‘accidentally’ in one place and then spread very quickly, given the human brain’s amazing capacity for imitation learning and mind reading using mirror neurons.”

“A person growing up, alone, in a cave does not develop any language capacity” said Prof Ramachandran. Mirror neurons are necessary, but not sufficient, to develop language. It is thanks to mirror neurons and to “our species’ remarkable propensity for miming, that any major invention would tend to spread very quickly through the population.”

“Mirror neurons, said Prof Gallese, are physiologically equal to other neurons (a neuron is characterized by its connections with other neurons), and it is not yet clear why 20-25% of the neurons become mirror neurons. It is the revenge of the environment on DNA: we are not what we are, but we are our history,” he said. Developing a brain suitable for language it is not simply a matter of DNA: we must grow up in a society with language. And our society could have developed language through small leaps forward. As said, one person, growing up alone in a cave, would not develop language capability — but nor would ten people. Language appears to be something humanity has built on an increasingly more efficient ability to use the brain to communicate, thanks to mirror neurons.

Communication, the real asset

Spinoza said the human being is a social animal, and we are indeed social, in a very profound way. Human society is built on communication. Without the capacity to exchange information and retain information through generations thanks to language and memory, the human being would be nothing more than a hairless monkey, as Huxley said, with a very low probability of survival. The fact that we are “immersed in a culture that can take advantage of the learnability” makes human society what it is.

Isaac Newton said, quite modestly, that he only “worked on the shoulder of the giants” . Giants like Galileo, who could use the so called “Arabic” numerals, invented by some Indian sapiens and brought to Europe by the Arabs. What Newton meant was that, provided you are smart enough, it is all about exchanging information. Today, huge software applications like the GNU/Linux operating system have been developed thanks to the possibility of exchanging information and knowledge through the Internet.

All this would have not been possible if our progenitors 200,000 years ago had not begun to develop a mirror neuron system capable of giving humanity empathy and language. Prof Gallese, during a conversation from Italy, called the mirror neurons “the collaborative neurons”. Prof Ramachandran, some hours later from India, said that mirror neurons are “the first Internet, built by our brain”. The two academics speak a common language and, just like everybody else, have different media to exchange easily information from any part of the world. Whatever the origin, communication has always played the central role in our society. The Latin words “socius”, friend, and “communem”, obliged to participate, gave rise to the words “society” and “community”. Indeed, the essence of our society was clear to our ancestors, much before any theory of the brain was formulated.

PS1 Prof Ramachandran’s essay was written before mirror neurons could be studied on human beings. But he successfully explained some brain disorders in terms of mirror neuron deficiencies. One disorder was autism. Autistic people have both language disorder and problems in understanding others’ feeling in a social environment. Prof Ramachandran’s group predicted successfully that autism could be related with mirror neuron system, a theory that was finally confirmed in November 2006. Autistic children have a problem in activating their mirror neuron system when observing someone else performing an action. In autistic people, for some reason (either genetic or due to problems of neural development), fewer neurons become mirror neurons.

PS2 The best known theory of how human beings can use language, probably, is Noam Chomsky’s language organ, situated in the brain, which mediates language. According to Prof Chomsky, arguably the most influential linguist of the twentieth century, language is innate. This would explain the ease with which children can learn languages, how different languages have a common “universal grammar” and how it is possible that Creole languages can build a high level grammar after a single generation. The problem with Chomsky’s innateness of language is that, as Prof Ramachandran put it, the language organ “comes out of the blue.” On the other hand, mirror neurons offer a less ad hoc explanation.

PS3 Charles Darwin analyzed the capacity to pass information through expressions. He took as an example the expression of disgust. In The expression of the emotions in man and animals, 1872, Darwin wrote: “Extreme disgust is expressed by movements round the mouth identical with those preparatory to the act of vomiting “. Expression of disgust is a form of language, although a rudimentary language. Our ancestors, Darwin said, would surely have the “power of voluntarily rejecting food”, and understanding the expression of disgust could have saved the life of early primates: a child seeing an adult contracting the muscles that draw the corners of the mouth downwards after lunch would immediately understand that the food was not… that good, and eventually reject it if eaten.

What is amazing is the simplicity with which Darwin goes from the communication through expressions to the communication through language: “We can see that a man is able to communicate by language to his children and others the knowledge of the kinds of food to be avoided…” That means: at a certain point in history, our progenitors began speaking, and a mother could simply tell the child not to eat the food, without expressing particular disgust with her face.

Virtual water: impossible reality in Yemen

While Yemen suffers from grave water shortages, specialists and officials keep on warning that the country
’s water supply relies on limited groundwater. Only 125 cubic meters are available annually per capita, and the groundwater has been polluted and heavily overexploited

read more | digg story

Saudi Arabia, Yemen and women.

I’ve been here in Yemen for just five days, and what strikes me most is 1) how tasteful the bread is and 2) most women are covered in black from head to toe. What strikes me even more is that the veil is not mandatory.

There are Yemeni woman driving car (I have seen at least one), women with uncovered face (I’ve seen at least a dozen of them), and westerners are not judged for their dress code. A young blond Italian girl I met refuses to wear more than a coloured singlet and never had problems.

If you think you are in Saudi Arabia, where a woman may not, by law, have a driving licence, walk by herself and other amenities, you are wrong. The black dress is a cultural must.

For five days, I thought the tradition was so strong, that even if Yemeni people watch Lebanese and Egyptian movies (quite voluptuous by any standard), they can not renounce to their traditional clothes. It turned out that I had the same attitude of someone thinking that bell-bottom blue jeans are the typical European costume from middle eve –or something like that.

For a male tourist, speaking with a Yemeni woman is a difficult task. There are no women in any cafe. Should you (male) meet some guy and go out with him, he will only introduce you to male friends, and so on.

But if you are here for work, the situation is different. At the Yemen Observer headquarters, half of the workforce is female –and not just the receptionist. Ok, you never know if you are speaking with the environment reporter or the public relation manager (they have similar eyes to me), but that is more your problem.

After my n-th gaffe, addressing to a girl with the wrong name, I acquainted Mohammad, reporter at the Observer, with my frustration. He said he has the same problem. “On the other hand – he said – it has not been like that for ever. Thirty years ago women had uncovered face.”

Even more, you could be the guest of a family, and eat and chew qat together with women. Something, as far as I have seen, impossible today.

What happened is that in the 1970s the oil price went from $15 a barrel to $40 (in 1973) and then to $70 (1980). The biggest producer of oil in the Middle East region (and in the world) was Saudi Arabia, which consequently with high oil price saw its economic, political and cultural influence increase all over the region. Wahhabism, the conservative Islamic Sunni stream from Saudi Arabia, became more influential in the Islamic world. Particularly in Yemen and Afghanistan, apparently.

(Just to give an idea: Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, was, or is, in Afghanistan, and one third of Guantanamo Bay’s prisoners are Yemeni)
Religious schools were founded with the financial help of Saudi Arabia. And the process begun. At that time, the veil worn now by Yemeni women could not be found in any part of Yemen. That black clothes is a traditional Saudi costume. Even for men, the long shirt they wear… that comes from Saudi Arabia, it is not autochthonous. Traditionally, they would wear a shovel wrapped around their hip to cover the legs and a shirt for the torso.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Saudi influence became more marked. With the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, more than one million Yemenis were expelled from Saudi Arabia –the Yemeni government was accused to have backed Saddam. Back to their fatherland, they imported Saudi culture as well.

Today, I went to the rural area outside Sanaa. It is true that I could not find a single woman in black, but it is true that I could only “steal” images of (fully covered) women at wells. Ali and Hussein, my Virgilii, refused to speak with any woman: “It would be shameful for her if we addressed to her.”

The cover story of the last issue of the Yemen Today magazine is about women in Yemen. Statistics are frightening. In some rural areas, women have a life expectancy of 38 years. Illiteracy is above 90%. Few rights –if any– and many duties –like giving birth to 8 kids, on average.

But the mistake, as far as I can understand, is thinking that all that is linked to religion. That Islam is a religion against women. Indeed, Turkey had a women as prime minister, Italy never did (and allowed women to be judges only in 1964). In the first year of prophet Mohamed “reign”, women apparently came out of a terrible condition. Then, good periods alternated to bad periods. Thirty years ago, it was maybe better than now –but honestly I cannot believe that in the rural area the situation was *that* good…

Even today, I cannot think about any society where women have the same opportunities as men. Human societies are sexist –some of them are more, some are less. The only two axioms I can find, regarding the difference between women and men, are: women are physically weaker than men; women, even in our “knowledge driven” societies, are happy to sacrifice themselves for their kids much more than men are.

On these two simples facts, a plethora of superstructure has been built –and will for ever. At the present moment, superstructures against women here in Yemen seem pretty tough.

Una cartolina dall’Apple Store della 14esima

Sì. Dopo anni di anticonformismo, dopo aver cercato di diversificarmi dagli anticonformisti, dopo non aver mai preso un iPod, un BlackBerry (che tanto non è che mi scrivano in molti), un “Pager” (credo voglia dire palmare)… alla fine mi son comprato l’iPhone.

Pensavo fosse dotato di software avanzatissimo, invece c’è una versione minimalista di Darwin (il sistema operativo alla base di Mac OS X, basato su BSD, ossia Berkley Software Distribution, che è una versione libera di Unix… uff!) con un’interfaccia grafica ancor piu` minimalista.

Il software delude. Credo che l’interfaccia dell’iPod classico per la musica sia meglio. O per lo meno, questa e` indecente. Un browser senza fronzoli. Un software simile a Google maps – che in molti blackberry è molto più avanzata –, una fotocamera che fa poco o niente (niente zoom, niente video).

Eppure son felice di aver speso $500. Perché?

Perché è ingegnerizzato in maniera geniale. È un piccolo computer con l’hardware perfetto. Una cosa per tutte: ha l’accelerometro. Misura le tre componenti dell’accelerazione. Integrando potete avere la velocità a cui andate, integrando due volte lo spostamento.

Vabbé, si sono eccitati due fisici e basta alla notizia. Forse un ingegnere. Aggiungiamo che lo schermo sensibile è perfetto – indovina dove lo toccate, non avete bisogno di pennini o unghie affilate.

E` possibile che Apple non abbia sviluppato apposta software per l’iPhone. Si e` limitata a rilasciare le Application Program Interface (API) per permettere ai programmatori di sviluppare il loro software. Gia` un mese dopo l’arrivo delle API ci si poteva installare programmi impensabili — tipo quello che mostra le tre componenti dell’accelerazione.

Per usarlo senza fare un contratto con AT&T (ma siamo pazzi??? Oramai la politica commerciale di Apple sta diventando peggio di quella di Microsoft. Solo che la Apple fa prodotti decenti) si installa sul proprio computer ziPhone.

ziPhone installa sull’iPhone un programma che vi permette di installare varie applicazioni. Potete mettere, per ora, un centinaio di applicazioni sviluppate da terzi. Si va dal server http, al file sharing AFP, dall’accelerometro-log alla calcolatrice Hp 11c, il server ssh, la batteria, potete trasformare l’iPhone in un touchpad, avere un eBook reader portatile…. o un vibratore portatile.

Sì, potete trasformare il vostro iPhone in un vibratore. Incredibile, eh?

PS Credo che un vibratore costi meno di $500, però non ci potete fare telefonate

Water in California – US and Mexico

The US made a desalination plant in Yuma, Arizona, where the Colorado River leaves the US to enter Mexico. The US uses 90% of the water of the basin of the river, and leaves 10% to Mexico. The problem is, everytime the water is used for irrigation, its salinity increases to 3000 grams of salt per cubic meter of water. It is not fresh water anymore, not salty water either – brackish water.

In the Imperial Valley, the irrigation authority dumps this brackish water in the Salton Sea, and artificial laguna which is slowly becoming the artificial and agro-industrial equivalent of the Dead Sea – as, together with salt, various chemicals are also dissolved in the water too. The laguna, which was a tourist resort until the 70s, with artists from Sinatra to the Beach Boys performing for the vacationers, is now becoming a stinking caricature of the Dead Sea. It seems a dirty trick –they put the polluted, salty water in an artificial laguna instead that in the river, but is the best solution. That means that the water from the Imperial Valley does not pollutes the river. Unfortunately, the Valley is not the only user of the Colorado river’s water — although it is the biggest one (it uses 20% of the basin’s water).

Other users put the dirty, brackish water from agriculture back into the basin of the river. This means that when the water arrives in Mexico, it is polluted and salty (almost 1000 grams per cubic metre). And that is why the US had to build a desalination plant – which is not working.

According to Kahled Bali, researcher at the Davies University in the Imperial Valley, water scarcity is the biggest problem Mexican farmers have to deal with. Mexican crops use the same surface as the Imperial Valley, but they only receive half of the water. In addition to that, Mexico is not technologically as advanced as the US. Where the US farmers drain their irrigation water out of the crops, the Mexican ones don’t.

Dreinage is not a very complicated technology, but it looks hard work. You have to take out 2m (6 foot) of soil; put a layer of sand with perforated pipes (30cm or one foot diameter); be sure that the pipes have the right inclination so they can take the water in and drain it outside the field; have a network of canals for collecting the drainage water.

That means that in Mexico all the salt (and the chemicals) dissolved in the brackish water remain in the land, which becomes increasingly less productive.

José, the young man I took in the car with his wife and son, told me that his relatives grow grain, and that they have to dig their own well. No network for the water in, no network for the water out. You make your own work. That is another difference with the US. Water to the US farmers arrives a no charge – they only have to pay for the internal distribution system. In Mexico they have to pay for the excavation works, and for the electricity needed by the pumps.

Mexican agriculture can very hardly compete with the US one. In the US, farmers have the free consulting of a research centre organising the irrigation system, have almost free water, dreinage system. The distribution network of the final product does not seem the same either. In the US the alfalfa (a grass for feeding cows) is sold directly to the cattlebreeder. In Mexico, on the dirt roads leading to the California gulf, the farmers have put poster advertising their product.

Cartolina dall’America - tu chiamale se vuoi: elezioni

Chissà perché non piove mai, quando ci sono le elezioni…. e infatti negli USA sono in piena siccità, forse a causa della campagna elettorale più lunga della storia?

Tutti gli europei sono scandalizzati per l’elezione più cara della storia. Quelle spagnole non se le è filate nessuno, quelle italiane si terranno con una funzione privata, un funerale modesto. Quelle americane ti entrano dall’iPhone e ti escono dalle orecchie.

Il problema è che noi le prendiamo seriamente, mentre negli US lo spettacolo vero e proprio (Hillary che cammina avanti e indietro su un palco lanciando slogan scadenti venceremos e patria o muerte, in inglese, con un applauso ad ogni punto e a capo) viene visto come uno spettacolo.

Viene visto come San Remo in Italia. Bisogna essere schifosamente anticonformisti per non sapere chi ha vinto (ok, io non lo so, pero` non sto in Italia ora). Tutti sembrano detestarlo, tutti lo seguono. E tutti ci vanno – nessuno sperava di vedere Elio e le Storie Tese vincitori, ma vederli lì fu una conquista.

Avere un candidato di colore al Super Tuesday e` per gli americani l’equivalente di Elio che canta a San Remo. Solo che Elio è un genio.

Cartolina da Heatrow - un abbraccio salva il mondo.

Alzarsi alle 4 di mattina per prendere un aereo che parte alle 9.30 è come alzarsi alle 4 di mattina per prendere un aereo che parte alle 9.30. Non riesco a trovare niente di più assurdo. Apparte alzarsi alle 3 per l’aereo delle 8 e così via.

Appena passato il primo controllo (water? liquids? etc) mi avvio verso il secondo (carta di imbarco). Un fiume di persone incazzate – alzarsi alle 4 eccetera eccetera.

Una tipa sui 50 anni, bionda, leggermente appariscente, mi supera in una delle varie curve a gomito del percorso in cui noi pecorelle viaggiatrici siamo state incanalate. Siccome tanto lo so che a me al terzo controllo (raggi X al bagaglio) mi fanno lo screaning speciale, anche se mi sono alzato 10 minuti prima apposta per sbarbarmi, le facilito il compito e la faccio passare.

Lei si gira e mi tira fuori un sorriso un po’ alla Dario Fo. Sorry sorry, sono terribilmente di cattivo umore, mi comunica. No problem, non vado mica di fretta.

Sta andando alle Bahamas, dove l’aspetta il marito, e si chiama Rachel. Viene da Dubai, e prima ancora da Bombei. Che lavoro fa? La strizzacervelli – così dice: Shrink. Perché sai, un sacco di manager lavorano troppo, ed hano bisogno dello psichiatra per essere messi a posto. Non riescono più a comunicare con i colleghi, e la società paga psicologi ambulanti per aggiustarli.

Gesù, in che mondo viviamo, eh?

Arriva il secondo controllo, quello della carta di imbarco, e l’officer donna ha la faccia veramente incazzata. La officer si deve essere alzata veramente presto, e non deve neanche prendere l’aereo – sono cose che non mettono di buon umore.

Mi restituisce sgarbatamente la carta e poi la chiede a Rachel, che le dice (è vero) che la collega a fianco gliel’ha appena controllata. La officer ruggisce che lei non ha visto, e quindi please your boarding pass.

Rachel glielo dà…. e poi spalanca le braccia e avvolge la officer in un abbraccio materno. Io resisto all’istinto di gettarmi a terra, sicuro che da qualche parte arriverà una sventagliata di mitra. Rachel dice what a job you have, you’re not happy, are you? you deserve a hug! e in effetti è un lavoro del cazzo, ma io una poliziotta inglese non l’abbraccio.

E invece la poliziotta, la officer, si mette a ridere! Ricambia l’abbraccio e continua a ridere. Rachel saltellando mi raggiunge e mi dice if we hugged more often, we would have a better life.

La vorrei abbracciare, ma non lo faccio.

Looking for some water (scarcity)

Just after entering Mexico I take in the car José, Blanca and the little four-month-old José Luiz. The renting contract of the car states that the insurance does not cover any other persone than me. But says also that the insurance is not valid in Mexico (it does not say anything about Canada). So it does not make any difference if I take some passenger.

They have to go to Santa Clara, where the Colorado River ends. Me? Also, or at least seems a good idea to go there. I have to understand if the river is running out of water.

José is very shy at the beginning. At the end of the day he will make jokes and laugh like if we knew each other since ever. We make a detour to see the river. The river, actually, does not exist anymore. It is a small stream of dirty water, slowly moving towards South.

But José is not a farmer (although his family is), and does not care very much about water. He is going to Santa Clara to ask if the corvinas – sea bass in the US, branzino in Italy – have arrived. Like salmons, they swim upstream, and, like salmons, they have to face any kind of predators. Particularly fishermen. The air is fresh, almost cool, and the sun is hot. The sky deeply blue. The best weather ever. And the curvinas have not passed yet, people on the beach say.

Then we go to Blanca’s sister and her husband – Juan. Juan does not seem Mexican. Everybody, but he, has black Mexican-style mustaches, brown skin and black hair. He has some redish beard, dark green eyes.

US-Mexico is really a frontier. That is what you would call a border. In southern California, US, I thought I was like in Mexico – as soon as they heared my accent they switched to Spanish. People looked Latin American and not North American. My mistake. The people I was speaking with were not Mexican, they were Latinos. And only now I understand that Latino does not mean Mexican. No one of the Latinos I met has anything in common with my new acquintances.

What slightly shocks me is green-eyed Juan’s family, and how he lives. He has got a lancha, a 15-foot boat with a 110 hp off-shore engine on the back. That is the fishing-boat. That is the source of income on which he and 14 more people rely on.

In three hours, the boat sucked about $50 of fuel. To transport the boat from his place to the sea - and back - he pays $20 for the trailer (!). That means that if he goes out, cannot find any fish, and comes back, he loses at least $40. The good news is that in one day he can rake up $800 in corvinas or calamares. If he catches something.

Observing his house, I wonder if that ever happened. If it did, it did not frequently, for sure. There are two shacks and a semi-destroyed caravan. The restroom is the typical hole in the ground, with a wooden bowl on top of it – but we are not in the country side, we are in a small village, with some American tourists wandering around.

Still, as one would expect, everybody laughs and seems happy. That could be the results of a diet of mussels and paprika, both notoriously afrodisiac. Juan has a new child every two years. The daughters, as soon as they are just below 20, start to have kids as well. A nephew may have to take care of her young uncle. The grand-mother may be younger than the father. Family roles blure.

In the night, we drive back to San Juan, close to the Mexico-US frontier. It’s 6 pm, and there is a 3-hour queue to get in to the US. Then I decide to sleep in Mexico. José recommend me a hotel – the one in which they “manufactured” the child, he says. Ten dollars each six hours. I’m too tired to look for another place, and accept the advice. After a while, I have to stick the earplugs up to my eardrums, in order not to hear the effect of a diet based on mussels and paprika.

Cartolina dall’America - 1 Marzo 2008

Giovedì notte ho conosciuto una giornalista sul volo New York-Los Angeles. In realtà uscendo dall’aereo dopo il volo. Ha attaccato bottone lei, io ero troppo morto per parlare con 8 ore di fuso orario sulle spalle. Collabora con il New York times, ha scritto un libro, mia età, in gamba.

“Are you jewish?”. No, non sono ebreo. Ah che peccato… poi mi indica un bambino di una famiglia i cui maschi hanno tutti il cappellone nero. “He’s so cute with his hat!”.

Io amo Primo Levi, ho letto il Pentateuco, Mario Brelich è uno dei miei autori preferiti. Però non trovo carino un bambino con un cappello/divisa.

Poi mi dice che domenica sera ci sarà un festival. Ah, le dico, provo a passare. Beh, è jewish, dice imbarazzata.

Oggi son tornato a LA dal Messico, un’esperienza assurda, mai visto una frontiera separare due situazioni così estreme. comunque arrivo a LA, guardo su Internet, vado al festival, mi guardo un documentario. La trovo. Mi ha detto quattro volte – “I cant believe you came…. you cant understand that, you are not jewish!”

Grazie a dio (grazie dio) era l’unica scandalizzata che un gentile si fosse presentato ad un festival dove facevano vedere un bel documetario sugli israeliani che hanno lasciato gaza (in cui gli arabi, che non si possono chiamare palestinesi, sono lontani ed invisibili).

“Non è un altro mondo sai?” le dico. “Certo che è un altro mondo!” risponde.

Stiamo parlando di americani-ebrei o ebrei-americani, mica di inuit eschimesi. Crede veramente che la cultura ebraica sia così introversa? Secondo me, grazie a dio (grazie dio), no. Alcuni gentili l’hanno assorbita. Che non vuol dire che apprezzano cose come i cappelli neri o il trattamento riservato in Israele ai “cittadini israeliani di serie B”. Per fortuna tanti ebrei che ho conosciuto o letto, israeliani o americani, non apprezzano cappelli e discriminazione.

Alla fine ho mangiato un sandwich e me ne sono andato in un motel a farmi una doccia. Non mi lavo da due giorni, ho fatto quasi 20 ore di macchina, 4 di barca a motore e una di barca a remi. Forse puzzo. Forse il problema era questo.

Ending a dammed nuisance - Underwater Free Flow Turbines

Written for The Economist, March 8TH - 14TH 2008, Technology Quarterly section.

A new generation of free-standing turbines will liberate hydroelectricity from its dependence on dams?