June 28, 2007

Internet in Italy: passport please . . .

Parking problem the Italian way: a bunch of Ferrari's in Perugia.

I hadn't expected this in Italy, where everybody is always very busy doing things not allowed, but one can't check his e-mail just like that.

Passport fer favore! Excuse me, passport?

Turns out that in Firenze without a passport you're not allowed to touch a keyboard.

Huh?

Well, as I had to access my website after two weeks without Internet (at least with the help of keyboard), to clean up the log sites that grow fast to a gigabyte or so thanks to the bloody comment spammers, I handed him passport. First the guy took it trough a scanner, and then he filled in an online form on his computer. Once ready he gave me some kind of credit card with a ten digit number and a bar code. With the code I was able to start up an Internet session, which was coupled to my passport this way.

I asked him why.

'European law sir'. Bullshit of course, because there is not such law - at least yet. Although we and the French vetoed the first try to some European first Amendment we're still pretty European. So I pointed out to him that according to a Dutch law nobody but the police can ask me for my passport, let alone copy it, he shrugged his shoulders.

'This is Italy sir, take it or leave it. If I don't obey they will close my shop tomorrow'.

So, my American friends, don't say that I didn't warn you before you go to Tuscany this summer.

I might be wrong, but I think I didn't see too many USAnians in the Italian Internet cafes. Americans - for right or wrong - are rather preoccupied with terrorism, which is one reason they bluntly refuse to hand over their passport to an Italian.

On the other hand Italy is walking in line with these modern times.

Early in the morning we went for a cappuccino and a dolce in a coffee bar in Radda in Chianti, which also provided wireless Internet. A Yank with a Mac Book Pro was checking his e-mail. The cafe hot spot? 'Don't know, but it's working' , he told me, 'because for some stupid reason the guy behind the bar asked me for my passport'.

Instead he'd ordered a latte macchiato and fired up his Mac, pretending he was working off-line.

Sure enough his Mac picked up an unprotected wireless network, maybe from inside the cafe, maybe from the other side of the street.

And it might have something to do with all those high mountains, but anywhere in the French, Swiss, Italian and Austrian Alps and Dolomites my Nokia was able to access the net, sometimes only GPRS, but almost everywhere UMTS. But then again, it's 2007.

 Posted: June 28, 2007, 12:31 PM | Comments (0) |

June 26, 2007

Down Under

Aborigines performing at Crown Street Mall, Wollongong. credits: Wikipedia Commons.

Down Under in the news; a tragic shooting, with some luck survived by a Dutch backpacker who became a hero, something that could have happened anywhere.

For a few days it took away international attention from a much bigger tragedy: the Australian Aborigines.

I like to think know something about Aborigine history. But even after having been there twenty times, having travelled every corner of the big island for a total of more than three years, I still don't get it. Even worse, the more I read the Australian media about the Aborigine problems, the more books I read about Australian history, the less I understand about the Aborigine soul.

Australian troops and policeman have begun to protect Aborigine children from abuse in the communities up north. How easy to cry out loud about the Australian government.

While this time nobody has used the words sterilization or deportation, Australian prime minister Howard and his political friends are accuses of paternalism and racism.

What else should they do, I'd say?

As Howard himself stated this week in a speech tot the Sydney Institute: In our rich and beautiful country, there are children living out a Hobbesian nightmare of violence, abuse and neglect. Many are in remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. To recognise this is not racist. It's simply an empirical fact.

Last week Howard announced the Commonwealth would push aside the Northern Territory Government and, with extra police, doctors and the military, take control of about 70 Aboriginal communities for at least five years.

Under this plan plan alcohol and pornography would be banned, every child under 16 would have a health check, welfare payments would be withheld. All this in an effort to stabilise the communities and stamp out the widespread child abuse detailed in the recent report Little Children are Sacred.

The real Aborigine tragedy is that they don's succeed to take their own fate and their own responsibilities in their own hands. And not to use all the extra help they've gotten over the years, the millions of dollars waisted, to raise themselves.

Yes, you can close all pubs from Darwin to Mount Isa every thursday, so that the wellfare payments aren't immediately spent to alcohol. The only difference is that everyone up there is pissed and fighting on friday.

He who has better idea's than John Howard, speak.

 Posted: June 26, 2007, 01:27 PM | Comments (0) |

June 18, 2007

We all love lovely Kelly

For the last two years Kelly is our guest when her owners are enjoying their holiday.
A cross between a Pekinese and a Boomer, Kelly is cute, Kelly is lovely. I love to walk Kelly, because all girls smile at me, but Kelly knows what she wants.
And what she doesn't like! I haven't got a clue why yet, but Kelly hates my Canon Ixus. Check out the video, and please push your sound settings to the max. Enjoy!

 Posted: June 18, 2007, 01:56 PM | Comments (0) |