Just one last thing...

Ok, Substack, this doesn't look good, and I am fed up.

Ages ago, when blogging was still in its prime (I mean in the first half of the 2000s), there was no AI, yet some people believed they could get away with stealing other authors’ content no probs.

I used to run a blog on opera, and another one on architecture. Both publications took me time and dedication, and got content (text and images too) stolen from several times, but every time that happened (that I was made aware of somehow, mainly by my own readers) I then managed to make the thieves take down said stolen content within hours, a few days at most. I was earning no direct money from either publication (I was indirectly because my blog on opera eventually landed me that job in communication for artists I then kept for 15+ years), and back then people still played dumb when caught stealing content: “…but I found this info on the interwebz, I didn’t know there was actual authorship behind it…”, as if content could magically appear online for everyone to grab and pass off as their own.

Fast forward 20+ years, I thought Substack was a safer community, but clearly I was wrong, since in the past few days the Maalvika-gate was brought up to our attention:

Mama, There’s a Plagiarist Behind You

I know there are waaaaaaaaay more important matters to take care of in the world right now¹, but this is frustrating all the same. It adds up to the greater frustration. And I don’t know about you, but I really don’t need that surplus of frustration and helplessness.

During my 2 ½ years on Substack I never raised a paywall, thinking my writing on here was too trivial, not really useful if not to myself, I was literally ashamed of even thinking of asking people to pay for any of it.

I was planning to launch a little funny Italian language and culture course on here, eventually swithching the whole thing to paid content after a few months, because that would’ve been useful content… but I'm having second thoughts about the whole business right now: is this the right place for me? Is this worth the hassle, the extra effort I need to make to be at least a wee bit entertaining for people reading every time I post something?

I don't think so.

I'm too old and, honestly, I have gone through too much in my life already, I now just want to do things that make me happy (for wanting of a better word — I have known I'll never be really happy again ever since I lost my sister, nevertheless I intend to take and savour all the tiny moments of joy the universe will throw at me, thank you), I don't have any energy left for this, be that dealing with effin’ AI, or with people like this Maalvika person, or other party-poopers around here like that eejit who the other day accused me of having infected people in France (seriously?!?).

Sono piena rasa — I would've loved to teach you the meaning of this phrase in Italian, but now you'll have to do without that.

Je suis desolée.

I quit.

P.s.: free Palestine!

1. To speak of “a war” there should be a war front, but what we’re witnessing is not “a war”: it's Israeli occupying a land that doesn't belong to them, cutting power, and relinquishing food and drinkable water, so that the legitimate owners of that land die.

All of them.

They’re exterminating an entire population by means of forced starvation.

And that is an act of genocide.

I don’t care if leaders of the so-called civilised West don’t want to pronounce that word, truth remains truth even when unacknowledged by the powers that be.

They set up a mock organisation pretending to distribute aid, claiming the UN is unable/unwilling to do so (a blatant lie) — and we’ve all seen videos of “volunteers” bringing parcels of food to children, only to take them back from those same children’s hands once the filming of a reel was over.

Disgraceful, it’s an abomination.

They’re constantly trying to dehumanise the Palestinian people, but truth is its them, the Israeli, who have zero humanity left in them, their whole self being filled with hatred.

And no, it’s not “antisemitic” to say so. They hide behind a religion they don’t respect in the first place. Because if they did they’d know what Proverbs 25:21 says:

If someone who hates you is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

But it's been clear from the very beginning that religion has nothing, NOTHING to do with all this.

This is all about power, and greed, and people having been brainwashed from childhood, led to believe that they’re “the chosen ones” and everyone else must die, preferably suffering atrociously, erased from the world by the hand of “the chosen people”.

No child is born feeling hatred towards other humans, it's a man-taught concept.

I don’t hate anyone, not even the Israeli. I don't hate people. But every action carries within itself responsibility, must face accountancy. They’re responsible for the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, and should face the consequences of their criminal actions before the International Court of Justice. I would say the same if they were Christian, Buddhists, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, whatever, because, again, religion is just a lame excuse for their crime. And no matter what one’s belief is, genocide should never be even remotely considered a solution to anything.

What I hate is manipulative ways, such as playing the victim card because of the Holocaust: no, you can’t do that unto others, not even if that’s what you’ve suffered in the past yourself. Actually, I think that if you’ve suffered a great evil you should be the one rejecting the very idea of anyone else going through the same calvary in the first place.

This is exactly as bad as the Nazis’ “final solution”, perhaps even worse, because this time we’re all witnesses of what’s happening in real time, and left powerless and in a shock by it all: we thought that “never again” was not just an uplifting slogan, but it seems we were wrong.