High Heels

I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot
(Marilyn Monroe)



The Castle of Vigevano (near Milan, Italy) is hosting a small and curious exhibition on high heels, "The Stiletto Heel: Charm and Seduction."

There are over one hundred shoes on show.

The stiletto heel was born in Vigevano in 1953, according to the organisers.

[Pictured above: Brigitte Bardot in Rome, 1956]

The Best Designed Newspapers

In its 29th annual "The Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition," the Society for News Design has named four "World's Best-Designed Newspapers" and issued 1,162 other design awards for journalism published in 2007. The winners -- which came from 14,818 entries submitted by 373 daily and nondaily newspapers around the world -- are listed in a searchable database.

[Via NewsDesigner]

Fifteen Million for a Chicken

The official rate of annual inflation in Zimbabwe has rocketed past the 100,000% barrier - by far the highest in the world.

The government statistics office said inflation rose to 100,580% in January, up from 66,212% in December.

The new official figure was still well below the rate calculated by independent analysts who estimate the real rate is closer to 150,000%.

They give as examples supermarket receipts showing the price of chicken rose more than 236,000% to 15 million Zimbabwe dollars, or about 50p a pound between January 2007 and January 2008. Slightly lower increases in prices of sugar, tea and other basics brought down the overall average inflation to around 150,000%.

Salaries for most government employees range from 200 million to 500 million Zimbabwe dollars, far too little to take the workers through the month.

The central bank has introduced new banknotes to cope with the spiralling prices.

Last month it issued a 10 million Zimbabwe dollar note.

[BBC, Reuters, The Press Association]

Saints and Artists

They were in the world and not of it -- not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists. The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it.

(Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain. The book was first published 60 years ago.)

Prezzolini's Lesson

Giuseppe Prezzolini's La Voce started publication in 1908.

The lesson of Prezzolini, I wrote in the Venice daily Il Gazzettino, is the anti-rhetoric.

Related posts:

• Giuseppe Prezzolini, Journalist
• The Signor Prezzolini

Bloody Cartoons

Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.

The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a "terror-related assassination" of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the drawing. [CNN]

Faith vs Religion

Faith is spirit, religion is a body.
Faith is the inside, religion is the outside.
Faith is eternity, religion is history.
Faith is a gift, religion is a choice or a legacy.
Faith is freedom, religion is a dogmatic cage.
Faith is for believers, religion is for disciplined disciples.
Faith is a spiritual need, religion is a bureaucratic fraud.

(I'm writing an essay on this subject.)

Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)