Listening

Listening is the skill needed for understanding and solve problems; it is also paternity or maternity, when the goal is the grow and the realization of the person that you are listening at.
Listening needs no judgment, no assumptions, and no blame.

The listener needs to create a vacuum inside him/her self for let the other person expand (is the way to the deep understanding of the other person).

It is an aspect of love.

The effective listener is a people lover able to go behind the words he is listening to for capturing the real need, motivation or situation behind the words. In the same way that a mother is able to understand a small child, yet unable to express him-self in a proper manner, because loves him and her attention is focus in him.

Very few people know how to listen. The big majority is unable to go behind the appearances of what they are listening. The reasons are because listening is time consuming, need real concentration and attention and loosing totally your personal ego and experiences for trying to capture the real message of the speaking person.

Silence is an important tool for a good listener, which needs to speak only for help the other person come out and express his deep feelings, situations and needs. Respect and consideration are the others. Never laugh at or critize other people needs, feelings or experiences, because it will be seen like a betrayal of the confidence pose in you the listener. Focus only in understanding. Try to discover and understand why an individual has made certain choices in his life, even if they seam odds to you. There is always a conscious or unconscious reason why those choices were made and detecting them is the key that can lead you to a deep understanding and to solutions that will be accepted, if that is the purpose. Trash your motivations and detect the other person ones. Be a blank piece of paper were the other person could write his or her story.

The good listener is a generous person, conscious that life is much more important than time. In this fast paced society how many persons you think are aware of that? And how many are able to maintain this awareness constant in their life? Not many.

At this point I think you, the reader, can judge and score yourself about your capacity of listening.

God is the ultimate listener, after the holy person, and after all the rest in different degree.In my opinion only God scores 100%, the holy person scores from 80 to 90 %, a paternal/maternal person that loves people between 60 and 80 %, etc. I think the average person score is from 10 to 20 %. Be honest in scoring yourself and you will be a step ahead in becoming a good listener. To know how to listen is a necessary skill and tool in everybody life. Needed at all levels, in private or public life, and at work. For making an example: why so many marriages end in failures? Most of the husbands and wives speak to each other, but they do not listen to each other, that is why!
Be aware if, after reading this, you start accusing somebody not to listen to you, you missed the point. You cannot impose generosity or love to others, you can to yourself.

ROSMERY'S FLOWER. Copyright: Ferdinando Petacci. Award winning picture with the International Library of Photography .

ROSE.Copyright:Ferdinando Petacci. Honor mentioned in the Lucy awards. 

LARCHES MAGIC.Copyright:Ferdinando Petacci 

HOLLYHOCKS.Copyright:Ferdinando Petacci 

Lesbian and gay unions

Written by Ferdinando Petacci. Friday, 23 September 2005
Let's use some common sense
In the Universe there is a force that tries to defend and perpetuate life. This force has encrypted in the natural law how to behave to obtain that purpose.

In the case of sex, there is pleasure, because it is nature's incentive to procreation. Then let's put the issue in the right perspective, the purpose of the nature in procreation is not sex for its pleasure by itself. It does not matter if the pleasure is heterosexual or not, sex by itself is not a natural law purpose, procreation is.
The big difference is that natural law does not allow gays and lesbians to procreate, because natural law has established that for procreating humans need the opposite sex.
Too many politicians are making the subject into a moral issue, but for the legislator at the public level it is not! It is a moral issue at the personal level, but that is the discretionary choice of the individual not the concern of the legislator, besides possible impact at the social level, politicians need to have this in mind.
For the legislator it is not a question of morality but a question of natural law. Gays and Lesbians cannot procreate in a natural way, people of the opposite sex can. For that reason for millennia under all kinds of civilizations and religions Marriage was and is reserved only for individuals of the opposite sex.
The ancient Romans, for example, ancestors of many modern law systems did not even pose themselves the question. The ancient Romans had a high respect for the law of nature and knew that following these laws would give them much better results. Why are so many ancient Roman roads still intact? Because of the respect for nature. For example, in the Adige river valley in Italy, the ancient (still existing) Roman road is halfway up the hills to avoid the floods of the river. Modern Italian engineers put segments of the highway along the river and when the river got wild washed them out with all the consequential costs. A mistake the ancient Romans did not make.
Were Gays and lesbians accepted in ancient Rome? Yes they were. The famous ancient poet Catullo was gay and his poetry was popular for its beauty, but they did not change the marriage laws for that. For them some deviations from the natural law were part of nature and were accepted, but they still considered them deviations. For that reason they did not even pose themselves the question of whether it was necessary to consider the union between Gays and Lesbians a marriage or not, because for them only a couple that can procreate were entitled to a marriage. Ancient Romans were not Christians, to the contrary for a long while they were persecuting the Christians. The same for millennia across all kinds of religions and civilizations the question was never posed, because gays and lesbians can not procreate. We need to arrive at the craziness of the modern times for considering a marriage the union between individuals of the same sex that are not in a condition to procreate.
Breaking natural laws has its consequences, nature is able to defend her purpose of perpetuating life. The consequence of deviations are all the ancient sexual diseases and the modern ones like AIDS. It is not the punishment of a sin simply the consequence of breaking the natural law.
Do Gays and Lesbians deserve respect? Yes they do. Do their unions deserve the same rights? Yes they do, because the moral judgement is at a personal level and not in the hands of the legislature. Do their unions deserve the word marriage? No, they do not. One of the main purposes of a marriage is the possibility of a natural procreation. They do not have that. Consequently those unions are not a marriage, rather they are civil alternative unions. Let us simply call them that.
If those legislating for the same rights for the same sex unions want to call these alternative unions a marriage, it clearly demonstrates a hidden agenda with the purpose of destroying life, because it will diminish the natural value (procreation) of the regular marriage. Marriage will become whatever, and as such one of its main purposes will be lost in time. This is simply not acceptable from any person with only a little bit of common sense.

The Citizenship of the pasta

THE CITIZENSHIP OF THE PASTA January 16, 2006
Several magazines and newspaper published recently articles about the archeological discovery in China of noodles made with millet so old that the authors of those articles felt forced in concluding that the Chinese bitted the Italians in the invention of the pasta. In those articles also was reported that Italians learn about noodles in consequence of Marco Polo trip to China.

Being an Italian and passionate about history of the nourishment of the man kind I very much appreciate the articles for the valuable information about this discovery. But let me correct the content.

First we need to distinguish the shape from the ingredient. When we talking about food the ingredient is the important element, not the shape. If we want to speculate who invented the noodles or spaghetti shape is even ridiculous, because there is not doubt that this shape was discover at different times by many people in different parts of the world. Give to a child a piece of a dough and you will see him reinventing the ball and noodle shape playing with his hands. Italy never claimed the paternity of the noodles shape invention. Italians claim that they were the first on creating the pasta. In Italy the word “pasta” only refers to products made exclusively with wheat (mostly durum semolina wheat flour). Wheat is an ingredient not a shape. When we say “pasta” in Italy It does not matter if we call it maccaroni, spaghetti, penne, cappelli d’angelo, bucatini, etc. we means a product with different shapes always made with wheat.

For example a noodle made with rice we do not call it pasta, but if we are talking about spaghetti we call them rice spaghetti (spaghetti di riso), if we are talking about penne made with millet we call them millet penne (penne di miglio) and so on. The word noodle indicates more a shape certainly not a cereal. For what I was reading in Italy the Italians admit that is possible that the extruded noodle shape came from China to Italy, but those products were made of rice not wheat.

We know for a fact that the ancient Romans were using rice imported from the far east like a medicine (rice was not cultivate in Europe at that time). For that is much more credible that the rice noodles reach Italy long before Marco Polo. The Italians were the first to use wheat for the production of spaghetti and they invented also many other shapes never used in China or elsewhere before. Also because they were the first in understanding and developing the use of the durum semolina wheat pasta, that aloud the conservation of the shape after cooking without clumping together. After the Italians start using wheat, this use went back to China were in certain Provinces now they use also wheat. For what concern other countries claims about the paternity of the pasta why all over the world everybody use the Italian words Spaghetti, Maccaroni, Bucatini, penne, etc. if they invented them? This typical Italian words sound Arab, German or Chinese to you?
Ferdinando Petacci

Francesco Saverio Petacci

Mio nonno Francesco Saverio Petacci (1883-1970) era un medico di eccezionale bravura ed una persona buona, semplice e di alti valori morali. Specialista in semeiotica (diagnostica), una specialita' oggi dimenticata per l'avvento dei numerosi test clinici una volta non tutti disponibili, era capace di diagnosticare facilmente molte malattie attraverso lo studio dell'iride, il colore della pelle, i sintomi del paziente, etc.

Questa capacita' lo porto' ad essere un medico molto stimato e ricercato nella Roma - bene dei suoi tempi.

Una delle importanti spinte verso la notorieta' gliela diede il Cardinale Ratti (poi divenuto Pio XI). Il Cardinale e mio nonno si trovarono di fronte in una tavolata di Prelati e cooperatori del Vaticano. Guardando in faccia al Cardinale mio nonno noto' i segni di una malattia e chiese al Cardinale se soffrisse di determinati sintomi. Il Cardinale rispose affermativamente dicendo anche che era stato visitato da vari medici, ma nessuno era stato capace di curarlo. Allora il nonno lo invito' a passare dal suo studio. Con la visita medica nonno Francesco confermo' i sospetti della sua diagnosi iniziale, e lo curo'. Fu cosi che divenne il medico personale del Cardinale Ratti. Il Cardinale e nonno Francesco divennero buoni amici, e quando il Cardinale Ratti divenne Papa con il nome di Pio XI il nonno rimase il suo medico personale e divenne uno degli archiatri pontifici. Non il capo degli archiatri, ma certamente il medico di capezzale e piu' stimato da Papa Ratti a cui accudiva piu' volentieri in caso di necessita'. Situazione che creava non poche invidie.

Con l'aiuto del Cardinale, che non si stancava di raccontare come nonno Francesco l'aveva curato, di altri prelati divenuti suoi pazienti e di personaggi della nobilta' romana che cominciarono sempre piu' a rivolgersi a lui il nonno divenne uno dei medici piu' in vista nella Roma della sua epoca. Per un periodo di vari anni ebbe anche una sua clinica personale "La Clinica del Sole".

Ma essendo una persona semplice e buona non si monto' mai la testa ed era sua abitudine di recarsi un giorno alla settimana nelle borgate romane a curare la gente povera gratis.

Personalmente imparai a conoscere bene il nonno nel periodo del mio soggiorno in Madrid, quando vivevamo all'ultimo piano di Calle Lagasca n.122. Il nonno che per tutta la vita ebbe l'abitudine di camminare per un ora tutti i giorni, in quel periodo mi portava sempre con se a passeggiare per le vie di Madrid. Mi parlava spesso in Francese, perche' voleva che imparassi quell'idioma e rispondeva alle molte mie domande di ragazzino curioso della vita e delle vicende della nostra famiglia. Sto parlando degli anni 1949-1950 quando gia' avevo 8 e 9 anni. Dopo l'assasinio a Dongo di mio padre il nonno divenne per me la nuova figura paterna.

Al contrario di quanto molti credono nonno Francesco era contrario alla relazione di mia zia Clara con Mussolini, la subbii e la sopporto', perche' non fu capace di farle cambiare opinione su quella relazione. Ma per lui era inanzitutto moralmente una realzione sbagliata e poi lo metteva in una situazione imbarazzante di fronte ai suoi amici in Vaticano.

Perche' racconto queste cose? Perche' purtroppo ci sono molte persone superficiali ed altre in malafede o che parlano di cose che non sanno, o mentiscono intenzionalmente per faziosita' di parte. Senza contare gli stupidi che arrivano a conclusioni sbagliate, perche' non sanno usare la logica e sono privi di buon senso.

C'e' infatti chi ha accusato mio nonno di aver provocato la morte di Papa Pio XI intenzionalmente per evitare che facesse un discorso contro il nazismo. Pura diffamazione. Chi conosceva il personaggio sa che Francesco Saverio Petacci non era capace di amazzare neppure una mosca, e che le sue qualita' morali e bonta' gli impedivano perfino di vagamente considerare un'azione del genere. Ma poi perche' mio nonno avrebbe dovuto uccidere un amico e la gallina dalle uova d'oro, proprio il Ratti uno dei piu' importanti successi della sua professione? Non quadra. Per fare un favore a Clara e Mussolini? Ma lui era contrario alla loro relazione, percio' neanche quadra. Chi afferma cio' e' un bugiardo che s'inventa una teoria senza alcuna prova, senza logica e senso e senza conoscere i personaggi coinvolti.

Personalmente non penso che Papa Ratti sia stato ucciso, non bisogna dimenticare che era ammalato ed aveva 83 anni quando mori. Ma se proprio vogliamo inventare e forzare l'ipotesi dell'uccisione guardiamo ai fatti. Il nonno fu quello che accorse al capezzale del Pontefice quando stette male e poi mori. Se uno vuole uccidere qualcuno non si mette in luce e si espone in quella maniera. Chi era invece assente in quel giorno era il capo degli archiatri pontifici che si diede per indisposto. Che sia stato lui nei giorni precedenti a preparare la morte del Pontefice? Io non credo, ma certamente a rigor di logica fa molto piu' senso. Il nonno aveva tutto da perdere e niente da guadagnare con la morte del Papa Pio XI.

Ferdinando Petacci