Friday 30 May 2008

Waiting summer..

This schoolyear has been very very very hard,but finally we're coming to the end of our third year in this school. We hope to begin the fourth one all together,because in this year we have become a united group!
We wish you a good summer!!
Hello

fili,gre,andre,franci,mauro,marty
The end of school is near!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All the 3B hope to meet themself again!!!!
P.S. Profe doesn't suspend Paradisi
The monkey Bleach used to wash other's coat, when suddenly the water went off!
It was scared, it couldn't be happy (potter) anymore...XD [lol]

School's end!

Ledies and gentlemen we are Giulia e Miki!
We are at the end of the year... WOW!!!
Giulia: "Miki, will you pass the year??"
Miki: "I hope so, otherwise I kill my self!!"
Giulia: "Miki: NO!!!!!"
Miki: "Of course, I was jocking! I won't do it!! -The Beeeeeeeeeeoulf!"
Bye bye!!! We will meet next year!!! Goog holiday!!!
By Giuly e Miky

End of the school

Hy...this is one of the last English's lesson...we are at the end of this year and I'm happy for this...but I'm sorry for this because this year I've met new friends that this year is the last...but I'm sure that this friendship won't end...
For me... I need a stop to the studio...so...bye bye...see you next year!!!

Thursday 22 May 2008

Solar storm

from the homonymous article in the Florentine, 20th March 2008.

Recently in Florence there have been heated debates over a newly approved energy plan that would allow the installation of solar and photovoltaic panels on the roofs of the city centre. The panels must follow the roof’s inclination, and alternative energy paneling is now obligatory on new buildings and on those under renovation, with at least one kilowatt of power.
But the council for historic and environmental preservation opposes the move, saying that the historical landscape of the city would be ruined; Vincenzo Vaccaro, architect and civil servant, said that “we cannot change the face of a city that attracts millions of tourists from all over the world”.
However, the urban roofscape is already teeming with antennae, signal repeaters and steel towers for heating and air conditioning systems; these objects visually and aesthetically detract from the important monuments in the central core, like the Duomo and Orsanmichele. Vaccaro denies that these rooftop apparatus have been authorized, but for the council they don’t need to be removed.

Simone Giuntini

Tuesday 20 May 2008

"No place to hide!"

Italy has money buried in its back yard.
There are an international
scandal, 400 people and firms suspected of tax evasion. Although
Italy's finance police haven't released the list of those under
investigation yet.
The suspect allegedly used foreign citizens and firms
to hide financial transaction in Liechtenstein's banks and trusts. In
light of the upcoming elections, politicians of all parties are
calling candidates implicated in the affair to be investigated. The
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has identified
Liechtenstein, alongside Andorra and Monaco, as European states that
are "uncooperative tax havens".

Fabio Bartolozzi - Mirko Risaliti

Sunday 18 May 2008

Scoppio del Carro

Every years on Easter Sunday, the Florentines celebrate the “Scoppio del carro”, dedicated to the first soldier, called Pazzino de’Pazzi, who climbed the Jerusalem walls during the first crusade.

For his bravery his commander gave him a piece of stone from the Holy Sepulchre.

After his return to Florence, he used the stone to start a “holy fire” during the Holy Week.

The fire was carried throughout in the city and from this moment it was used as a religious symbol.

Around 1300 the florentines began to buid a cart, highly decorated, for trasporting the flame.

In this days the florentines dressed traditional costumes and lead the cart in the square.

Then a colombina holding an olive branch, after the explosion of the cart, had to cross the square.

This is an happy moment while the people can enjoy with firecracker.

A perfect explosion corrispond to a positive years.

For more info visit www.comune.fi.it


Roberto Santoni, Leonardo Taiti

Friday 16 May 2008

What did the Italians choose this time?

Recent elections in our country moved the ideals of the Italian people towards two main parties.
Italians chose as head of government Silvio Berlusconi, who won about 47 percent in both Houses of Parliament. Berlusconi promises to fight against some problems like inflation, criminality and immigration.




On the other hand, the centre-left party is the second one concerning the number of votes; Italy of Values, headed by Antonio Di Pietro, is fifth in the standing.

The Left, whose leader is Walter Veltroni, has to try to strengthen its opposition, also by encouraging the smaller parties to follow them.



Filippo Contardi - Martina Goretti

FLAMES IN FLORENCE

From a homonymous article in the "Florentine".


April in Florence closes with a huge budget: about sixty means (scooters and cars) damaged and destroyed in several pyres in the streets of the city, but the arsonists have not only limited to that.

A charred structure is all that remains at one of the city’s largest discos, Meccanò.
The historic late-night venue, located in the Cascine park and overlooking the Arno river, is burned the night of April 15, a few weeks before the beginning of summer season.
The perpetrators broke into the local at night and set fire to 20 litres of petrol on the dance floor, causing serious damage.
All the inside of disco was carbonized and destroyed by the flames.

The security forces, to find the responsible of the fire (certainly arson), have checked that none of the five owners of the local had received threats and have started investigations both scientific and territorial.
The fire is being investigated by anti-mafia and, simultaneously, local police are investigating whether one of Meccanò's business competitors was involved.

by Andrea Vagnoli and Mauro Paradisi

Do you want to go house-hunting in Italy?

From Linda Falcone’s article for the newspaper Florentine..

Have you ever tried house-hunting in your country? It isn’t easier in Italy, because there aren’t many big and clean places!
Nowadays a lot of young people search for a flat to share with others guys or student friends: there are agencies that help you to find the right flat for you even if it might not always be the house you are looking for.
A young girl has described her experience so that we can better understand what it is all about. Certainly she was not interested in luxurious houses, but this was not the problem…
When she arrived to the house, everything seemed perfect but when she met the agent, she changed her opinion: he explained that three people had lived in the house before, but it definitely wasn’t her dream house :there were a lot of fuzzy bats, hanging upside-down in the wardrobe and there was only a window!!! So..it looked like an old warehouse!
When the girl went back to her aunt’s house, and asked her if she could put her up for some more days, she was playing solitaire and wasn’t too worried for her, even if her niece had visited two houses and she still hadn’t found something she really liked!
She had agreed to host her niece, because she knew what it was like to be a single woman, but Linda couldn’t stand staying in her house so long.
The following morning, her aunt went into her niece’s bedroom and she gave her a bundle. She said that was for her dowry but she wanted Linda to have it in that moment.
Linda was a bit worried about that, but, when she unfolded the tablecloth and found it strewn with lotus flowers and exotic birds, she thanked her aunt Meri for the present.
Her aunt told her that she would need the tablecloth back when she would find her own house.
In that moment, Linda realised that someday soon her home would come but that she could live in her aunt’s house until then.

Greta Perini e Giulia Covacci

Oriana Fallaci

Oriana Fallaci was war correspondent, writer, journalisty and lived and worked in a world of men. She wrote passionate poems to Alekos Panaguils, her companion and one great love, with her beloved typewriter and told stories of hardships, death and the misery of women's conditions.
The city of Florence and the province of Tuscany pay homage to her with an exhibit in Palazzo Medici Riccardi and Palazzo Panciatichi.
The exposition was a journey trough one woman's life and her more important events during the thentieth century. In a part of Palazzo Medici Riccardi there are her family story and testimonials by journalists, politicians and friends, as Fallaci's books, such as "Insciallah" and "The Rage and the Pride", which are contextualized by letters, pictures, films that demonstrate her tenacy and energy, were represented in Palazzo Panciatichi.
Fallaci died on September 15 2006 in a Florence clinic and that day was marked by an international outpouring of love and affection from everyone.
Valentina Bacherini

Goodbye wine?

from The Florentine, 20th March 2008

Now the fraud involved not only politicians but also an old friend of ours: the wine.
A Tuscany's important wine producers, the Marchesi de' Frescobaldi, was officialy indicted for allegedly blending indigenous greapes grown. Investigators allege that from 1999 to 2003 enologists used a higher percentage of grapes from southern Italy than is legally acceptable in some of the wines produced.
Even if the judgment has been postponed, this case have stired up the public awarenes. Lamberto Frescobaldi, the managing director of his family's estates in Tuscany, said that their society "have done nothing wrong", supporting that they have collaborate with the investigators right from the start of investigations.

Federico Mazzinghi

For love of the game

from the homonymous article in the Florentine, 30th April 2008.

In Italy baseball is an almost unknown sport, so only a few people know about the existence of a baseball diamond in Florence, hidden by the shadow of the Fiorentina soccer stadium.

In this place, every Tuesday and Thursday, Lee Foust, an Italian literature teacher at California State’s Campus in Florence, and his boys, ages 8 to 11, play this funny sport. In Tuscany there are 15 teams in the Ragazzi division, and they play games every Sunday.
But in Florence there isn’t only this team, because there’s the Fiorentina baseball team, too. Its players are between the ages of 18 and 35, but unlike the more famous Fiorentina’s football players they don’t play for job, but for hobby, and they aren’t paid so much; they wear red and black instead of purple, too. Fiorentina is one of the best Italian teams, and now it plays in Serie B. For Nicola Bellomo, Fiorentina’s pitching coach, Italian kids don’t like so much baseball because there are few Italian baseball stars to emulate, so is nearly impossible for baseball to become a popular game.
However, Fiorentina baseball team is content playing the game they love in the shadows of the football stadium, cheered by their few, but good, fans.

Simone Giuntini

Wednesday 14 May 2008

Who was Franca Viola?

Maybe you, like me, have never known about Franca Viola, an international lawyer who wrote an article on Franca's case published on The Florentine on 30th April 2008. I have gone deep into her story.

Franca was a very beautiful 17 years old girl from Alcamo (Sicily) when, on December the 26 1965, was raped by Filippo Melodia.
For our mentality an abduction is unthinkable, but in the Sicily of those years wasn't an unusually pratice. The so called Fuitina (that means elopement) were often encouraged by some pooer families who couldn't afford dowries for their doughters, so, after an absence of few days from home, the couple had a rehabilitating marriage for saving the girl's honor.

Franca's case, like many others, wasn't a love case, but a case of violence. Franca had repeatedly rebuffed Filippo's advances so he, with the complicity of 12 friends, kept her secluted for more than a week. In that moment Franca hadn't many chance: she should have married her abductor or should be forever a shameless hussy without possibility for a normal life.

All this was possible because an article of the Criminal Code, abrogated in 1980, considered sexual violence an offonce against moral and not against the person; this means that the sentences for those crimes were very mild and if there was a marriage between the parts the crime come down.

Franca rebelled against all this and, with her father's help, she denounced her kidnappers that were arrested. During the trial the defence did everything to discredit Franca, but the judges refused to believe it. Melodia was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment and only in the 1978 he went out of the prison, after only 2 years he was killed in a mafia's execution.

The story of Franca moved a great debate throughout Italy on the woman's role in the society.
She led her life, married her sweetheart with whom she had three children and today Franca is a grandmother that still lives in Alcamo and she always believs that it wasn't courage, she only did what she felt listening to her heart; so she trasformed the Italian society and many other women could say no.



This incredible story become a film directed by Damiano Damiani " The Most Beautiful Wife" turning Franca in to a femminist icon but she is only a real woman.


Lia Fabbri

Friday 9 May 2008

tie, tie...more ties!

Guardate un po' cosa hanno pensato di fare i guys della 3B!
e non è tutto...hanno fatto anche questo:

Ora attendiamo tutti con ansia la risposta delle chicks! E che sia all'altezza....!:)

Thursday 8 May 2008

A SOON-TO-BE LOST ART?

Florence is probably losing one of its most particular forms of street and religious art, made by the madonnari, who decorate pavements with Virgin Mary’s images.



Madonnari began as itinerant folk artists, which used to paint their sacred images during religious festivals all around Italy. Giotto is told to be the first madonnaro, followed by Cimabue.
Modern madonnari only copy some masterworks in lots of streets in the city centre.
The Florence municipal district hasn’t already made the authorization which should allow them to paint on the pavement of Via Calimala. After this failure, the spokesman for the International Madonnari Association, Claudio Sgobino, chained himself in Piazza Signoria and proclaimed that he would have gone on a hunger strike until the commune had finished its authorization.
Moreover, their art’s going to become too much expensive for them: in fact they will have to pay, for the year 2008, about 225 percent more than in 2007.
Madonnari obviously don’t agree with these terms because they say they should be free, they don’t like academy or galleries, they’re self-taught, so they should need to practise their art without paying anything.
Anyway, Sgobino says he will continue to fight Florence administration because it’s said to “limit the creation of art and freedom of artists in the city”.

Filippo Contardi - Martina Goretti

THE TRAVELING WEEKLY MARKET

A journalist writes about his hobby: travelling market

In most italian cities the travelling market arrives once or twice a week and it offers a wide range of good, but the substance is clothes new and used. It's problably you don't find every time a new items. The prieces are cheaper than shops and the lowest-lost comes from China. The USA and Germany can't compete with variety of selection and quality you find in iItaly, so you soon learn the difference between labels that say "Made in Italy" and those that declare "Styled in Italy".
Used clothes are collected for charitable purposes but some pieces have been rejected because they have defects and a lot of clothes come from dry cleaners because the ownver doesn't remember them.
The inventory is made up of garments out of style, the size frequently are dismarked and the vendor can give a good extimate of size.
The facilities for trying clothes are limited and you can't return what you buy.
The clothes of the market are excelent gifts for your friends expecially for their quality and prices.
But in the curb there are the pickpockets so people must keep their money in a safe place.
The monthly thrift shop, which hold the first Wednesday morning, can be compares with the weekly market.

Valentina Bacherini
Sara Tassi

Who's coming to do shopping with me?

From Bob Nordvall’s article of newspaper “The Florentine”

There are people who say that they are not keen on shopping, but…is it true? I don’t think so!
Our society has a huge number of shopping centres or markets, where we can find a lot of items from food to jewelleries. In a lot of Italian cities, once or twice every week, travelling markets are held: for example, in Florence you can find one at Cascine Park on Tuesday where a wide range of brand or second-hand items are on sale.
The travelling market is a very important centre for all people, because it represents a very cheap way for doing shopping: an important thing is that the stalls tend to enrich their range of items and they try to keep prices low. Usually cheap goods come from China, but when there are some clothes or other items that are made in Italy, the sellers warn the buyers about it. Even if thrift shops and Salvation Army stores exist in the USA, certainly they don't offer the quality and the wide choice you can find in Italy.
At this time nobody wonders where the clothes came from. Many people think that all clothes, shoes and other goods come from the cheap production, but they are wrong: infact most clothes come from important or famous shops, which usually sell brand items. The owners of these stores decide to send their faulty goods to the travelling market, but they usually have very small defects such as a slightly clearer colour than the original item.
It may also happen that something is smaller or larger than usual, but as you pay much less for these clothes, the sellers won’t refund you or change the item if you decide to return it. However you can ask for a tailor’s help!
Some of the goods that are sold in these markets have a label, where we can find the brand or the origin of that garment: some of them say “Made in Italy” , others “ Styled in Italy and others say “ Imported producing” limiting the know-how of the buyer’s market.
Certainly nobody has ever questioned the quality of these travelling markets: the material is very good and sometimes it is difficult to recognize the genuine item from the fake one (even if a specialist eye knows how to do it). However for lots of people it’s not important, because they are interested in buying something nice and they do not mind the labels!
An important warning ,however, is : when you go shopping in a travelling market keep your money in a safe place, because mugging is a real danger here!
In spite of that, the travelling market is an amusing and interesting place, where you can buy neraly everything and discover new things that you never see in other places!

SOLAR STORM

From an article of newspaper “THE FLORENTINE”.


The Florence skyline may soon change for the better, but this also depends on what you ask.

Administrators and local officials have recently designed and approved a new municipal energy plan which would allow florentine citizens to install solar and photovoltaic panels on the roofs of buildings in the city centre.
The installation of alternative energy paneling will be obligatory on new buildings and those under renovation.

Although the dispute is in its beginnings, the prospect of going greener seems more and more improbable, because the coucil for historical and environmental preservation opposes this move.
With them there is also the architect and civil servant Vincenzo Vaccaro claiming that it would ruin the historic landscape of the historical center and they couldn't change the face of a city that attracts millions of tourists.
Moreover they argue that the addition of solar panels with the already many things that infest the roofs of the historic center (TV and parabolic antennae, air conditioning systems and signal reppeaters) detracts visually and aesthetically the Florentine monuments, like the Duomo.

by Andrea Vagnoli and Mauro Paradisi

THE TRAVELING WEEKLY MARKET


In most Italin cities, the traveling market arrives once or twice a week.
The markets offer a wide range of goods: from cosmetics to shoes, from false jewelry to gadgets, from fish to vegetables.However, the substance of the market is clothes: new and used.
The stalls selling new clothing tend to specialize in a few types of garments and the inventory tend to be constant for some weeks or months, but prices also are usually stable!Often the lowest-cost merchandise is from China, even if there are cheap Italian garments too.
In traveling markets there are also used clothes; their inventory changes weekly.Where do theese clothes come from?Some of them come from various groups that collect them for charitable purposes and sell lots to market vendors. Others are pieces rejected by stores or individuals because they have difects, others come from dry cleaners where the owner didn’t redeem them. Most of the inventory is made up of graments discarded because they are no longer on the cutting edge of style.
Not infrequently, clothes’ sizes are mismarked, but the vendor can always give you a good estimate of the size; the facilieties for trying on clothes are usually limited ar noneexistent and you cannot return what you buy from these sellers, even if prices are so low, that you can stay to the risk!
In markets there are also many counterfeit namebrand clothing.Sophisticated buyers probably don’t like this fact, but I think that, if you likes a thing, it doesn’t matter if it is real or not.
An important warning is that, in markets, there are many pickpockets, so you have to keep money in a safe place.
By Giulia Covacci

WHY DON'T YOU ADOPT A PARK?!

from the newspaper “THE FLORENTINE”


People live in Florence, can now put their green thumbs to work in the many public parks located into the city. Palazzo Vecchio recently passed a law allowing people the opportunity to donate time money or labour to maintaining the city’s gardens and parks. Florence boasts actually over 300 public gardens and 30 parks. Palazzo Vecchio plans to make a public announcement before May 2008, inviting interested people to adopt a park in the city. Why don’t YOU adopt a park?!
francesco viliani

Monday 5 May 2008

Never say never


At the Rome's Stadio Flaminio on March 16 Italian rugby team had his first win at the RBS Six N ations rugby tournament with a 23-20 success over Scotland thanks to a last minute goal by fullback Andrea Marcato.

The South African coach Malled has had entusiastic words for his Italian team although the squad finished in last positions because they won the match with heart and great will to win, and all this was very impourtant for the staff not only for the players, and because the players never stopped working for all five matchs although the deep defeats.



It was a very short article, but for me very interesting. The Italian rugby team had win a match in the Six Nations race for the first time he had not taken the wooden spoon (a prise for the never winner).

There are many people that love a sport and work hard for his dream; sometimes their dreams become realty, this is the story of the Italian team.

As we know well there isn't attention for sports that not move economic interests, media don't evidence them and is very difficoult for common people to know them.

Sports like swimming, skating or athletics obtain television spaces only in rathers occasions like Olimpiadi or mondial championcips.

Rugby isn't a popoular sport in Italy, but netherless, it is very interesting and many young people love it for his force and his rigid roules.
Lia Fabbri