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And the team is from Torino.
On tuesday 17th there will be a realease “Open Beta” party in P. Carlo Boggio 59, Torino.

From Reuters

HARADHEERE, Somalia (Reuters) – In Somalia’s main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate.

Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorized shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea.

The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore.

It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations — and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments.

One wealthy former pirate named Mohammed took Reuters around the small facility and said it had proved to be an important way for the pirates to win support from the local community for their operations, despite the dangers involved.

“Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 ‘maritime companies’ and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,” Mohammed said.

“The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials … we’ve made piracy a community activity.”

Haradheere, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, used to be a small fishing village. Now it is a bustling town where luxury 4×4 cars owned by the pirates and those who bankroll them create honking traffic jams along its pot-holed, dusty streets.

Somalia’s Western-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is pinned down battling hard-line Islamist rebels, and controls little more than a few streets of the capital.

The administration has no influence in Haradheere — where a senior local official said piracy paid for almost everything.

“Piracy-related business has become the main profitable economic activity in our area and as locals we depend on their output,” said Mohamed Adam, the town’s deputy security officer.

“The district gets a percentage of every ransom from ships that have been released, and that goes on public infrastructure, including our hospital and our public schools.”

RISK VS REWARDS

In a drought-ravaged country that provides almost no employment opportunities for fit young men, many are been drawn to the allure of the riches they see being earned at sea.

Abdirahman Ali was a secondary school student in Mogadishu until three months ago when his family fled the fighting there.

Given the choice of moving with his parents to Lego, their ancestral home in Middle Shabelle where strict Islamist rebels have banned most entertainment including watching sport, or joining the pirates, he opted to head for Haradheere.

Now he guards a Thai fishing boat held just offshore.

“First I decided to leave the country and migrate, but then I remembered my late colleagues who died at sea while trying to migrate to Italy,” he told Reuters. “So I chose this option, instead of dying in the desert or from mortars in Mogadishu.”

Haradheere’s “stock exchange” is open 24 hours a day and serves as a bustling focal point for the town. As well as investors, sobbing wives and mothers often turn up there seeking news of male relatives missing in action.

Every week, Mohammed said, gang members and equipment were lost to the sea. But he said the pirates were not deterred.

“Ransoms have even increased in recent months from between $2-3 million to $4 million because of the increased number of shareholders and the risks,” he said.

“Let the anti-piracy navies continue their search for us. We have no worries because our motto for the job is ‘do or die’.”

Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel.

“I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,” she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony.

“I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the ‘company’.”

(Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Rock And Roll – The Early Days – Media Against Rock ‘N Roll

You don’t have to be blind to see that the writing is on the wall.

A PUBLIC ART PROJECT FOR THE BLIND
PORTLAND, OREGON
AUGUST – 2007
SCOTT WAYNE INDIANA

In nome della laicita’ della scienza e della cultura e nel rispetto di questo nostro ateneo aperto a docenti e studenti di ogni credo e di ogni ideologia, auspichiamo che l’incongruo evento possa ancora essere annullato.

Queste le conclusioni dei 67 docenti firmatari , tra cui Marcello Cini, ordinario di Fisica Teorica, poi di Teorie Quantistiche e oggi Professore Emerito dell’Università “La Sapienza” di Roma, nel documento indirizzato al magnifico rettore dell’ateneo romano, Renato Guarini, a proposito dell’intervento di Benedetto XVI – previsto per giovedì 17 – al termine della cerimonia di inaugurazione dell’anno accademico.

Così l’anno accademico 2007 – 2008 del Primo Ateneo di Roma si inaugura sull’onda della polemica e della strumentalizzazione.

In nome della laicita’ della scienza, la posizione della facoltà di Fisica acquista una terza dimensione, “storica” – se si preferisce “evolutiva” – in aggiunta alle due tradizionali – empirica e logica. Mentre nel vecchio dipartimento si distribuisce “Porchetta e vino a volontà” per festeggiare, con un pranzo sociale, la svolta anticlericale, con proiezione finale del film “La vita di Galileo”.

In generale è tutto un assedio : visivo e sonoro. Quello dei media innanzitutto, giornali, radio e televisione, e quello della musica che verrò sparata a tutto volume dalle casse posizionate su un camion di otto metri parcheggiato in piazzale Aldo Moro, a Roma.

A questo fracasso si riduce la contestazione per la presenza di Papa Benedetto XVI, ospite non gradito. A cui si aggiunge una vera e propria processione. Quella per ” i diritti negati”. Il movimento della negazione è però duplice: gli studenti (e i professori) sentono negati il diritto alla laicità, e inneggiano al «sapere che non ha bisogno nè di padri nè di preti». Il Papa sente negata la tolleranza laica, mentre marcia per la pace. Nell’apparente contrasto delle parti negate, una terza Lectio magistralis intitolata Pena senza morte di Mario Caravale a cui seguiranno le parole del Sindaco di Roma, Walter Veltroni. E nuovi concordati.

Ma insomma di quale diritti si sta parlando?

Dei diritti di celebrazione. Quelli per l’inaugurazione dell’anno accademico 2007-2008. Il Magnifico rettore Renato Guarini si pronuncia da laico : “sono assolutamente consapevole che la nostra comunità universitaria è formata di credenti e di non credenti e lo affermero’ anche in occasione della giornata del 17 gennaio.

Benedetto XVI sara’ accolto come messaggero di pace e di giustizia e uomo di pensiero. Allo stesso modo la nostra universita’ ha piu’ volte accolto rappresentanti di altre confessioni religiose e li ha riconosciuti come interlocutori in un franco dialogo sulla convergenza di alcuni valori umani e civili.

Per il Rettore, la presenza di Benedetto XVI è l’offerta di una riflessione alla comunita’ universitaria. Se ci si pensa bene la presenza di Benedetto XVI è un’occasione di riflessione su Roma. E sul (ri) creazionismo. La città “eterna” da sempre dedicata a Giano Doppio, la divinità romana che presiede gli inizi e le soglie, materiali e immateriali, è veramente ridotta oramai alle sue mura di cinta – sempreverde impianto difensivo da attacchi “esterni ” – con occasionale sovrapposizione tra Stato italiano e Chiesa cattolica.

“Roma città aperta”.

“In ogni caso il Pontefice giungera’ dopo la conclusione della cerimonia di inaugurazione, che si svolgera’ invece secondo la tradizione, con una lectio magistralis del nostro collega Mario Caravale, con l’intervento di uno studente e di un rappresentante del personale tecnico-amministrativo e con un contributo del Sindaco Veltroni e del Ministro Mussi”.

Lo studente scelto per salutare il Papa si chiama Christian Bonafede. Una barzelletta? O uno scherzo da prete. Oppure un tiro della sorte? Forse un destino della “sapienza” che ritrova nell’umorismo, e nel gioco delle parti – quello sì ironico – tra umano e divino, occidentale e orientale, l’unica forma di incarnazione possibile. Sincretica. “Brevity is the soul of wit”. Sulla genesi al femminile: tutto tace. (This business is well ended)

Along with Beuys Everybody is an Artist maxim was born the performance pieces. Embodied art, which contributed to create a sort of semi-mythological persona bound between showman and shaman, audacity and megalomania. Embodied reality: in 1979 he was one of the five hundred signatories who founded the German Green Party.

Beuys’s project 7000 Eichen – Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung, was begun in 1982 at Documenta 7, the greatest art exhibition in Kassel, Germany.

His plan called for the planting of seven thousand trees, each paired with a columnar basalt stone approximately four feet high above ground, throughout the greater city of Kassel.

Beuys actions’ were central to his use of sculpture as an evolutionary process. Also the use of evocative materials to recall forth multiple associations. As much for Eva and Franco Mattes and their Synthetic Performance in Second Life.

All their actions are performed through their avatars, which were constructed from their bodies and faces. People can attend and interact with the live performances connecting to the video-game from all over the world. The series started in January 2007.

The couple are reenacting historical performances such as Beuys’ work “7000 Oaks” in the synthetic world of Second Life. An action which encourage the synthetic viewers to contemplate possibilities for new meaning of Art embodiment.

The first virtual tree and stone were planted on March the 16th 2007, exactly 25 years after the original oak was planted.

The 7000 basalt stones have been stacked on an island in Second Life: Odyssey. The diminishing pile of virtual stones will indicate the progress of the project, which will go on until all 7000 oaks and stones will be placed.

Second Life inhabitants will have the chance to take part to the performance, placing stones and trees in their lands.

But what kind of performance is that? Self-awareness, probably.

Imagine ergo sum. With the minimal effort, thou.