Leibniz*

Thomas Friedman (oggi tradotto da Repubblica e ripreso dal Corriere) ha parlato della Generazione Q, i giovani americani che non sono spaventati dal terrorismo ma che restano fin troppo quieti anche di fronte alle amministrazioni che non pensano al loro futuro su temi come ambiente, sanità, pensione, ecc… E invece dovrebbero essere già assai incazzati. Dice. Perché i ventenni servono ad accendere il fuoco sotto i piedi del Paese (e senza usare solo internet).

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual.

New York Times

Hanno fatto un album tributo ai Pet Shop Boys senza nemmeno una cover di suddetto gruppo.

side-line

Tutti a parlare di Mario Capecchi e nessuno che elogi Mayu Yamamoto, che è riuscito a estrarre il profumo di vaniglia dalle feci di vacca (sì, sono gli Ig Nobel):

Medicine – Brian Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, UK, and Dan Meyer for their probing work on the health consequences of swallowing a sword.

Physics – A US-Chile team who ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled.

Biology – Dr Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.

Chemistry – Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, for developing a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavouring from cow dung.

Linguistics – A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.

Literature – Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word “the”, and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.

Peace – The US Air Force Wright Laboratory for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among enemy troops.

Nutrition – Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, “bottomless” bowl of soup.

Economics – Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan for patenting a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them.

Aviation – A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters to recover from jet lag.

BBC

Secondo Stefano Pistolini, Bruce Springsteen, con il suo ultimo album, è diventato «una specie di Pierangelo Bertoli del Midwest, più che il leader d’una mezza età incazzosa».

Il Foglio