Alessandra Bocchi

Monday

Alessandra Bocchi

Inside the traditional art revolution

From our US edition

More and more often lately, people are rejecting tired modern art. They often find solace in the art of the past; online accounts admiring “traditional art” have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, but they act as online repositories for a bittersweet recognition: what once was, no longer is. But the kind of art they seek, involving detail, meaning and skill, still exists, and it is growing. The cultural hegemony of contemporary, abstract art is slowly beginning to crack; through those cracks we can see new art surfacing. As I have become increasingly disillusioned with the state of politics, an observation from Ernst Jünger, the German philosopher and skeptic of the extreme politics of his day, rings true to me.

art revolution Milano Painting Academy

Wednesday

Alessandra Bocchi

The mystery of chronic Lyme disease

I struggled to pull myself out of bed in the morning. I slept for hours at lunch breaks and was having a hard time focusing. I was working six days a week as an editor at one of the world’s largest newspapers. I needed to concentrate. It was my first year there on a fixed-term contract. I didn’t have the security of knowing I would be hired afterwards; I had limited scope to make mistakes. Articles that required extensive fact-checking, style correction and careful proofreading felt like an insurmountable obstacle. What was wrong with me? I booked a doctor’s appointment to check my vitamin levels. I’m anaemic, so thought that could have been the cause.

Wednesday

Alessandra Bocchi

‘Harder than heroin’: America’s silent benzo epidemic

From our US edition

“Imagine taking a pill that makes you instantly feel relaxed, and then imagine that when you stop taking it, you feel worse than when you first started.” That's how one user describes benzodiazepines, a psychoactive drug prescribed to treat insomnia, anxiety and seizures. But while “benzos” can have some short-term benefits, habitual use can cause long-term damage. Another user writes that his benzodiazepine addiction was “harder to overcome than heroin.” A young professional I interviewed said she'd never had addiction issues before trying benzodiazepines, which were prescribed by her doctor.

Friday

Alessandra Bocchi

Marion Maréchal’s plan to save Europe

Covid-19 shows the dangers of an excessively connected world, but it also presents huge political opportunities for critics of globalisation. And who better to seize the moment than the latest scion of the Le Pen political dynasty: Marion Maréchal, the 30-year-old granddaughter of the National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and the niece of the party’s current leader, Marine Le Pen? Maréchal broke with her family in 2018, shedding the symbolic and highly controversial patronym ‘Le Pen’. She may yet break, too, with her grandfather’s National Front, since rebranded National Rally, and form her own party. Yet she is in many ways the inheritor of a political tradition.

Friday

Alessandra Bocchi

Italy’s family unity could be its biggest weakness against coronavirus

Italy still currently has the highest reported fatality rate in the world, at 12.7 per cent. And that death toll is widely thought to be even higher than officially reported. In comparison, Germany has a recorded fatality rate of two per cent. Yet both countries have similar levels of infection rates. Italy has 143,626 confirmed coronavirus cases; Germany has 114,257. Italy’s disproportionately higher death toll with similar infection and testing rates compared to a country like Germany raises crucial questions on how and why Covid-19 affects some countries more than others. In Italy’s case, the answer may well be that the country’s greatest strength, united families, are now its biggest weakness. In Italy, the elderly live with their extended families more.

Monday

Alessandra Bocchi

I saw the violent Hong Kong protests

From our US edition

This weekend saw the most violent clashes yet in Hong Kong between demonstrators and riot police. On Sunday, as mass protests entered their 12th week, Hong Kong police deployed water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, and a policeman pointed a gun at a protester and the press. Meanwhile, dissidents threw bricks and grates that they had dug out from the street at riot police. They returned volleys of tear gas canisters with tennis rackets, threw homemade petrol bombs and Molotov cocktails, and used  lasers to thwart facial recognition cameras.

hong kong

Tuesday

Alessandra Bocchi

Why don’t Republicans care about the environment?

From our US edition

Why do conservatives oppose preserving the environment? Why do they fail to address the pollution of the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink? Why do they oppose regulating the plastic waste that destroys habitats and causes the extinction of species? If ‘conservative’ means conserving a way of life, then protecting the environment is not only helpful but necessary to conservatism. Instead, the environment has become a partisan issue for the progressive left, while conservatives defend the industrial system which causes pollution, deforestation, and animal extinction. According to the World Health Organization, 91 percent of the world’s population live in places where air quality exceeds health guidelines.

environment