“Officer Filippo Raciti died as violence flared during the Sicilian derby. The FIGC has called off all this weekend’s professional and amateur games, and also cancelled Italy’s friendly with Romania on Wednesday. Commissioner Luca Pancalli said: “What we’re witnessing has nothing to do with soccer, so Italian soccer is stopping.”"

Well, the alarming thing about this unpleasant situation is that it has happened time and time again in many sectors of Italian life. This is how it usually goes:
1) problems are ignored until someone dies (example: a dangerous intersection without a traffic light);
2) all the political and journalistic “personalities” denounce with indignation the sorry state of the Italian political, social, legal infrastructure, although anyone who has spent more than a week in this country knows exactly what’s going on, basically a country heading towards implosion.
3) promises, promises and more promises
4) “genuine” sorrow and “heartfelt” empathy for all those involved
5) some short term solution by the local or federal government, just to show they care (and to satisfy media interest until it dies down), since it regards the only thing Italians really care about: football (or soccer). This time around the solution is the suspension of this week’s games……. but today word is that next week they will resume. That’s a VERY SHORT TERM!!!!!
6) nothing……until someone else gets killed again
7) see point 1)

here’s the bbc article:

Italy’s football stadiums will not re-open to fans until safety standards are met and security improved, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato has said. Speaking after emergency talks, Mr Amato said tougher sentences for hooligans would also be introduced and legal cases processed much faster.

The planned measures will be discussed by Italy’s cabinet on Wednesday.

All football matches in Italy were suspended indefinitely on Friday after a policeman was killed by rioting fans.

“Only those stadia that meet the security norms will re-open to the fans. The other stadia will be used to play in but without fans until they meet guidelines,” Mr Amato said after his emergency meeting with Italian football federation officials. Interior Minister Giuliano Amato “In stadia like that of Catania [where the policeman was killed] I will not admit anyone, I am firm on this.”

According to Luigi Scotti, undersecretary at the justice ministry, only five stadiums currently meet the necessary safety regulations.

The five are reported to be Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, Siena’s Artemio Franchi, the Stadio Olimpico in Turin, Renzo Barbera in Palermo and Bologna’s Renato Dall’Ara. The head of Italy’s football federation, Luca Pancalli, has said that no decision on when matches should resume will be made before Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.

“Unacceptable’ comments”
Earlier on Monday, thousands of people gathered at Catania cathedral in Sicily for the funeral of slain police officer Filippo Raciti.

Crowds clapped as Mr Raciti’s coffin was carried to the cathedral
Mr Raciti was killed outside the city’s Massimino stadium following a match against a nearby rival team from Palermo. Although he was initially believed to have died when a homemade bomb was hurled into his vehicle, a post-mortem revealed that a blow from a blunt object caused the injuries which killed him.

A senior Italian football official has said deaths are part of football, a comment condemned as “madness” by Prime Minister Romano Prodi. In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper on Monday, Antonio Matarrese, the president of Italy’s Professional Football League Clubs association, said matches should be allowed to start again. “Deaths unfortunately form part of this huge movement which is football and which the forces of order are not always able to control,” Mr Matarrese was quoted as saying. “Football should never be stopped. It’s the number one rule: football is the industry… do you think there’s an industry that would close its factories and not know when they’re going to reopen?”

But Mr Prodi, speaking to reporters on a trip to Luxembourg, said that such a view was “unacceptable”.

“I read the unacceptable comments this morning about what happened as if it were something that is inevitable. It’s madness,” he said. “It is unacceptable that this incident be considered normal. The Italian government will take all the necessary measures.”

The BBC’s Christian Fraser in Rome says violence in Italian football has until now been ignored by the government and allowed to fester. But after Friday’s events, our correspondent says, many people are calling for the authorities to look to how British clubs have tackled football hooliganism through the creation of fully seated stadiums, greater use of surveillance cameras and intelligence sharing and strict punishments for anyone involved in violence.

Gianna d’Avanzo, a supporter of Inter Milan football club, told the BBC that the Italian game was falling foul of groups of hooligans who attended matches simply to fight. “In the stadiums we have young fighters going there, not to see the football matches, but just to start a fight. So the problem is not with all the supporters but with just a part of it, quite violent people, they’re just fanatics and mainly young fascists, willing to fight,” he said. He said finance for some supporters’ clubs needed to be cut to help curb their activities: “The situation is totally out of control and there are too many and they are too organised. The only thing would be creating a law that could stop the stream of money going from the club to some supporters so they could stop being so organised and so strong basically.”

from www.bbc.co.uk

The Doors “Peace Frog”

There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
(She came)
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
(She came)
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
(She came)
Blood on the rise, it’s following me
Think about the break of day

She came and then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair

(She came)
Blood in the streets runs a river of sadness
(She came)
Blood in the streets it’s up to my thigh
(She came)
Yeah the river runs red down the legs of a city
(She came)
The women are crying red rivers of weepin’

She came into town and then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair

Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind

Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.

Blood screams her brain as they chop off her fingers
Blood will be born in the birth of a nation
Blood is the rose of mysterious union

There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
Blood on the rise, it’s following me

What’s going to happen if this really comes out? Can anyone even begin to immagine the impact on the world from such a revelation?

Song’s lyrics:

Man, you hear this bullshit they be talkin’
Every day, man
It’s like these motherfuckers is just like professional liars
YouknowwhatI’msayin? It’s wild
Listen

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)

I pledge no allegiance, nigga fuck the president’s speeches
I’m baptized by America and covered in leeches
The dirty water that bleaches your soul and your facial features
Drownin’ you in propaganda that they spit through the speakers
And if you speak about the evil that the government does
The Patriot Act’ll track you to the type of your blood
They try to frame you, and say you was tryna sell drugs
And throw a federal indictment on niggaz to show you love
This shit is run by fake Christians, fake politicians
Look at they mansions, then look at the conditions you live in
All they talk about is terrorism on television
They tell you to listen, but they don’t really tell you they mission
They funded Al-Qaeda, and now they blame the Muslim religion
Even though Bin Laden, was a CIA tactician
They gave him billions of dollars, and they funded his purpose
Fahrenheit 9/11, that’s just scratchin’ the surface

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga

They say the rebels in Iraq still fight for Saddam
But that’s bullshit, I’ll show you why it’s totally wrong
Cuz if another country invaded the hood tonight
It’d be warfare through Harlem, and Washington Heights
I wouldn’t be fightin’ for Bush or White America’s dream
I’d be fightin’ for my people’s survival and self-esteem
I wouldn’t fight for racist churches from the south, my nigga
I’d be fightin’ to keep the occupation out, my nigga
You ever clock someone who talk shit, or look at you wrong?
Imagine if they shot at you, and was rapin’ your moms
And of course Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons
We sold him that shit, after Ronald Reagan’s election
Mercenary contractors fightin’ a new era
Corporate military bankin’ off the war on terror
They controllin’ the ghetto, with the failed attack
Tryna distract the fact that they engineerin’ the crack
So I’m strapped like Lee Malvo holdin’ a sniper rifle
These bullets’ll touch your kids, and I don’t mean like Michael
Your body be sent to the morgue, stripped down and recycled
I fire on house niggaz that support you and like you
Cuz innocent people get murdered in the struggle daily
And poor people never get shit and struggle daily
This ain’t no alien conspiracy theory, this shit is real
Written on the dollar underneath the Masonic seal

(I don’t rap for dead presidents
I’d rather see the president dead
It’s never been said but I set precedents)

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)
Tell the truth, nigga

(Shady Records was 80 seconds away from the towers
Some cowards fucked with the wrong building, they meant to hit ours)

MILAN (AFX) – Telecom Italia SpA says it’s talking with the Bolivian government over a possible sale of the stake it holds in the country’s telecommunications operator Entel but as yet there are no formal negotiations.

Telecom Italia previously said Entel is not a strategic asset for the group.

Telecom Italia holds a stake of just over 50 pct in Entel through a holding company controlled by its mobile unit TIM.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales is considering nationalising Entel, the Bolivian news agency ABI reported, citing comments by Morales.

Morales said his government is currently examining the nationalisation of Entel with lawyers.

Telecom Italia bought its stake in Entel in 1996 for a sum of around 610 mln usd.

Press reports in Bolivia have suggested that Telecom Italia is ready to sell control of Entel to the Bolivian state for 170 mln usd.

Aside from Telecom Italia’s stake, 44 pct of Entel is held by pension funds in the hands of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (nyse: BBV – news – people ) and Zurich Finance.

stephen.jewkes@thomson.com
AFX News Limited 2006

Now, I really don’t know too much about finance and investments, but as an Italian citizen who pays and has paid mostly all his life Telecom Italia and TIM richly for a much less than satisfactory services, I ask myself:

610 mln – 170 mln = 440 mln usd
Over 10 years, this means a loss of 44 mln usd a year! What kind of idiot makes investments like that?

I think it’s safe to say that whoever had the bright idea to invest in Entel should AT LEAST be asked: what were you thinking??!! Isn’t this the same company that has been charging Italians what the Antitrust has deemed totally illegal recharge costs for sim cards, saying that they’re necessary in order to cover their own fixed costs?

Prior to being settled by the Dutch in 1693, Hackensack was home to the thriving Lenni Lenape Indian community that lived and prospered along the banks of the Hackensack River.

Bergen County was inhabited by the Achkinheshcky tribe, from which “Hackensack” was eventually derived. Hackensack means “mouth of a river.” The “Hackensacks” formed villages, each one practicing and serving as its own government. Interestingly enough, these villages practiced a democracy, where all members of the tribe were involved in the decision-making.

Once the Dutch arrived in Bergen County, they began to build the area into a permanent settlement they named Bergen. Through their dealings with the Chief of Hackensack, Oratam, the Dutch were able to live harmoniously with the Indians. By the mid-1600’s, the British began to arrive in the Hackensack area. From then until the Revolutionary War’s end in 1783, Hackensack was an area of unrest.

Upon the War’s end, Hackensack residents began organizing themselves into a functioning government.

Q: What’s a punk attitude?

JS: Punk ain’t the boots or the hair dye. I’ve been asked to define it many times so I’ve actually thought about it for a couple of seconds. It must be the attitude that you have, that approach everything in life with that attitude. Say that you come in here and the music sucks. I don’t care if the guy is big and in a bad mood. The first thing I do is go up to him and say ‘change that music!’ I do it in a cool way though but I don’t sit here fuming, getting sick and having to leave in twenty minutes. I go straight in, see what’s wrong and I fix it. If we’re meeting some new couples, the second someone lights a cigarette, I grab an ashtray and it’ll be there while everything’s going on.

Everyone else there will be standing around while thier ashes fall off. That is a punk attitude because I wanna be aware of what’s going on. My motto is ‘never take your eye off the ball,’ which is a soccer motto. I like to be completely aware of what’s going on at all times, even if it’s four in the morning. She needs a chair or he needs a beer. There’s no long wait ’cause I’ve already clocked it while everyone’s going (jabbering) meh-meh-meh. I’m going meh-meh-meh too but I know what’s going on around me. This is punk rock.

In fact, punk rock means EXEMPLARY MANNERS TO YOUR FELLOW HUMAN BEING. Fuck being an asshole, what you pricks thought it was twenty years ago. It’s totally just dawned on me. These interviews are good because it makes you think. ‘Cause otherwise you go to sleep and watch the Rider’s Cup or something.

I don’t understand, there must be an error.
The bow has been drawn, its cord I can’t sever.
My sentence is near, some sort of trial,
“I plead guilty, Your Honor”, just to see her smile.