Renato Di Vincenzi, Total Stalemate, 1998. He himself thus described his composition: “A fantasy by the author depicting an ironic total stalemate” — quoted in L’Italia Scacchistica, No. 1147, September 2001, p. 332. |
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Odds and Ends
The Long Hot Summer
The Long Hot Summer is yet to come, so just count the weeks until the “Battle of Grandmasters”, a two days’ gender clash between four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) of China and American wunderkind Abhimanyu Mishra, takes place July 28–30, 2022 at Irving Convention Centre in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, Texas, United States, as a special highlight of the three-day technology conference NFT South. Thousands people are expected to attend, while millions more will enjoy the live broadcast, so be sure to reserve your spot early. Programs schedule subject to change:
According to the announcement, “images and videos from each game will be minted as NFTs on a sustainable blockchain protocol and auctioned off to the highest bidders”. For further information, click here. |
Friday, February 18, 2022
The Driver in the Driverless Car
The Alfa Romeo Tonale will be the first car ever with an NFT (non-fungible token) included. The NFT technology will record on the blockchain vehicle data and generate a certificate showcasing maintenance history. Photo courtesy of NFT South (@NFT_South). |
Semifreddo
Florence’s artisanal ice cream parlor Baroncini, dating back to 1946, undoubtedly owes its success to its high quality standards, and, since a few weeks ago, also to its democratic identity, as it distinguished itself by its refusal to discriminate its customers just because they have no “green pass”, that is the vaccine certificate required by law in order to accede to public and private social services. Unfailingly they have already been fined two times by municipal police, but they also got countless tokens of esteem and solidarity urbi et orbi. Photo: Mado Flynn. |
The Sword in the Stone
- Lorenzo Tondo, Novak Đoković likely to be allowed to play in Italian Open, say officials, The Guardian, February 17, 2022
The country’s cabinet undersecretary for sports, Valentina Vezzali, said: “If Đoković wants to come and play in Rome he can do it”, adding that tennis is “an outdoor sport and the tighter green pass is not required”. “Perhaps Đoković will most likely not be allowed in a hotel or a restaurant, but if he wants to play he can play”, said Vezzali, a former Olympic fencer and a 16-time world champion in foil. [Read more]. |
In other words, Đoković is welcome in Italy, but if a miracle does not happen within next spring, he might have to sleep under a bridge or in the street and rely upon charity for food assistance. Photo: Tom Dulat/Getty Images. |
Thursday, February 17, 2022
Unintended Consequences
Within only two days, Italy’s Constitutional Court rejected two requests to hold a referendum on the right-to-die (Tuesday) and on the legalisation of cannabis for personal use (Wednesday), in spite of the fact that its campaigners had collected over 1.8 million signatures. The gravity of the issue prompted Giuliano Amato, the newly elected Constitutional Court President, to hold an unusual press conference to explain the reasons for the veto decision, saying it was due to hypothetical allegations of possible violations of international obligations. Finally, the Court also rejected a request for a referendum on making magistrates personally responsible in terms of civil law for their miscarriages of justice, but approved five other referendum petitions on justice issues. |
To quote Horace, “Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca”. Artwork © Paweł Kuczyński. |
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Whatever It Takes
Two Notorious Terms
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 10, 2020
Two notorious terms have emerged out of the debates that happened during this health emergency. It was obvious that their only purpose was to discredit those who kept thinking in defiance of the fear that paralysed all thought. These terms are “denier” and “conspiracy theorist”. It is not worth saying much about the first term. Those who use it incautiously equate the current epidemic with the Holocaust, demonstrating (consciously or not) the antisemitism that runs rampant in both Left and Right discourse. As some rightly offended Jewish friends of mine have suggested, it might be opportune for the Jewish community to comment on this ignoble terminological abuse.
It is, however, worth pausing over the second term, which demonstrates a genuinely surprising historical ignorance. Those who are familiar with historiography know that the stories that historians retrace and narrate are, by their nature, often the result of the plans and actions of individuals, groups, and factions who pursue their goals using all means available to them. Below are three examples from among thousands. Each of them has marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new historical period.
In 415 BC, Alcibiades deployed his prestige, his riches, and every possible expedient in order to convince the Athenians to embark on an expedition to Sicily. That expedition would later reveal itself to be a complete disaster, and it coincided with the end of Athenian supremacy. For their part, Alcibiades’s enemies — taking advantage of the vandalisation of the statues of Hermes that had occurred a few days before the expedition — hired false witnesses and conspired against him in order to condemn him to death for impiety.
On the Eighteenth Brumaire (9 November 1799), Napoleon Bonaparte — despite his oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the Republic — overthrew the Directory in a coup and was proclaimed First Consul with full powers, thereby ending the Revolution. Days before, Napoleon had met with Sieyès, Fouché, and Lucien Bonaparte so that they could fine-tune their strategy against the anticipated opposition of the Council of Five Hundred.
The March on Rome by approximately 25,000 fascists took place on 28 October 1922. In the months leading up to the event, Mussolini (who prepared the march with the future triumvirs De Vecchi, De Bono, and Bianchi) initiated contact with the Prime Minister (Luigi Facta), with D’Annunzio, and with figures from the business world — according to some, Mussolini even met secretly with the King — so as to probe possible allegiances. In a sort of rehearsal, fascists militarily occupied Ancona on 2 August.
In each of these three cases, individuals gathered in groups or parties and acted resolutely to achieve their goals, considering various possible circumstances and adapting their strategies accordingly. Chance undoubtedly played a role, as in every human event, but trying to explain history through chance is meaningless, and no serious historian has ever undertaken such a pointless endeavour. This does not mean that it is always necessary to speak about “conspiracies”. But anyone who labelled a historian who tried to reconstruct in detail the plots that triggered such events as a “conspiracy theorist” would most definitely be demonstrating their own ignorance, if not idiocy.
It is even more astonishing, in this light, that such attitudes persist in a country like Italy, where our recent history is nothing if not the result of intrigues, secret societies, ploys, and conspiracies of all kinds, and to such an extent that historians cannot get to the bottom of many of the decisive events of the last fifty years — from the Piazza Fontana bombing to the murder of Aldo Moro. This is, in fact, so true that Francesco Cossiga, a former President of the Republic, declared that he was an active member of Gladio, one of these secret societies.
As for the pandemic, serious research has shown that it did not arrive unexpectedly. As Patrick Zylberman’s book Tempêtes microbiennes (Gallimard, 2013) crucially documents, the World Health Organisation suggested a scenario similar to the present one as early as 2005 (during the bird flu), and it furthermore proposed it to governments as a way of ensuring citizens’ unconditional support! Bill Gates, who is the WHO’s main financier, has made his thoughts on the risks of a pandemic known on many occasions: he warned that a pandemic threatened to cause millions of deaths and that it was therefore necessary to guard against it. As a result, and in the context of research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security organised in 2019 a simulation exercise for the coronavirus pandemic called “Event 201”. This exercise gathered experts and epidemiologists to prepare a coordinated response in the event of a new virus appearing.
In this case, as has indeed occurred throughout history, there are people and organisations pursuing licit or illicit objectives and then trying to realise those objectives by any means necessary. For those who wish to understand what is happening it is vital to know and think about these tendencies. For this reason, speaking of a conspiracy adds nothing to the reality of facts. Defining anyone who seeks to know historical events for what they really are as a “conspiracy theorist”, however, is plain defamation.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 10, 2020
Two notorious terms have emerged out of the debates that happened during this health emergency. It was obvious that their only purpose was to discredit those who kept thinking in defiance of the fear that paralysed all thought. These terms are “denier” and “conspiracy theorist”. It is not worth saying much about the first term. Those who use it incautiously equate the current epidemic with the Holocaust, demonstrating (consciously or not) the antisemitism that runs rampant in both Left and Right discourse. As some rightly offended Jewish friends of mine have suggested, it might be opportune for the Jewish community to comment on this ignoble terminological abuse.
It is, however, worth pausing over the second term, which demonstrates a genuinely surprising historical ignorance. Those who are familiar with historiography know that the stories that historians retrace and narrate are, by their nature, often the result of the plans and actions of individuals, groups, and factions who pursue their goals using all means available to them. Below are three examples from among thousands. Each of them has marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new historical period.
In 415 BC, Alcibiades deployed his prestige, his riches, and every possible expedient in order to convince the Athenians to embark on an expedition to Sicily. That expedition would later reveal itself to be a complete disaster, and it coincided with the end of Athenian supremacy. For their part, Alcibiades’s enemies — taking advantage of the vandalisation of the statues of Hermes that had occurred a few days before the expedition — hired false witnesses and conspired against him in order to condemn him to death for impiety.
On the Eighteenth Brumaire (9 November 1799), Napoleon Bonaparte — despite his oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the Republic — overthrew the Directory in a coup and was proclaimed First Consul with full powers, thereby ending the Revolution. Days before, Napoleon had met with Sieyès, Fouché, and Lucien Bonaparte so that they could fine-tune their strategy against the anticipated opposition of the Council of Five Hundred.
The March on Rome by approximately 25,000 fascists took place on 28 October 1922. In the months leading up to the event, Mussolini (who prepared the march with the future triumvirs De Vecchi, De Bono, and Bianchi) initiated contact with the Prime Minister (Luigi Facta), with D’Annunzio, and with figures from the business world — according to some, Mussolini even met secretly with the King — so as to probe possible allegiances. In a sort of rehearsal, fascists militarily occupied Ancona on 2 August.
In each of these three cases, individuals gathered in groups or parties and acted resolutely to achieve their goals, considering various possible circumstances and adapting their strategies accordingly. Chance undoubtedly played a role, as in every human event, but trying to explain history through chance is meaningless, and no serious historian has ever undertaken such a pointless endeavour. This does not mean that it is always necessary to speak about “conspiracies”. But anyone who labelled a historian who tried to reconstruct in detail the plots that triggered such events as a “conspiracy theorist” would most definitely be demonstrating their own ignorance, if not idiocy.
It is even more astonishing, in this light, that such attitudes persist in a country like Italy, where our recent history is nothing if not the result of intrigues, secret societies, ploys, and conspiracies of all kinds, and to such an extent that historians cannot get to the bottom of many of the decisive events of the last fifty years — from the Piazza Fontana bombing to the murder of Aldo Moro. This is, in fact, so true that Francesco Cossiga, a former President of the Republic, declared that he was an active member of Gladio, one of these secret societies.
As for the pandemic, serious research has shown that it did not arrive unexpectedly. As Patrick Zylberman’s book Tempêtes microbiennes (Gallimard, 2013) crucially documents, the World Health Organisation suggested a scenario similar to the present one as early as 2005 (during the bird flu), and it furthermore proposed it to governments as a way of ensuring citizens’ unconditional support! Bill Gates, who is the WHO’s main financier, has made his thoughts on the risks of a pandemic known on many occasions: he warned that a pandemic threatened to cause millions of deaths and that it was therefore necessary to guard against it. As a result, and in the context of research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security organised in 2019 a simulation exercise for the coronavirus pandemic called “Event 201”. This exercise gathered experts and epidemiologists to prepare a coordinated response in the event of a new virus appearing.
In this case, as has indeed occurred throughout history, there are people and organisations pursuing licit or illicit objectives and then trying to realise those objectives by any means necessary. For those who wish to understand what is happening it is vital to know and think about these tendencies. For this reason, speaking of a conspiracy adds nothing to the reality of facts. Defining anyone who seeks to know historical events for what they really are as a “conspiracy theorist”, however, is plain defamation.
(English translation by Valeria Dani)
George Seeley, Conspiracy, 1910. Courtesy of WikiArt.
Two Halves
Stockfish – Stoofvlees
Top Chess Engine Championship Season 20 — FRC3 Final League; tcec-chess.com, March 14, 2021
rqkbbnnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RQKBBNNR w HAha - 0 1
Position #697
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Ne3 c5 4. dxc5 Nf6. Here the alternative was to maintain the symmetry with 4. ... Ne6 (5. Nf3 Nf6), but in any case the text, though not strictly symmetrical, is not too asymmetrical either. Black temporarily sacrifices a Pawn to keep development going. 5. Qc2 Ne6 6. Qxc4 Qe5 7. Bb4. Yet it is not too surprising that a machine wants to hold on to its material advantage. 7. ... a5 8. Ba3 Bc7 9. Nf3 Qh5. Also worth considering was 9. ... Qf4 followed by a-side castling (0-0-0) — whether before or after the exchange of Queens is irrelevant. 10. g4! Qh6
11. g5! Only thus. If, instead, 11. h4? then 11. ... Qf4! 12. Qxf4 Bxf4 13. Nd2 0-0-0! with powerful advantage. 11. ... Nxg5 12. Nf5 Qh3 13. Nxe7+ Kb8 14. c6! After 14. Nxg5 Qg2 Black wins back the Knight with good play for the Pawn. 14. ... Ra6. Not 14. ... b6?? because of 15. Nxg5 Qg2 16. Qb5! Qxh1 17. Bd6! winning immediately. 15. cxb7 Rb6 16. Nxg5 Qg2 17. Re1 Qxg5+ 18. e3
18. ... Bb5! Probably the only move. Black gives up a third Pawn in order to keep his chances of survival as high as possible. Incidentally, Black could not take on b7 either with the King or with the Rook on account of White’s Bishop going to f3. 19. Qxf7
19. ... Bd6? But Black eventually goes astray. 19. ... Rd8! was the consistent corollary of its previous move, since after 20. Bb3 (20. Bf3 should not worry Black too much after 20. ... Qh4) 20. ... Be2! 21. 0-0-0 Bxd1 22. Rxd1 Qb5!∞ it is anything but clear how White can make any progress. 20. Bxd6+ Rxd6 21. Bc2 Bd7? There’s something tremendously human about Black’s last error. ⌓ 21. ... Rd7! still gave some chances of putting up a defence. 22. h4 Qg2 23. Qc4 Re6 24. 0-0-0! A most powerful developing move! The rest is simply technique. 24. ... Qxb7 25. Rd3 Rb6 26. Red1 Re8 27. Nd5 Rc6 28. Qf4+ Ka8 29. Rb3 Nxd5 30. Rxb7 Nxf4 31. Rdxd7 Nd3+ 32. Kb1 Nc5 33. Ra7+ Kb8 34. Rxg7 Rd8 35. a3 Rd2 36. Rxa5 Rxf2 37. Rb5+ Ka8 38. Rg4 Rf1+ 39. Ka2 Rf7 40. Rc4 Rfc7 41. Bxh7 Rxh7 42. Rcxc5 Re6 43. Rc4 Ra6 44. Rcb4 Re7 45. h5 Rh7 46. e4 Rb7 47. Rxb7 Rxa3+ 48. Kb1 Ra1+ 49. Kc2 Rc1+ 50. Kd3 Rc3+ 51. Kd4 Rd3+ 52. Kc5 Rd5+ 53. Kb6 Rd6+ 54. Kb5 Rd1 55. Rb6 Rc1 56. Ra4# 1 : 0.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Badge of Infamy
One of the most brutal consequences of the panic disseminated in Italy by every means possible during the so-called coronavirus epidemic is the idea of contagion, which forms the basis for the exceptional emergency measures enforced by the government. This idea, unknown to Hippocratic medicine, has its first, unwitting precursor during the pestilences that devastated several Italian cities between 1500 and 1600. This precursor is the figure of the anointer, or plague-spreader, immortalised by Manzoni in his novel The Betrothed, as well as in his essay The History of the Column of Infamy. A Milanese edict for the 1576 plague describes anointers as follows, and encourages citizens to report them:
“The governor has learned that some people with a feeble zeal for charity, in order to terrorize and scare the people and inhabitants of the city of Milan and to excite them to some turmoil, are applying ointments — which they consider pestiferous and contagious — to the doors and bolts of houses, to the corners of the city quarters, and to other places around the state, with the intention of bringing the plague to private and public spaces. Many inconveniences arise from this behaviour, which has significantly affected the people of Milan (mainly those who are easily persuaded to believe such things). The governor hereby decrees that anyone, regardless of quality, status, rank, or condition, who reports within forty days of this announcement any person or persons who have favoured, helped, or known about such injury, will be awarded five hundred scudi...”
Although there are some differences, the recent orders (issued by the government as decrees that we want to hope — alas, an illusion — will not be voted into law by parliament before they expire) transform, in effect, every individual into a potential plague-spreader, just as the orders against terrorism considered every citizen as a de facto and de jure potential terrorist. The analogy is so exact, that the potential plague-spreader who does not comply with the regulations is punished with imprisonment. Particularly frowned upon is the figure of the healthy or precocious carrier, who infects a multitude of individuals without affording them the possibility of defending themselves against him as they could have from the anointer.
Even sadder than the limitations on freedom implicit in these orders is, in my view, the deterioration of human relationships that they foster. Others, whoever they are — even loved ones — must not be approached or touched. Instead, we should establish between them and ourselves a distance that is one metre by some accounts, but that according to the latest suggestions by the so-called experts should be 4.5 metres (those fifty centimetres are so interesting!). Our neighbour has been abolished. It is possible, given the ethical inconsistency of our rulers, that whoever issued these orders did so under the same fear that they intend to instil in others.
Still, it is difficult not to notice that the situation which these orders create is exactly that which those who govern us have tried to actualise many times before: the closure of universities and schools once and for all, with lessons conducted only online; the cessation of gatherings and conversations on politics or culture; and the exchange of messages only digitally, so that wherever possible machines can replace any contact — any contagion — among human beings.
Even sadder than the limitations on freedom implicit in these orders is, in my view, the deterioration of human relationships that they foster. Others, whoever they are — even loved ones — must not be approached or touched. Instead, we should establish between them and ourselves a distance that is one metre by some accounts, but that according to the latest suggestions by the so-called experts should be 4.5 metres (those fifty centimetres are so interesting!). Our neighbour has been abolished. It is possible, given the ethical inconsistency of our rulers, that whoever issued these orders did so under the same fear that they intend to instil in others.
Still, it is difficult not to notice that the situation which these orders create is exactly that which those who govern us have tried to actualise many times before: the closure of universities and schools once and for all, with lessons conducted only online; the cessation of gatherings and conversations on politics or culture; and the exchange of messages only digitally, so that wherever possible machines can replace any contact — any contagion — among human beings.
(English translation by Valeria Dani)
Shirin Neshat, Untitled (Embrace). 1995. Photo © Shirin Neshat.
On Liberty
In his first public interview since his casus belli with Australia due to his COVID-19 vaccination status, Serbian tennis star and world No. 1 Novak Đoković told BBC on Tuesday that he will never bow to blackmail, ever. “I was never against vaccination”, he said, confirming he received vaccines as a child, “but I’ve always supported the freedom to choose what you put in your body”. If need be, not defending his titles at Roland Garros and Wimbledon is “a price I am willing to pay”. Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images. |
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
It is a scene that is repeating itself with increasing frequency in almost all Italian cities: large masses of citizens gather in squares and streets to eat and drink together, in open dissent with the government’s mandatory “health certificates” requirements in order to enter public and private places such as hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, movie halls and buses. Thus in Lucca, Tuscany, Italy on the evening of Friday, February 11, 2022, when hundreds and hundreds of people staged a spontaenous and peaceful invasion of Piazza dell’Anfiteatro for a social aperitif. Photos: La Gazzetta di Lucca.  |
Suddenly at Home
Ontario’s premier Doug Ford announced on Monday that Canada’s most populous province will lift its COVID-19 vaccince certificates requirements in two weeks — not because of the “Freedom Convoy” countrywide protest, he says, but just because “it is safe to do so”. |
Duel 1971 — Minimalist Movie Poster is a mixed media by Kultur Arts Studios. Courtesy of Fine Art America. |
Monday, February 14, 2022
Raphael’s Angels in the Kitchen
A man talks on the phone in front of a banner for a restaurant in 香港 (Hong Kong), China. Photo: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images. |
☯
The Strangest Creature on Earth You’re like a scorpion, my brother, you live in cowardly darkness like a scorpion. You’re like a sparrow, my brother, always in a sparrow’s flutter. You’re like a clam, my brother, closed like a clam, content, And you’re frightening, my brother, like the mouth of an extinct volcano. Not one, not five — unfortunately, you number millions. You’re like a sheep, my brother: when the cloaked drover raises his stick, you quickly join the flock and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse. I mean you’re strangest creature on earth — even stranger than the fish that couldn’t see the ocean for the water. And the oppression in this world is thanks to you. And if we’re hungry, tired, covered with blood, and still being crushed like grapes for our wine, the fault is yours — I can hardly bring myself to say it, but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours. Nâzım Hikmet, 1947 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Hikmet thoughtfully sitting in between the prison bars. Courtesy of Samet Baysal. |
Sunday, February 13, 2022
Duo cum dicunt idem, non est idem
The 6th Women’s World Chess Championship held in Stockholm, Sweden from July 31 to August 14, 1937 ended in a triumph for Vera Francevna Menchik (pictured above left) who won all 14 games. On only one occasion she came close to losing a game, and that was against Italy’s Clarice Benini (pictured above right), who eventually finished second overall. Photo: L’Italia Scacchistica, No. 8–9, September 15, 1937, p. 141. |
“Vera found herself in a critical situation against Miss Benini. The Italian reached an endgame with an extra piece. It might have been a little gift to Ståhlberg and others, but Mussolini’s woman ambassador managed to throw away the game”. Elbe., Tidskrift för Schack, No. 8–9, August–September 1937, p. 202. |
“Menchik, however, ran very serious dangers in the game with our representative, Miss Benini; a truly epic game that all of us of Italy’s team have been following with living intensity, to say the least, hoping for a victory of Benini, on the ground of a brilliant combination which led her to gain two clear Pawns in the middle game. But, alas! our hopes got shattered by the further unfortunate continuation of the game”. Mario Napolitano, L’Italia Scacchistica, No. 8–9, September 15, 1937, p. 142. |
A House Like A Rook
A soaring small circular tower rises from the Orti Oricellari gardens in Florence, Italy. Photo: Mado Flynn. |
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