Friendship

The concept of friendship seems to be much more flexible in Colombia than abroad. This could well apply to other southamerican countries, I suppose. It seems to me that it's somehow easier to make friends in Colombia than in, for instance, Italy.

[A digression here is in order: of course I can only perceive on the kind of friendship that can exist between an Italian and a foreigner; there's the issue of the language, the different cultural background, and that undefinable attitude ---not necessarily negative--- that Italians have with respect to things which are different from what they're used to. Most likely, Italians will have a different take on this perception.]

So we Colombians are friendly people. One of the consequences of this shows up when we want to travel around. We have to go to embassies to explain why we want to travel and all that. I guess that foreign countries do so because they know we are friendly people, so they want to know more about us. And that's just fine. They put a sticker on our passports as a symbol of friendship. It is friendship indeed: not everyone has a sticker (you're not friends with everyone), the sticker is not simple to obtain (same as with sincere friendship), and the sticker usually costs you time, money, and effort (just as any good friendship, which goes beyond any obstacles). It is of course a different kind of friendship, because it's friendship between people representing a country and an individual of a country, Colombia in my case. But it is still friendship, and one must appreciate it, no matter what.

Yesterday I obtained yet another of these symbols of friendship, this time with the cool people of the Republic of Ireland. It was a good opportunity to reflect on all the previous symbols of friendship I have obtained in my unproductive life. So far I have eight of them: two from the people of UK (my first friends abroad), also two from the people of France, one from the Italians, one from the people from the US (who really wanted to know me as a friend, as I wrote here), one from the people of Malaysia, and now the Irish. I am most proud no country has ever refused my friendship and I sincerely hope this doesn't change. However, I observe that it is becoming harder and harder to be friends with a country these days. The last two experiences have been truly challenging for me. I mean, they want to know a lot about you, or they make things really difficult; it is clear that they want to test your friendship intentions ---something reasonable in these times of crisis. It's becoming a bit annoying to be friends in such an intrusive and demanding way. Nevertheless, I no longer wonder if I want more friends in those conditions, as I realize that I have no choice.

List of things I will miss about Grenoble

1. Having a desk in an office that is not in an underground floor.
2. The window and the whiteboard in my office.
3. The possibility of going to work by bike.
4. Reading in the mornings in the bus, when the bike wasn't an option.
5. Bus drivers saying hello.
6. The extremely organized "prefecture", in which it getting a stay permit was almost a pleasure.
7. Italian verbs conjugated in passato remoto, courtesy of my Italian office mate.
8. My Italian office mate, and his curiosities about southern Italy.
9. Having amazing mountains all around.
10. Seeing snow in the mountains.
11. Spotify.
12. The desserts (and the substantial discounts) in the canteen.
13. The three towers of l'Île Verte.
14. The more than bearable summer.
15. The studio in which I lived, in a sixth floor, in front of a wonderful park.

Two Sentences (A Quick Capsule of Absurdity)

These are difficult days for Silvio Berlusconi because of judicial decisions. Earlier this week a court declared that he has to pay over 750 million euros to the media group that owns Repubblica, the main opposition newspaper. And during these days, a court is deciding whether the law he made to protect himself from being prosecuted (the Lodo Alfano) is constitutional or not. I don't know how things will end up. However, I want to remark two absurd sentences I have heard these days:

1. Umberto Bossi (who is Berlusconi buddy in the government coalition) , when asked about Berlusconi's problems with law said something like: "Well, we made very strong laws against mafia; justice going after Berlusconi was really a matter of time."
2. Berlusconi's attorneys in the constitutional court claim something like: "Law does not apply to everyone equally; since Berlusconi was elected by the people he's above all the others."

In case you were wondering: the main opposition party in Italy seems to be too busy to say something; they are currently fighting to each other so as to determine who will be the head of the party. It could happen that Berlusconi resigns and they are still fighting. Sigh.

Once again, poor Italy. But also once again: this is all Italians' fault, who complain a lot and do nothing.

The Battle of the Regions

For some reason reality shows haven't had a huge impact in Colombian TV. This is remarkable, given the situation in USA and some European countries (notably, UK and Italy) were this kind of crappy TV is the rule. For instance, in Colombia only one season of Big Brother was produced, and although it had decent ratings, these weren't enough to produce a second season. Colombian TV channels have tried adaptations of many realities, but none of them has had a real impact in audiences. While some people could say that this means that Colombian TV audiences are somehow "smart", a quick look to most successful TV shows nowadays (soap operas based on the drug dealing culture) would quickly prove them wrong.

There is, however, a kind of reality show that has had more impact in Colombia than the others. It's the kind of reality show that involves people living in a beach (or an island), in harsh conditions, away from the world. They compete for better conditions in the beach and, at the end, for a lot of money. The first versions were the local adaptation of things like Survivor in the US (which in turn is derived from a Swedish show called Expedition Robinson). They did two or three seasons following the original format (that is, the way participants are divided into teams, the way of eliminating contestants, the games and proofs, etc.) But, at some point, Colombian producers refused to continue paying the original franchise and decided to create their own format.

And that was a brilliant decision. With complete liberty, Colombian producers experimented with the way of selecting participants and dividing them into teams. An initial experiment consisted in creating three teams: celebrities, participants from former seasons of the show, and regular people. Then, they went further and divided participants according to their social status: rich, middle class, and poor. I liked that one very much. In a subsequent season, the criterion for teams was age: young, not-so-young, and old people competed in the show. Unfortunately I couldn't follow that one, as I was in Italy already.

The most recent format they are using these days is one that would impact anyone in Colombia: a reality in which teams represent the three or four most representative regions of the country. (Here "region" is to be understood in a cultural sense; a region might comprise people from several "states" in which the country is divided.) I don't know if this is really an original idea, but in Colombia it was perfect to create controversy and increase ratings. As in many other countries, in Colombia regions have an heterogeneous structure and culture, an several rivalries among regions are very well-known. So the show ---called "The Battle of the Regions"--- targeted precisely that. As expected the selected participants represent the most stereotypical behaviors of each region, so confrontations (which is the thing we all love to see) are guaranteed. Now that I am abroad I can't follow this reality, which is a real pity.

This year the novelty in the reality was the addition of a team representing "Colombians abroad". I wonder how they behave; more precisely, in wonder the thing(s) that Colombian producers might regard as "stereotypical" in Colombians abroad. I also wonder what such a reality would look like in a country such as Italy, in which regions are so different from each other. Perhaps only two teams ("North" and "South") would be enough, or perhaps people would demand a team for each of the 20 regions (or 21, so as to include the "Italians abroad"). It is possible that such a TV experiment would reveal the rather weak identity of Italy as a whole.

The magic revolution

I can't sleep in long flights. I simply can't: the position I use to sleep is a bit particular, so I can't simply sit and close my eyes. I wish it was like that. Really. In long flights I spend the time watching the tv/movies and walking around the plane, sometimes engaging into conversation with some other wanderer.

This was the case in the flight Kuala Lumpur - Amsterdam I recently took (a post on my trip to Malaysia is in preparation). I was clever enough to choose an aisle seat, in the last row of the Boeing 777-200ER. The seat in the aisle is good for me because I wasn't trapped by the sleeping passengers, and I could easily access the two bathrooms and the little bar in which one can grab free biscuits and ice cream.

During the flight I met this young Italian guy who was returning from Adelaide, Australia, where he completed the thesis work for his first laurea degree in Anthropology. I found it funny that in the middle of the night he was trying to look down through the windows of one of the side back doors of the plane. He said he was trying to look at Ukraine which, according to him (and to the GPS), we were flying over at that moment.

There is an invariant property that you observe when talking to Italians, especially Italians abroad: the 98% of the times, after some minutes of chatting, you end up discussing about Berlusconi. It is something you could bet on. It is interesting to see how the opinion of people about their own country changes (or evolves) once they're abroad. In the case of Italians, this often includes some form of embarrassment.

Indeed, it was with embarrassment that this guy was telling me (and to the other Italians who joined the conversation once they heard us speaking in Italian) that the Berlusconi government has/had plans to close the Italian consulate in Adelaide. Many have protested against this decision, including the own Australian government. Indeed, many Italians (and Australians with Italian roots) are served by that consular office; closing it would have a dramatic impact in them, as they would have to travel very long distances for any kind of bureaucratic issue.

After a quick catharsis in which all the other Italians in the conversation mentioned/complained about some of Berlusconi's recent scandals, the young guy I first met concluded saying something like

"I know a revolution that removes Berlusconi from power will come soon. And I look forward to witnessing that."

That got me thinking. I was quite surprised to hear that an educated young man, very well aware of the problems of his country, could have such a childish perception of the Italian crisis. He was indeed waiting for some magical revolution that, out of the nothing, would come and fix everything. A revolution that could benefit him, but hopefully one not requiring any commitment from him. A comfortable revolution, you can say.

Then I realized that this kind of childish ideals must permeate the minds of most people in the world. They simply do not understand what democracy means, and reduce the act of voting to the act of delegating some responsibility. As such, people expect the others they chose to fix things; external, easy solutions to their problems.

This is in the case in which people do vote; my impression is that only few people actually vote. This seems to be the case in Italy; one usually hears that voting does not change anything. And that's why Italy is quite fucked up these days, I think: corrupt and cynical politicians are in power and only a few benefit from that. The problem is of course what the rest of the people do (or don't do). Often they do not vote, and their political implication limits to following newspapers, loudly complaining about (bad) news during lunch, following the blogs of journalists who denounce corruption, or joining one of those facebook groups that make sense only temporarily.

Even if they won't admit it, they are also waiting for the magical revolution to come.

The failed diplomacy

I would like to comment on the most important news Colombia has produced lately: the agreement between Colombia and the US whereby American troops and planes can use seven military bases in Colombian soil.

This has caused an enormous controversy in south america, for a number of reasons. It is convenient to begin with the motivations that the Colombian government had to sign the agreement. It is claimed that the American support is essential to fight FARC, the guerilla that has become the biggest terrorist organization with incomes based on kidnapping, as well on drug production and trafficking. Military cooperation agreements between Colombia and the US are not new (they date back to 1952, in fact), and they include assistance against drug cartels and, after 9/11, they include direct participation and support of US troops (in Colombian soil) in war operations against FARC. The new agreement follows this "tradition" but to a much larger scale: seven of the most strategic military bases in Colombia are to involve American cooperation. The government says that this new agreement is simply an "update" of the old ones, so there is no need for such a big controversy. For the same reasons, very little is know about the actual agreement, its specific terms and conditions. The "update" theory has also been useful to avoid the control of the Colombian congress, which is supposed to approve any such agreements.

South american countries are very suspicious of this secret agreement. Last friday, an extraordinary meeting of the union of south american countries (Unasur) was held to discuss the Colombian agreement. There was a huge pressure against Colombia, organized by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who considers the agreement as an "act of war" against him and his country; he has officially cut diplomatic ties with Colombia so many times in the last year that one doesn't remember whether the two countries have official ties or not. Because of oil money, Venezuela has a notable influence in the subcontinent, so countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina pretty much follow what Chavez says. Other more reasonable countries (Brasil, Chile, Peru) have a more objective perspective on the matter, and while they respect the Colombian decision to ask to the US for support to fight FARC, they are very concerned about the military influence in the region. They surely haven't forgotten that in the early 90s, the de facto president of Panama was removed from power by means of an attack initiated in one of the US military bases in the subcontinent.

In all of this, the Colombian diplomacy has been slow and clumsy. It failed to predict the effect the agreement would have on the south american countries in Unasur. Nowadays, any US presence in the continent is not well received. The stubborn attitude of keeping the agreement hidden for debate (both in Colombia and abroad) is perceived negatively, as if Colombia had something to hide regarding US military presence. (Well, perhaps we have.) Hiding the exact terms of the agreement leads to more (unnecessary) controversy. For instance, Brasil has suggested that some of the planes involved in the agreement are clearly inconvenient for the war against drugs ---to fight against FARC, planes can't flight too fast or too high in order to be effective, and apparently the agreement stipulates planes with very different characteristics.

Also, in this controversy Colombia has been mistreated in several diplomatic forums. A good diplomatic staff would have not allowed that to happen. In my view, Colombian diplomacy has failed to strike back Chavez, telling the world about his open support to FARC. In fact, it is a proven fact that highly ranked officials in the Venezuelan government are providing FARC with missiles to attack Colombian aviation. This is a proven fact. A number of weapons that Venezuela bought from Sweden in the late 80s, have been confiscated to FARC early this year. With the serial numbers in the weapons it was easy to trace their origin. While both Colombia and Sweden have officially asked Venezuela for about this, the clumsy way in which Colombian diplomacy works has allowed Chavez to turn things around, and to change the main subject of the debate. While he's constantly demanding for explanations (and posing as a victim), he owes both Venezuelan and Colombian citizens a great deal of convincing explanations about his financial and military support to FARC.

You may be shocked

Robin Milner is probably the most influential researcher in concurrency theory, the research area in which I work. He has won the Turing award (the Nobel prize for computer science), and made decisive contributions in several areas of computing; in all of them his ideas have had both theoretical and practical impact.

Milner is 75 years-old now. He continues to work, more actively than what one could imagine. He has recently finished a book on his latest group of theories, one that attempts to provide a general formulation for a number of complicated phenomena. My impression is that such theories have had much less impact than his previous work. I personally do not like the theories; I find them very hard to understand. I guess I am not alone in that perception. One gets the impression that Milner knows that, and that he is most interested in making his theories more accessible.

The other day, by mistake, Milner sent a private email to a public mailing list. The email was intended to one of the chairs of a forthcoming conference: in his email Milner was sending very well in advance his slides for his keynote talk. In his very refined English (which we all have come to appreciate by reading his books and papers), Milner expressed his concern about the lack of a projector in the conference, also pointing out that he should be very busy over the coming weeks. Referring to the slides, Milner wrote: "You may be shocked to receive them so early." Pure Milner style.

That email from Milner got me thinking. I was indeed shocked, but not because of the slides. I was shocked to realize that Milner in 75 years was still concerned about some of the annoying issues related to research, such as writing slides and doing arrangements for conferences. Then I realized: I do not want to be 75 and be worried about research! Granted, I am not a genius-like researcher as Milner is, and most likely when I get old I won't feel the urgency of making a last, extraordinary contribution to science (as Milner probably feels). Even if one feels like doing research till the end (literally), that would certainly be disastrous way of ending your life. I mean, there are so many wonderful things in life so as to be concerned till the end about research. At that age, I certainly expect to be worried about hobbies, family, and health (in that order).

We still have one year to make things right.

Today Colombia celebrates the 199th anniversary of its Independence Day. Last week, the Colombian government raised to this unique celebration by announcing that the US military presence in Colombian bases will expand significantly in the short/mid term. I cannot imagine what surprises the government will have for us for next year, in occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Independence day.

I have a humble proposal for such an important anniversary. It is unquestionable now that Colombia is a failed country, regardless of what you understand by "failure". That said, the best thing we can possibly do for 2010 is to formally accept the reality of our failure as a country. More precisely, by 2010 Colombian leaders should start with all the necessary procedures so as to ensure that Colombia ceases to be an independent country, and becomes part of one of the current empires around.

No, I am not joking. I think we could talk to the UN, and make our case. It should be fairly simple to convince them of our failure. Perhaps they can help us in setting up a bid mechanism, so as to become part of the best developed country around. The country offering the best conditions to govern us would be the winner of the bid. Sensible options would be the US and Spain. In both cases, becoming part of them would be a mere formality; we have been behaving like one of their colonies for a very long time now. They treat us accordingly, too. So it would be like one of these couples that have been living together for a long time, and that one day discover that for some bureaucratic reason (say, cheaper taxes) making things formal is convenient.

The main advantage I see is that nothing would really change: our leaders are already used to report to someone in Spain and the US, and both countries already exploit our resources and talent accordingly. There would be many benefits of making our failure formal. Apart from the immediate order, development, and civility that a foreign empire could enforce in Colombia, there would be other small benefits. For instance, we Colombians would get a decent passport to travel around. The developed country that wins the right to rule Colombia would get access to our natural resources (most notably, water) and to our two oceans. This is not to be underestimated. For the US, I suppose having a fixed colony in South America should be very attractive: they would be close to Venezuela's oil and would neutralize the growing influence China and Iran have in the continent.

I am confident all the Colombian leaders that follow this blog will take my proposal into account. They have one year to make things right.

An intellectual bully

I follow Michael Mitzenmacher's blog My Biased Coin. Mitzenmacher is a professor of Computer Science at Harvard, and does research on a field completely unrelated to mine (he works on potentially useful stuff: data structures, network algorithms, probabilities/randomness, information theory). In his blog, MM writes about his research results and other general topics related to life as a professor and researcher. As such, he has recently written about the serious financial situation at Harvard: the huge debt they have now, the cut-offs they should do, etc.

By reading this post (and the comments therein), it seems a huge deal of the responsability for the current crisis at Harvard is due to former president Larry Summers. It seems that Summers invested too frenetically on buildings and new faculty, and the effects of that careless debt are only seen now. Apart from that, it seems that Summers is a rather controversial character (described by some as "an arrogant, intellectual bully") who during his administration brought division at different levels in Harvard. Summers resigned to Harvard presidency in 2006, and took a professorship there afterwards.

While I could not care less about Harvard's financial situation, and I am sure universities and corporations in the US are full of crazy spenders such as Summers, there's a detail that concerns us all: early this year, our beloved Barack Husein appointed Summers as Director of the White House's National Economic Council.

The idea of having a guy like Summers in charge of the US financial recovery initiatives then sounds a bit disturbing. Granted: it could be that the guy is indeed an asshole, but a very competent one for economic matters. (After all, Barack Husein appointed him, so he should be good by definition, right?) However, there's compelling evidence that indicates that Summers is an idiot (or, that thinks that everyone else is an idiot). Indeed, Summers recently claimed that US economy is indeed improving because the number of people searching for the term “economic depression” on Google is down to normal levels!

How about that?

The fantastic four

I had ready a post on the absurd circumstances of the death of Pepe the hippo, and a sort of reflection on the stupidity some "noble" causes inadvertently convey. Yes, the post was boring. But then I found something funnier to write about. Consider the University of Bologna, a respectable institution, founded in 1088, or as WikiPedia would say, "the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in the world." Now consider the picture below, part of the latest publicity campaign the University released so as to attract students to the campuses of Rimini, Cesena, Ravenna, and Forli:

I always liked Ravenna and Rimini :-)

I really don't know what was the purpose of this publicity, entitled "the fantastic four." And it's not difficult to imagine the controversy (and embarrassment) it caused in Bologna and in Italy at large. Naturally, the ads didn't last long, but the damage was already done. I could write many posts on how critical the situation in Italy is, at every level. I choose not to do it. When one of the most respected Universities in the world chooses to attract students in this way, a picture is worth a thousand words.

If you want to read more about this, click here (in Italian).

Democratic dictators

Although there are several topics I could write about (most notably, my 'unique' take on Michael Jackson's death), I will repeat myself writing about politics. Or more precisely, writing about the failure of democracy in its standard definition. This is motivated by the recent events in Honduras. It must be said that Honduras is a rather irrelevant country in the world. This is not to be taken negatively; Colombia is also an irrelevant country, it's just that it is sometimes relevant for negative reasons.

Since I find Honduras irrelevant, I trust you can forgive my lack of knowledge about its basic facts. Let me summarize the situation as I learned it by reading some online news this week. Honduras had/has a left-wing president called Manuel Zelaya who, as several of his peers, wants to be president for a little longer, forever if possible. He tried to do it in the correct way, but the main courts denied his desires. Zelaya is a populist, clever enough so as to maintain good relationships with Venezuela and the United States. Zelaya's ambitions for continued periods in office made the congress (in which Zelaya's party has the minority) rather uncomfortable, and several processes against him were initiated. The opposition claims that Zelaya intends to convert Honduras into yet another puppet country of Chavez, pretty much as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua already are. They're are not that wrong in that one. Zelaya's was kidnapped by the army and expelled to Costa Rica in his pajamas. Funny scene. The congress then named a rather stupid guy called Roberto Micheletti as temporary president (if you read Italian, make sure you read this note on Micheletti); Micheletti expects to call for presidential elections very soon, and to bring Zelaya into justice if he dares to change his pajamas and return to Honduras.

The situation in Honduras is useful to illustrate a phenomenon occurring in several other countries: legally-elected leaders are becoming into democratic dictators. In other words, potential dictators are using seemingly democratic methods to gain legitimacy. It's democracy only on the surface: indeed, the idea of democracy has been reduced to the mere act of winning an election; basic laws and principles, such as the respect for the opposition and law systems and the preservation of the so much needed equilibrium of civil institutions, are rapidly fading out. The executive power is increasingly gaining more and more power in the process; we can see it in left-wing countries such as Venezuela, right-wing countries such as Colombia, and in undefinable countries such as Italy. Now it is easy to change a constitution based on polls and perceptions induced by media. And nobody seems to complain about it.

The situation is rather worrying, even if you happen to live in a country in which the president is not one such democratic dictators. At the end, they all will end up acting by example.

I go to work using a bike

The thing I like the most about living in Grenoble is, undoubtely, the possibility of going to work using a bike. This is something I hadn't done before: in Colombia is simply out of the question, and in Italy work is so close that there's no need for bike. Instead, since INRIA is relatively far from the city center, and taking the bus is kinda boring, going by bike is the thing to do.

These first days have been extremely demanding: I arrive at work and at home extremely tired. My physical condition is lame. And it's a lot of biking anyway: according to this Google map (in which you can see the path I follow everyday as a blue line) from my place to INRIA there are more than 7km. I generally take around 25-30 minutes of continous biking (there are only two or three traffic lights), so that means that my average speed is approximately 15km/h. This is very slow, and I suppose that it must be fun to watch me biking around: since I am not used at all, apart from going slow I take a lot of precautions. I also must add that I actually like to go slow sometimes: these days the view and the weather are so nice that there's no point in going fast and missing the scenary.

I plan to explore new ways of going/arriving home, using one of the many bicycle routes around. (In particular, there is one that instead of following the highway as in the map, follows the river, so it's very nice in the afternoon.) The main advantage is that the region is mostly flat, something really convenient for my poor physical condition.

Capri

Those of you who have had the privilege of not living in Cali Colombia surely ignore that in Cali, the name Capri is more related to an upper-class neighborhood than to the Italian island. Although I never lived there, I have fond memories of Capri, the neighborhood. The thing I remember the most is that it comprises a number of apartment buildings, each named as an Italian city. The buildings surround some sort of square with trees, something that is not really a park. A short walk around the green square is enough to discover that Bologna, Firenze, Modena, and other Italian cities I cannot recall now are somehow represented in Cali. This is not strange in Colombia, as many things (buildings, avenues, parks, neighborhoods) have foreign cities or counties as names. I suppose that this could be considered as 'exotic' from the foreigner eye. My explanation is that in the local minds foreign names or words often convey sophistication and style; in the case of Capri the choice of names also corresponds to a severe lack of imagination of the neighborhood's planners.

Independent of the names, I always liked Capri. All of the buildings ---which I suspect were built in the late 70s or early 80s--- have a very appealing and simple architecture. They are all very similar, or at least the differences are very hard to find. Yet you can tell all of them were built in different periods. The two or three apartments I visited (one of them in Bolonia, if I am not mistaken) were huge (say, around 120m2) and very well distributed. The first time I visited Capri was in 1992, when trying to reach some field in which I practiced soccer. The field was actually kinda hidden, behind the neighborhood, so I had to cross Capri by foot to reach the field (which, by the way, no longer exists). At that time, I lived in a very different and distant neighborhood; I had to take a bus until reaching what you could call the "entrance" of Capri, and then walk all the way from there. I used to practice very early on Saturdays and Sundays, so every weekend I experienced something I always found very impactant: a silent Capri, with empty streets, in which the only sounds would come from my steps (or from the music of a dying party nearby).

In some way or another, and for a long period of my life, the streets and buildings of Capri represented to me some sort of "reachable wealthy". That is, if there were some sort of well-defined hierarchy of neighborhoods, then Capri represented the one that was right above my neighborhood. In the social scale, Capri was waiting for me, so as to speak. This of course has to do with the fact that my mandatory visits to Capri were part of my first steps alone in the city, so pretty much anything would have impressed me at that time. The remarkable thing is that, after so many years and experiences in life, I still regard Capri as a special place. Furthermore, and in the case destiny would put me in Cali again, Capri would be my first option to live in.

All these memories about Capri were triggered by the neighborhood I am living in right now, in Grenoble France. The buildings surrounding the green, pedestrian square Jean Moulin are very similar to each other. I could bet that the Jean Moulin neighborhood was also built during the late 70s or early 80s. There is a quiet atmosphere in the Jean Moulin neighborhood that transports me directly to 1992 in Capri; this is specially true in the mornings, when I leave for work. The difference is that such an atmosphere lasts the whole day, something particularly noticeable in these days with abundance of light.

As the Capri neighborhood, the Jean Moulin one is surrounded by ample parks. Unlike Capri, however, around Jean Moulin there are many other facilities, including bus and tram lines, many bicycle routes, a stadium, a river and two cemeteries. I enjoy going to one of the parks (which is actually a garden) to use the public WiFi, hearing the kids playing, and the delicate sound of their parents spanking them. Seeing so many kids is kinda weird coming from Bologna. The public WiFi restricts the use of fun stuff, such as the chat and facebook; if it wasn't like that I'd spend whole days in the garden.

The connection between the Capri and Jean Moulin neighborhoods was as unexpected as interesting. It is curious to see concrete evidence on how your past (inadvertently and not) affects your present.

On leaving Italy

The other day, as part of one of those insightful quizzes that only Facebook can offer to us, I publicly declared that Colombia and Italy are number one and two in my personal ranking of "best countries in the world". Some people could say that those choices are just another failed attempt of being funny through irony. No: I honestly think that the two only countries in which I have lived are among the best places in the world to live. 

To my surprise, two Italians reacted to the presence of Italy in my ranking. They wonder "why Italy?" This post is intended to answer that question. It also coincides with the fact that I am leaving Italy later this week, thus closing a very interesting period of my life. I am supposed to return for a few, busy weeks at the end of the year, so any concluding remarks about my life in Italy should be better stated now. 

Italy and Colombia share the fact that they are wonderful countries for everyone but their own citizens. I think it's human nature not to apprecciate what you have had for free for so long; to have a lot and still to complain about some missing part.  Consider the Italian case: the weather is excellent for the European context, people are suprisingly open and friendly, and the culture and food are outstanding. Italy has serious problems, of course, as every country in the world does.  Italy is well known for its corrupted public administration, infested of greedy, cynical politicians; a disease which has grown out of the indifference of ordinary citizens, who reject the situation but that unconciously promote it by doing nothing to change it. It is the Italian system which is wrong and needs urgent reforms, not the country at large, with all the good things it might have. 

There is then a subtle distinction between a country and the system that underlies it. It is common to confuse the two things and to misjudge the latter because of the shortcomings of the former. Such shortcomings seem as impossible to deal with, especially if you have never seen other systems, other visions of the world. Then you realize that a change is possible, that things can be done. By living in Italy I have been able to compare the only system I knew of with a different one. This was most useful to apprecciate the many good things in my own country, and to give its many shortcomings a right proportion. 

Everyone should have the experience of living abroad. (Notice that some vacation doesn't count as "living," in my opinion.) You become more tolerant, and learn to apprecciate new facets of life. I can tell that change in myself, as I can certainly perceive it in the Colombians living in other parts of Europe, as well as in my those Italian friends who have had the chance of living abroad. It's hard to explain, but they're different. For the Italians the effect of living abroad might be more significant: unlike other countries, in Italy you can live your whole life in the small town where you were born. The risk is that your perception of the world is very narrow; the feeling of being a foreigner can be unvaluable to open your perspectives. 

Now I am looking forward to experiencing the French society. I am in particular curious about how the fact of having lived in Italy might change my perception of it. And how my third-world mentality can accommodate to understand, assimilate, and apprecciate a new system. Stay tuned.

The European tour

This week Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is visiting Europe, in what it's been called "the European tour". This "tour" actually only comprises two countries, Spain and Italy. Yes, it's kinda crappy a tour. That's what happens when you are a president and you do very little about the human rights violations in your country: nobody wants you as a visitor.

So, you might be wondering: how come Uribe is going to be a guest of honor in Spain? Spain is an obvious choice given that Spanish groups own pretty much what is worthy in Colombia: communications, banks, natural resources. President Uribe will be hosted by President Zapatero and the Kings of Spain. But those gatherings are only a formality. The important meeting will be next Wednesday, in a breakfast with all the CEOs of managerial groups in Spain which own (or are planning to own) a piece of Colombia.

The choice of Italy seems less obvious. The diplomatic relationships between the countries are practically inexistent. There are no big Italian companies in Colombia and unlike other southamerican countries, Colombia did not have a large mass of Italian immigration. I see two reasons for Uribe's visit to Italy: the Vatican and Berlusconi. Indeed, Uribe will spend most of his two days in Italy visiting Vatican city and the Colombian priests who happen to be influential there. Not a surprise, given his ultraconservative profile.

Uribe and Berlusconi share so many things that the topic well deserves a series of posts. I don't know what it's worse: a Southamerican president that reminds us of the most incompetent European leader, or an European president that behaves as the most populist third-world president. Both are right-wing guys, extremely popular and populist. They have little respect for the courts and judges in charge of the corruption cases related to them. In fact, an ideal scenario for them would be a world without courts. Both Uribe and Berlusconi were disappointed when Obama got into office.

This is Uribe proudly showing the latest achievement of Colombian diplomacy: Barack Obama's autograph. (Not a joke, really.)

I think Urbe's visit will be largely ignored in Italy, a country in which news from Southamerica are scarce and uninteresting. Here only Chávez appears into main headlines. Perhaps Italian media will only comment on President Uribe's weird habit of giving away Colombian citizenship certificates as he travels around the world. (Yes, Uribe has a very strange definition of 'souvenir') As of next Friday, I will share citizenship with Letizia Moratti, mayor of Milan. How about that?

Dubbed Films in Italy

It is well-known that in European countries having dubbed TV shows and movies is customary. It can be quite difficult to find cinemas with movies in the original language. There are social and cultural reasons for that. In the case of Italy, however, there is a disturbing widespread misconception regarding dubbed films. The misconception is complex and comprises several factors:

• The loss of details associated to every dubbing process is largely underestimated. So for instance, not only losing the chance of understanding a subtle joke in the original language is disregarded, but it is believed that the dubbing faithfully captures such jokes.
  
• Some people think that watching dubbed films is actually the right thing to do. They seem to think, for instance, that in that way they won't get lost with local jokes/slang. (They ignore they might be laughing about very different jokes than the intended in the film.) Moreover, there are actors who are popular for dubbing particular Hollywood actors. So, when thinking of, say, Woody Allen, they immediately remember the actor who does his voice in Italian. (This guy, called Oreste Lionello, recently passed away. I guess that there are some who think that Woody Allen died with him).
• To complete this (already dramatic) misconception, many people in Italy think that the concept of "high quality dubbing" exists. So, it has happened that when I complain about the fact that most movies are available only dubbed, people reply to me: "but we have outstanding dubbing artists, and the overall quality of the dubbing is quite good".

As for the third item, it is convenient to state, in the strongest possible terms, the following. Similarly as concepts such as "5 minute naps", "honest politicians", "punctual Italian trains", the concept of "high quality dubbed movies" only resides in the human imagination. It must be understood that every dubbed movie comes with an irreparable loss of what one could term as "original language content". This of course varies from movie to movie, and there could be some of them in which the loss is negligible. (This is the case of, I think, animated movies and TV shows.)

This loss also applies, naturally, to the subtitles they add so to avoid dubbed movies. In the case of subtitles, however, you still can perceive the original tone and intention of the actor. That is, a significant part of the actual acting is preserved. Some can complain about the concurrent action of watching a movie and reading some subtitle. I can admit that this can be annoying if you're not used to it, but I think the effort it's worth doing.

There is also the fact that movie theaters in Colombia most of the movies come with Spanish subtitles (some of them crappy ones). So I am very much used to it. This (and the fact that I've found watching films and TV in English quite useful for my language skills) could explain my aversion to dubbed films.

Now you, my dear Italian reader, would like to comment on this, and create controversy, if possible?

On Earthquakes

As you probably know, last week an earthquake destroyed a significant number of towns in Abruzzo, in the center of Italy. Around 300 died and thousands were affected in different ways.

The earthquake brought out several issues that I find interesting. I will only comment on two of them. First, even if Italy is a country known to be prone to earthquakes, the concept of earthquake engineering is not widely used. Not even modern constructions are built considering the possibility of an earthquake. Truly unbelievable. Coming from Colombia, where most buildings have been built or adapted so as to resist earthquakes, I found that very intriguing.

The second thing that surprised me was that the public reaction to a natural disaster was exactly like in Colombia. Not only: there is a widespread tendency to donate money. But, does a "first-world" country such as Italy really need money to overcome this?

One would expect an European country to be financially prepared to face unexpected events, including (and especially) natural disasters. Not only regular people pay taxes for that (money that funds civil associations such as the fireman and the Red Cross) but also insurance companies should take care of the bulk of the reconstruction costs. Perhaps the state should inject some fresh money and activate suitable logistics to ensure a timely reaction, but that should be a fraction of the entire reconstruction costs. Not even donating stuff makes sense: that should be covered by any reasonable emergency plan. The only thing worth donating in these cases is blood.

I am afraid that donating money is only useful for the donor: some sort of personal satisfaction by means of an SMS, I suppose. The (rather ephemeral) satisfaction of doing something. So perhaps the only benefited from those donations is the corrupt political system that rules Italy. The same political system that should have enforced strict policies for earthquake-resistant buildings. The same system that has publicly stated that reconstruction will take "many years".

Poor Italy. (I was tempted to conclude with "poor Italians" but, as they say, each country has the government it deserves.)

The little tray

Of the many differences between Europe and Colombia, there are a few that make no sense to me, regardless of how many elaborate explanations I try to devise. Today I want to complain about one of them: the little money tray.

It turns out that when you want to pay something (in the supermarket, a little shop, the university canteen) you're not supposed to hand in the money to the cashier: you're supposed to leave it in a little tray for him/her to take it. If you are to receive some change, the person will put it in the tray and you're supposed to pick it from there.

In Colombia using such a tray would be surely out of the question: if I want to pay something and I simply leave the money next to the cashier, he or she would have every reason to be upset. Indeed: in our culture anyone would find offensive (or disrespectful) the act of forcing the other to pick up the money from some surface when you could have given it to his/hand with a similar effort.

I guess that the main motivation of the tray is to keep money transactions as impersonal and cold as possible. Perhaps accidentally touching the customer when giving back the change is a bad corporate habit. Or perhaps the little tray is to represent the fact that the cashier respects the customer so much that he/she is not allowed to hand in the money. Who knows.

My main problem lies on the fact that I am extremely clumsy when picking up little coins in a rush. So, if the little tray's purpose was to speed up transactions, they failed with me. And I am pretty sure I am not the only clumsy one around.

A tropical Bilderberg

You might have heard of the Bilderberg Group, an exclusive club of politicians, kings, queens, bankers and businessman that gathers together annually to discuss the general situation of the world. Their meetings --which have taken place since 1954-- are held in top-secret circumstances to encourage open discussion, or so the organizers say. The mystery associated to the group have made conspiracy lovers believe that every aspect of the destiny of the world is decided in those meetings. The group, they say, represents pure capitalism plotting world domination. Domination in the form of a "New Order" in which we all are slaves of big corporations and banks. More moderate analysts consider the Bilderberg group a special academic exercise, a "harmless forum" where many issues are discussed.

You might be surprised to learn that Southamerica has its own version of the Bilderberg group. Indeed, some weeks a selected group of Southamerican billionaires got together for some sort of summit in Cartagena, Colombia. The official purpose of the meeting was to discuss the best management strategies in times of global crisis. It seems the thing was more like a tropical Bilderberg: there was much less mystery and much more press coverage. No surprise here: Southamerican rich people surely understand that having money makes little sense if you don't make sure everyone knows you're rich.

And that's what our tropical billionaires did. Complete rich families from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela attended. Rich from Colombia also attended: they made the sacrifice of leaving their lofts in NYC to spend some days in Colombia and host their friends. They all arrived in their private jets; Cartagena's little airport couldn't host all of them. The selection of Cartagena was certainly not random: a historic city, with nice weather and exotic private islands was the perfect setting. You must know that Cartagena is probably one of the most Colombian cities in Colombia: a city where extremely poor people challenge everyday the definition of misery. In Cartagena the poor and rich live so close to each other that is shocking. Poor and rich have learned to survive by systematically denying the existence of the other: after all, from the rich perspective poor ones are disgusting, scare the tourists, and live out of the law; from the poor perspective, rich ones represent the frustration of a decent life their eyes will never see.

So, Cartagena was the perfect place for restoring the millionaire self-esteem of those who lost some positions in the Forbes ranking precisely that week. Southamerican millionaires walked along the historical center of the city, which was suitably cleaned, emptied and secured for their relax. At the end of the event, Colombian millionaire Luis C. Sarmiento read a rather ridiculous statement on behalf of all attendees: they had concluded that the best way of dealing with the crisis was not firing people from their companies. Nonsense: they are already doing it! It was then clear than the tropical Bildenberg has still much to learn from the original Bilderberg: the secrecy of the event is essential to avoid stupidity leaks.

This week's catchy song (14)

The Music is a British band, which I really don't know how to describe; a rough approximation would be 'electronic disco rock'. This week I am offering you the first song I heard from them, Take the long road and walk it. I really like the song, and the associated video. Moreover, the 2002 album in which the song is included is very consistent, and I can recommend it. Unfortunately, in the following two albums they ran out of imagination and their music became rather dull.

So, please enjoy Take the long road and walk it:

Heart

The other day I was reading some forum (or some blog comment, I can't recall) in which the latest U2 album was being discussed. One of the comments expressed more or less the following: 

U2 is the living proof that you don't need great performers to produce great rock songs. Indeed, if you pay attention, Bono doesn't have a great voice, The Edge would be nothing without all the machines and effects he uses, and the drums and bass are only correct. After all, rock is all about attitude.

This duality between innate talent and acquired skills pervades many facets of human life. The immediate examples that come to my mind are soccer players and researchers. Some are talented because they're were born like that; being brilliant is natural (or even instinctive) for them. Think of Maradona here. Others, in contrast, try to compensate the lack of innate talent with additional doses of sacrifice, discipline, or even leadership. Think of Gattuso here. In both cases, our human nature constantly pushes us to the unavoidable search for equilibrium. 

I remembered the comment on U2 while talking with a former supervisor of mine about potential PhD students. Doing a PhD is a serious decision, as it requires a lot of personal compromise. A special sacrifice most likely you haven't faced before. There's no formula or pattern to follow for doing a PhD; after all, it's research: you'll be dealing with issues that no one else has addressed before, so what you ignore is usually much more than what you know for sure. This applies both for the supervisor and the student; each of them doesn't really know what to expect from the other. 

My former supervisor has a theory on potential PhD students: to do a PhD you need something that goes well beyond GPAs and mechanical knowledge acqusition; in his view, above all things, PhD students must have what he generically calls their heart: a rare mix of independence, self-confidence, enthusiasm, audacy, stubborness, curiosity, sacrifice, and passion. As many other intangibles in life, a student's heart can't be easily defined but you can tell for sure when you see it. 

Being one of those endowed with a rather modest amount of innate talent, I can only but agree with this way of understanding what it takes to do research. Although this could well apply to many scenarios in life, when doing research it is especially evident that you need a resiliant heart. Indeed, since doing a PhD is such a unique experience (especially if you go abroad for that) you will need to use your heart in those (frequent) moments in which your academic side has run out of answers. In any case, it could help to think the following: if Bono can sing as wholeheartedly as he does with his limited voice, a good student with the proper amount of heart should succeed in that road to oblivion also known as scientific research.

Poor little bastard

I have something against exceptional kids. I guess it has to do with some very deep envy. As a result, I hate hearing about lovable, unusually-talented young actors such as Haley Joel Osment or, more recently, Dakota Fanning. (Perhaps the only exception is Doogie Howser, who indeed I like, perhaps because I am sure Doogie's a fictional character while I am not). The negative feeling is accentuated when I hear of kids mastering outstanding skills in areas in which I really wish I was more talented, such as music or science; I can't stand hearing of, for instance, 6 year-old violinists/pianists/composers, or of 30 year-old mathematicians winning Field medals.

I guess that comparing yourself against concrete examples of (intellectual) superiority is simply overwhelming. Often, when I hear of such examples my initial reaction is rather simplistic and things such as "well, I actually had a childhood and it was kinda fun" come to my mind; then, when I realize the shallowness of my argument, I end up appealing to my theory of "one is never the extreme of things", which I already mentioned here. In any case, I think there's a constant excitement in understanding (and living with the fact) that one's just plain normal, and that such a condition comes with pros and cons.

Having said that, I am most happy to report I found the case of an exceptional kid I do not envy at all: a child prodigy in politics. I am taking about Jonathan Krohn, a 13 year-old kid who wrote a book called Define Conservatism. Poor little bastard. Instead of doing normal stuff American kids do at age 13 (say, being part of a criminal gang, or experimenting with alcohol, drugs, sex and/or their combinations) this little guy chose to wrote a book and to follow McCain's campaign. Even weirder, Jonathan got into politics at the age of six (!). He now gives brief addresses in conservative committees; you can see Jonathan in action here.

This week's catchy song (13)

This week I offer you a song from the latest U2 album, No Line in the Horizon. Quite frankly, the album is very average for U2: of the eleven songs, only three or four are indeed good, the rest is boring at best. Of course, what's "average" for U2 might be simply out of the question for most bands, but it's unavoidable to feel a bit disappointed. (You can hear the whole album in U2's official site.)

First I intended to offer you Breathe, the best song in the album, but then I realized that most likely that's the second single of the album, so you will hear it everywhere in the coming weeks. So, here's another good song, White as Snow. Enjoy:

Umarells and Sdauras

In my neighborhood in Bologna I live surrounded by old people. I often feel like living in a retirement place, one without boundaries or nurses. I don't think there's something special about my neighborhood; it is simply a bit outside of the city center, so I guess other places in Italy and Europe also have a similar proportion of old people. I find it both overwhelming and weird. Very weird. When I leave my building in the morning, I found them everywhere, wandering around in the streets, without an evident purpose.

In the dialect of Bologna, old guys are called umarells and old ladies are called sdauras. Not too many in Bologna know and use these words; it seems it's an old, unused dialect. Umarells in my neighborhood spend their days getting drunk at one of the several bars next to the main entrance of my building. One of such bars is ironically called Bar dei Ragazzi. At night, the combination of umarells and alcohol makes the street in front of my building an unpleasant place for women to pass by. As for sdauras, you can easily find lots of them at the supermarket on Saturdays. They usually dress up very elegantly, even to go to the supermarket or to simply walk around the neighborhood. I appreciate that demonstration of dignity and self-respect; too bad sometimes their make up and clothes are too evident in revealing the decade in which they were young.

All of this is in sharp contrast with Colombia, a place full of youth and kids --perhaps too many kids. Seeing a baby or a kid in my neighborhood it's quite an unusual event. There's something in old Italians that's very different from old Colombians. It's hard to explain: somehow old Italians look more active and alert; I wonder if seeing a war and living the postwar gave them a different sense of appreciation of life. In Colombia, when people arrive to retirement age, most of them enter into a 'hibernation mode' and become way less active, and more dependent of others, or at least that's my impression. Here old people seem more active and responsible and independent than most youngsters; it's so cool to see them riding their bikes all around. Their dignity is both evident and admirable. In these times of crisis and unemployment, I am sure their low ---but guaranteed--- incomes are essential to support and lead their families.

[You might like to have a look at the (photo) blog devoted to Umarells in Bologna (in Italian).]

This week's catchy song (12)

This week I offer you a song from the Scottish band Travis. They are a rather average band, with good albums but nothing particularly extraordinary. As every album, each release by them has a few enjoyable moments of quality, but soon they lose themselves in their ordinary pop. Last year they released Ode to J. Smith, which is a very consistent album. I particularly like the first two songs of the album, which are terrific openers. This week's catchy song is indeed the second song of the album.

Please enjoy J. Smith, from Travis:

Skype and futureless countries

I was just reading that, once again, it has been discovered that the Colombian Intelligence Agency (DAS) has been illegally intercepting communications of key opposition members, journalists who do not praise the current right-wing administration, main members of courts in charge of processes against the government, and many others. The DAS also kindly offers its interception services (which use advanced equipments sold by the US) to drug cartels, left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary armies. The services --which include phone and email interception-- may cost from 30000 to 50000 euro, depending on who and for how long you want to follow someone.

First I felt kind of frustrated about the political use of this agency. Then I thought of what those so-needed, dissonant voices in the Colombian political spectrum could do to keep doing their opposition job. And I remembered a story that appeared in an Italian newspaper some weeks ago. It turns out that the part of the Italian police that is after big mafia bosses is highly discouraged by the fact they're increasingly using Skype to avoid intelligence spies on them. The technology Skype uses to cleverly distribute the data packages that represent voice makes it impossible to intercept communications. Skype conversations leave no trace whatsoever on computers, thus making any interception attempt futile. Needless to say, since Skype is based in Luxembourg, it is not covered by Italian laws and is not obliged to cooperate with the Italian police. (Read the full story, in Italian, here.)

I think this is a very interesting --but ironic-- consequence of technology. The same communication technologies that are allowing mafia bosses to run their business in the futureless republic of Italy could be the only option for those defending (what is left of) democracy in the futureless republic of Colombia.

You might like to follow the links

Today the sun shines again. I want to express that I am very glad to see how fine things are these days in Italy. Let's see: there's a popular government composed of capable and innovative leaders; there's a strong party system which supports an active and united opposition; the judiciary system works like a charm --it handles the rare cases of corruption completely and efficiently; the state-owned companies and public services have reached levels of quality rarely seen in the past. All of this you can perceive this in the people's spirit: even with the crisis, ordinary people find alternatives for living, and the percentage of employed ones with temporary contracts is rapidly decreasing. For young people, studying and doing research is truly a life option. The immigrant population has been gradually embraced by the state and its protection. It is touching to see how citizens are enthusiastically taking this issue on their own hands, as evidenced by multiple everyday episodes. Some of them even organize warm welcome events to immigrants in some cities' neighborhoods (they call these events ronde notturne, or night rounds). Finally, a recent episode has reminded us how remarkable the relationship between state and church in Italy is, and has seen prevail the elemental principles of tolerance and respect towards non-Catholics and non-believers.

No wonder why Italy is a modern, first-world country.

This week's catchy song (11)

The Rascals are a British band with frontman Miles Kane, one third of The Last Shadow Puppets (a group I have extensively praised here). Last year The Rascals released a fine album, entitled Rascalize. From that album, this week I offer you Freakbeat Phantom.

Enjoy:

This week's catchy song (10)

Beth Gibbons is the frontwoman of Porthishead, a group you should know (and shame on you in case you don't). This week I offer you a song from her solo album, Out of Season, released in 2002.

So, please enjoy Tom the model:

This week's catchy song (9)

This week I offer you a catchy song from a group I know very little about. All I know is the following:

• The band is called Babyshambles;
• In 2007, they released an album called Shotter's Nation, which I can recommend;
• The band's frontman is called Pete Doherty, who is or was involved with Kate Moss, a noted supermodel and drug addict.

Without further information, it is my pleasure to present you Deft Left Hand:

People you will never meet (2)

A long ---but hopefully illustrative--- post on bus synchronizers, the clocks of the chaotic Colombian transportation system.

Similarly as minute sellers, bus synchronizers are rather recent street characters. To better understand what they do and why they do it, it is convenient to know a bit better how public transportation works in Colombian cities.

The first thing you should know is that unlike most civilized cities, In Colombia public buses do not belong to the city or to the Colombian state. Here, private companies own a number of buses and little buses (called colectivos or busetas, no more than 20 seats). Each company is managed independently from each other and serves a number of routes. The sole role of the city is to provide licenses to the companies and to manage routes, designing and assigning them to companies.

Also unlike serious countries, when you take a bus or colectivo you pay in cash to the driver. So, yes, apart from driving the bus driver should be aware of the money and of the change (yes, you don't need to pay with the exact change). The fact that drivers have to deal with money directly changes everything, and is the main cause of one of the most chaotic events one has to experience as a citizen: the so-called war of the cent ("la guerra del centavo").

The war of the cent consists in the competition bus drivers have with each other in order to earn more money by picking up as many passengers as possible. This occurs because of a number of factors:

1. The concept of bus stop does not exist in Colombia. You can take and get off a bus wherever you want.
   
2. The bus drivers do not have a fix salary; their income depends on the number of passengers they pick up during the day. At the end of the day, a small part of the money they produce is for them, the rest goes to the owner of the bus (yes, buying and managing public buses is a great business in Colombia).
   
3. The same route is assigned to the several companies, so it could happen that, from a given place in the city, you have several options (that is, several companies) to choose from.
4. There is little control inside companies. Since there are no bus stops, location and velocity for each bus are highly variable. There are some controls inside the city, but these are insufficient.

With the above factors in mind, then it's probably easier to understand why the war of the cent is the fierce competition that takes place between two bus drivers in order to get passengers. Notice that this occurs mostly between drivers of the same company. As most things in life, this circumstance has pros and cons:

1. In the negative side, it could occur that even if there are buses available, they don't stop to pick you up because they're fighting to each other and picking you up would mean losing valuable advantage.
2. Also in the negative side, as drivers take the war very seriously, they rarely respect traffic lights and regulations. It could be very risky indeed: while I was in Cali, for instance, there was a serious accident: a colectivo crashed into a house, 2 died and 23 more were injured:
   
   
   
3. In the positive side, if you're waiting for a bus and then one of the competitors picks you up, because of the previous item, you have the guarantee that there's no faster way for arriving to your destination.
   
4. Also positive, although only from my perspective, being part of a bus competition could be very fun.
   

Now that you, my gentle reader, have a basic understanding of the way Colombian buses "work", let me introduce today's unique profession: the bus synchronizers.

As mentioned before, bus companies have only a few controls inside the city. Usually there is a central station at each side of the city. Inside the city, however, bus drivers have no information on how the other drivers of the same route are relatively placed. This occurs because, even if the central station could synchronize buses (e.g., by dispatching a bus each five minutes for each route), buses stop and pick passengers wherever they find them, thus quickly losing this initial synchronization.

This is where today's character comes into play: bus synchronizers are placed in strategic intersections in the city. Their only tools are a watch, a piece of paper and a pen: as soon as a bus of a given company passes through the intersection, the synchronizers record in the piece of paper the time and the number of the bus. This is half of the job. The other part consists in informing the passing driver about the location of the bus of the same route that has passed before him. As the bus passes, they could yell something as the following:

"You're 5 from the 2156, and he's 10 from the 4123"

which means that the bus passing is five minutes away from bus number 2156, and that the 2156 is 10 minutes away from bus number 4123. This way, drivers get a very precise idea of how the "passenger market" is functioning. For instance, by knowing that the time separation is more than 5 minutes, a driver could possibly decide to speed up, so to get closer, and pick up more passengers. Conversely, if the driver realizes he's very close to the previous bus (say 1 or 2 minutes) then he would probably slow down, as the previous bus must have gotten all the available passengers.

When a driver hears this information he usually throws a coin to the bus synchronizer, as a way of rewarding his service. This is not mandatory: bus synchronizers don't get upset if they don't receive money from a driver. They know that the day is long, and that their luck will arrive sooner than later: he (or she) will be able to gather enough coins to buy his lunch.

A synchronizer in action, in a busy street in Cali. He's approaching to deliver useful information to the driver of route number 3 of the "Recreativos" company. Ironically, just above the name "Recreativos" it reads the company motto: "Comfortable, Safe, and Efficient Transportation".
Thanks to my brother for the picture.

Sometimes there's more than a synchronizer in the same intersection; this is specially common in huge ones: only one synchronizer wouldn't be enough to serve a lot of routes at the same time. Bus drivers know where synchronizers are, and sometimes have a preferred one. Also, there are some ambitious bus synchronizers who offer an extra service: they provide drivers with coins. Indeed, since drivers need to give change back to passengers, and this change is usually coins, they can quickly run out of coins. Upon they payment of a small commission, a bus synchronizer can change your 2000 pesos banknote (0.81 euro) and give you coins for 1800 pesos (0.73 euro).

To conclude this installment devoted to bus synchronizers, it must be said that bus synchronizers have very diverse origins: you see old and young people, women and men, even small kids. You can easily tell they're very smart people. Perhaps their only knowledge in life is the notion of time and the numbers. Most likely, they have very difficult lives. I find it noble that, in very difficult circumstances, bus synchronizers have chosen to decrease the levels of chaos, rather than becoming thieves or drug addicts. What motivates most Colombians to take long, uncomfortable ---yet honest--- roads to survival will be always a mystery to me.

Next in this section: the parking assistants and the packing boys.

Movie Suggestions

The other day the list of nominees to the Academy Awards was announced. As usual, I haven't seen most of the nominated films; I expect to work on that in the forthcoming weekends. Nevertheless, I have seen two of the nominated films, and I would like to use this brief post to recommend them to you.

First, please do see Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's a good movie, with interesting characters and a clever story. Nothing excessively outstanding, but in any case the movie is superior to most of the usual crap around. The movie's main characters are two American girls, played by Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall. They go to Barcelona during the summer and things happen. Those who have been in Barcelona (not my case) would have an extra motivation to see the movie, I guess. I have to admit that my main motivation to see the movie was Scarlett's performance (I had liked her role in 2005's Match Point, also with Woody) but I was very surprised with Hall's performance as Vicky. I think her acting was extremely convincing. Penelope Cruz also appears, in a role that in my humble opinion wasn't worth nominating for best actress in a supporting role.

The second suggestion is not a film, but a documentary, an animated one: Waltz with Bashir. It tells the story of a number of former Israeli soldiers who were sent to the Lebanon in the early 80s. In particular, the movie describes the steps the director (Ari Folman) follows so as to trace his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The animation is excellent so is the music and the way of describing Folman's memories/traumas from war. I think that even if you're not interested in politics you'll like this film, one of the nominated to best foreign language film.

To conclude, it must be said that I am most glad to see that Richard Jenkins was nominated to best actor, for his marvelous performance in The Visitor, a great movie I had already reviewed here.

This week's catchy song (8)

I never endorsed that habit of labeling music. I find it annoying to think of music as some sort of genealogical tree. It's simply too rough to attempt at classifying sounds and what they convey with fancy adjectives. That said, labels are sometimes useful as there are no better words to describe groups or songs. In that respect, looking at the music blogs I follow it turns out that most of them represent what some people call "indie". What "indie" is? How can something be classified as "indie"? Does it restrict itself to music? These are tough, profound questions, I am afraid. What I do know (and very well) is the music I like. And it can't be described with a couple of adjectives.

This week I offer you a truly catchy song, from an "indie" band, called MGMT (the artist formerly known as The Management). They released what some people call the best "indie" album of 2008, Oracular Spectacular. After hearing it a couple of times, one could say that they appeal to the 80s to get catchy. It's hard to analyze, anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you Electric Feel:

What's in a name?

Pretty much as they say that 'God moves in mysterious ways' one could perfectly say that 'stupidity comes in mysterious ways'. To support this claim, let me comment on a recent report I found in an online newspaper.

This is, essentially, a weird consequence of the 'Obamania' that nowadays makes the world happy and that sooner than later will disappoint us. According to this report, Barack Obama was able to inspire a couple in Cali, Colombia to name their newborn 'Barack Obama'. So, yes, there's someone in this world whose first name is (or sounds like) 'Barack Obama', with last name 'Sandoval Fajardo'. (Yes, in Colombia is common to use two first names and two last names.)

The mother said she expected her newborn to be as humble as Obama. The Colombian state ---represented by some public hospital--- was truly touched by this sweet and noble incarnation of stupidity, and will complement it by giving the kid free medical care and milk for six months. (Yes, not only the Colombian state rewards stupidity but also discriminates those parents who named their kids with conventional names.)

But let us avoid the political side of the story. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the news is that the actual spelling of the name was not confirmed. Since in Colombian Spanish sounds associated to letters "b" and "v" and to letters "c" and "k" are indistinguishable, a number of frightening spelling errors are possible. For instance, the poor baby could be named "Baracovama Sandoval Fajardo" or "Varakc Hovama Sandoval Fajardo", or even "Barako Vama Sandoval Fajardo".

It must be said that weird names are rather common in the Colombian and Latinamerican culture. This deserves a post (or even a series of posts). In Colombia, I observe that this is a phenomena most commonly found among low educated people. When naming a kid they prefer originality (in the most liberal definition of the word you can imagine) over common sense or psychological welfare of the newborn. This way, for example, one finds people called "John Kennedy" or "Usnavy", drawing inspiration from the 35th president and the navy of the USA, respectively.

How about that?

This week's catchy song (7)

A Camp is some sort of side project of The Cardigans vocalist Nina Persson. They have a 2001 self-titled album (which I recommend), and this year they're releasing their second one, called Colonia. Overall, I find A Camp's music highly enjoyable.

The suggestion for this week is Chinatown, a song extracted from Colonia. Enjoy:

On Happiness

If you look at the World Database of Happiness, created by Dr Ruut Veenhoven, you will be surprised to find out that at the top of the ranking by nations, along with three very serious countries (Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland) there is Colombia. In fact, to the question "How much people enjoy their life-as-a-whole on scale 0 to 10" one finds:

Iceland 8,5
Denmark 8,4
Colombia 8,1
Switzerland 8,1

[In case you're curious: the study says that people in the USA is happier than people in France and Italy (7.0 vs 6.5 and 6.8, resp.), and that people in Tanzania, Togo and Belarus (3.2, 4.1, and 4.2, resp) are not that happy.]

The existence of this kind of 'happiness rankings' as well as the good position Colombia has on most of  them is not new for the average Colombian. In the popular culture, there's this weird idea that "there is no better place in the world to live than Colombia" closely related to other absurd nationalist myths (which include Colombia has the "best coffee in the world", "the second most beautiful national anthem in the world" and that we speak "the best Spanish in latinamerica"). Regardless of the absurdity underlying the myths, I was always curious on why we Colombians consider ourselves very happy. It seemed very interesting to me that more than 50 years of war, growing levels of poverty and generalized violence, and the weakening of the political and democratic structures, have had no influence on "subjective appreciation of life", which is the fancy term Dr Veenhoven uses for happiness.

As an answer to that, I have just read about one of the most interesting scientific study in weeks. It provides initial hypothesis on why Colombians consider themselves happy (click here for a link to a summary of the study, in Spanish). Here I will quickly comment on the five explanations of such a relevant study.

First Explanation: The Latin Character. This has to do with the fact that because of the Latin personality, in the case of an interview or poll, a Colombian will hardly say something different from what the interviewer wants to hear, or won't reveal something (s)he considers secret. This way, in the event of a poll on 'happiness', it is unlikely for a Colombian to admit that (s)he's 'less than happy' even if that is the case. 

Second Explanation: Tight Social Networking. As in other countries, the idea of family is extremely important in the Colombian society, and constitutes the most basic 'social network' for anyone. Then you have your neighbors, your in-laws, your coworkers, people in your church, etc. It seems that the strong relationships people create with people in their 'adjacent networks' help people to feel better about their lives, they feel somehow protected. This ends up improving the overall perception of happiness.

Experts indicate that relying on the 'surrounding collective' as a strategy to deal with life is easier to observe in people with low incomes, as social networks change or disappear as people 'go up' in the social scale. If you consider that more than 50% of the Colombian population is 'poor' (according to international standards) then it's not surprising that social networks have such an influence on overall happiness.

Third Explanation: Lack of Ambition. This one is very simple: it has been determined that Colombian people have goals or objectives for life that are not very ambitious. So, when people reach their not-so-ambitious goals, they perceive a degree of satisfaction that is different from the one reached by those who have more ambitious objectives in life. This has a lot to do with the fact that Colombians survive to very difficult life conditions: for an average family it is then very hard to think beyond any medium-term goals. Example: nowadays people can only find fixed-term jobs, so long-term objectives (say, buying a house or sending kids to the university) are not even considered. Since expectations are not that high, the resulting frustration is less and you feel more satisfied with life.

The last two explanations are only initial hypothesis, which according to the experts, pose research problems in themselves:

Fourth Explanation: We Are Conformist. The study suggests that for people 'happiness' is not related to the material things they can buy and/or their incomes. People simply manage to be happy with the available means. This is a delicate conjecture and needs further research, as a stupid government could take this as an excuse to let things unchanged.

Fifth Explanation: Achievements in a Negative Environment. This has to do with the third explanation above. The study says that in a difficult (poor, violent) environment, small achievements are given a higher value. Examples of 'small achievements' include: learning to read and to write, to finish high school, to buy a new TV (this is very relative). Underlying this 'twisted valuation', there seems to be a positive attitude that prevents people from going down in moments of crisis; indeed, it seems it occurs the opposite: when things get worse people manage to find strength and keep struggling with life.

As a side comment, the study suggests that when it comes to happiness, 'spirituality' has a more noticeable effect from the point of view of social networking than from the point of 'religion.' In other words, what makes people in Colombia happy is not whether they're Catholic, Buddhist or Jehovah's witnesses but the fact that each religion comes with a community of people that can support each other in their daily difficulties.

This is an ongoing study and more concrete conclusions are supposed to appear in the future. I really look forward to read those. Also, I wonder how the above preliminary explanations apply to other southamerican countries and if some of them could be related to the perception of happiness of countries such as Spain and Italy, the so-called 'latin-like countries' in Europe.