TODAY'S SET LIST
1) HOUSING CRISIS GETS WORSE
2) RACISM ON THE TRAIN
3) INTERNET BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
4) A WAY TOO FANCY CAFETERIA
5) MAGPIES TERRORIZE A VILLAGE

LINKS TO THE ARTICLES
https://corrierefiorentino.corriere.it/firenze/notizie/cronaca/21_febbraio_19/firenze-crisi-travolge-affitti-quasi-900-famiglie-chiedono-aiuto-550307a4-7288-11eb-a580-851e098b7615.shtml
https://www.versiliatoday.it/2021/02/18/vivevano-come-nelle-favelas-blitz-di-carabinieri-e-municipale/
https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/prato/cronaca/2021/02/18/news/voi-neri-portate-il-virus-ragazza-costretta-a-scendere-dal-treno-per-due-colpi-di-tosse-1.39922773
https://www.ilsitodifirenze.it/content/528-esalta-su-youtube-sparatoria-scuola-usa-fbi-segnala-14enne
https://www.lanazione.it/firenze/cronaca/l-amica-francese-di-instagram-sparisce-dodicenne-chiama-la-polizia-postale-e-la-salva-1.6034890
https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/versilia/cronaca/2021/02/18/news/protesta-dei-genitori-per-il-menu-della-mensa-troppo-raffinato-i-bimbi-non-toccano-cibo-1.39923047
https://corrierefiorentino.corriere.it/firenze/notizie/cronaca/21_febbraio_19/lucca-paese-ostaggio-gazze-usciamo-casa-ci-attaccano-22df4a54-7278-11eb-a580-851e098b7615.shtml

BACKGROUND MUSIC
Title: Aetherial (Argofox release)
Author: AlmightyZero
License: Creative Commons Attribution
Links: https://youtu.be/2OTD4IkmKsI
https://soundcloud.com/argofox/almightyzero-aetherial

SCRIPT
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be, however you might be listening, welcome to another episode of What’s Up Tuscany, the daily podcast from L’Arno where you’ll find the most interesting news of today, Friday February 19th 2021, as selected by our journalists. If you wish, please subscribe and share this podcast on social media, it would really help us spread the news.

Let’s start today with yet another window on the social upheaval brought by the pandemic for many Tuscans. This morning on the Corriere Fiorentino we read how the number of families in Florence that are seeking financial help to pay their rent has skyrocketed. From september to february 871 families have come forward to the renters union, SUNIA, a number that is more than double of what happened the year before. The secretary of the Florence union, Laura Grandi, explains the reasons. Quote “most of them worked in restaurants, hotels or in the tourism sector, which was ravaged by the lack of visitors. There are also people on furlough, unemployed but also small entrepreneurs without any client. Some seek financial help, others a council house” end quote. Rent prices, though, remain very high: Florence is the third city in Italy when it comes to renting a flat, behind Milan and Rome. The situation for those already marginalized is even worse. As we read last evening on Versilia Today, the owner of a small plot of land in Viareggio found a way to profit from it. He placed a couple of shacks, containers and caravans and rented them to immigrants of the area. Despite conditions that would look out of place in a Brazilian favela, he got between 100 and 400 euros a month. When the Carabinieri showed up yesterday morning, trash everywhere, appalling hygiene conditions, no sewers at all. This mini-favela will be cleared out but God only knows how many others there are in our region.

Let’s move on to an infuriating story we read on the Prato edition of Il Tirreno. If a couple days ago it was a supermarket cashier who received racist insults in Leghorn, now it was the turn of a 19 year old student to be verbally assaulted on the regional train between Prato and Florence. It only took a couple of coughs to unleash the rage of some passengers. Quote “if you got the cough you shouldn’t take the train! It’s black people like you that spread the virus” end quote. The girl, born in Brazil but adopted immediately by a family in Prato, was then approached by a man wearing the Trenitalia uniform and forced to step off the train at the station of Sesto Fiorentino. No one knows who this man was, as, according to Trenitalia, the train conductor was a female but this means nothing. Such despicable events are a symptom of a collective psychosis that has brought to the surface tendencies we thought to have left behind a long time ago.

If the real world is complicated enough, things aren’t much different online. If yesterday we smiled when we read the story of a 12 year old girl from Florence that saved an online friend in France when she disappeared suddenly from Instagram following some family trouble, the story we read on Il Sito di Firenze is very different. The parents of a 14 year old kid from the Arezzo province were startled when the police showed up at their door. They had been warned by the FBI after the kid had left a comment on a video of a shooting in a US high school. The youngster had praised the shooters, wishing that he could be able to do the same in his school. The police found no weapons in the house or nothing that could indicate that he was about to turn words into actions but it’s still a huge red flag of those mental malaise that many experts denounced in the last few days. Sure, during adolescence everyone says and does a lot of stupid things. In the past, thankfully, there weren’t cameras everywhere and those foolish words were soon forgotten. Now, instead, everything lives forever online. It just takes a second to get into real trouble.

Let’s move on to a curious story we read on the Versilia edition of Il Tirreno. Many have a conflictual relationship with cafeterias. Some complain about the quality of the food, others about the lack of fantasy when it comes to the menu. Doesn’t happen every day that someone complains when the food served is too fancy. The accident happened a few days ago when the parents of the pupils of several elementary schools in Viareggio raised a protest against the firm that handles the school cafeterias. The menus, prepared by the town dietician and verified by nutritionists of the local hospital, don’t seem too bad. Barley soup with pesto and tomatoes, Viareggio-style fish sauce pasta, meatballs and sauteed zucchini, stuff that wouldn’t be out of place in a regular restaurant. The problem is that the kids just don’t like them. In a class of 25 students, 20 left everything on the plate and went home hungry. Parents are raging because the service isn’t free: 120 Euros a month, six Euros per every meal. They understand that the school is trying to “educate to the adoption of correct behaviours that promote general health” but there must be a better way. Isn’t it worse if the kids don’t eat anything and stuff themselves with rubbish when they get home??

Let’s close today’s episode with a funny story we read this morning on the Corriere Fiorentino. Just like in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous movie, “The birds”, in the town of Maggiano, near Lucca, people are constantly harassed by a flock of magpies. After one of them had been fed by a resident, the whole flock started to station in the area, looking for food. After a while, the birds became very insistent and have now started to attack everyone. Residents are scared to death. A few days ago a woman had her ear bitten but it could get worse. Many children live there and people are afraid that someone could get seriously hurt. The crisis doesn’t strike just humans, apparently. If in New York, bands of rats have started attacking humans on the pavement, we have roving bands of birds...

That was all for today, I’m your host Luca Bocci and I’ll see you tomorrow for another, slightly different, episode of What’s Up Tuscany, the daily podcast from L’Arno where you’ll find the news that, according to us, are well worth a second look. Thanks for listening and goodbye.