thisweekinitaly.com

I’m back in Italy with some final thoughts about my trip to USA and some
observations about Italy itself.

The Italian Doctor in Gettysburg

I saw my personal physician while I was in Gettysburg. She told me that
recently for a short time she had an Italian doctor in the practice. Her
practice, as is common today, is owned by a health services corporation
that also owns the local hospital. Also she must comply with the
regulations
of the various health insurance companies and the government. The rules of
the health services corp. and the insurance providers presented a problem
for the Italian doctor. He wanted to spend more time with each patient.
He told her that in Italy if he made a house call, he often stayed to share
a meal with the family. When he came to understand the demands in the USA
to process the patients quickly, he left the practice.

He probably came to the USA to (1) earn more money and (2) practice
medicine
outside of a state-run system. He earned more money. But he also discovered
the new irony of American medicine. Americans always think of state-run
medical
systems as impossibly bureaucratic, but the system in the USA now is
similarly
bureaucratic with the state replaced by the health services corporations
and
the insurance companies (as well as Medicare and Medicaid).

Update on Smog

A friend who has lived in California took me to task for assuming that what
they call haze in LA is probably smog. In order to preserve the high
integrity
of my newsletter, I present her comments

“Need to take you to task re your comment about the view from the Getty
(locals always refer to this wonderful art museum as “the Getty”). It most
likely was haze…smog has been greatly reduced in the last 10-15 years and
it’s ugly brown and smelly. If you look at the geography of the great LA
basin, you can realize that the ocean breezes carry with them a lot of
moisture
and this air runs smack into the mountains surrounding the city…when
there’s a lack of differing air pressures over the mountains, the heavier
coastal air can’t be pulled up over the hills
and on to the east. Hence, a lot of haze. If there have been many really
hot days in a row, a temperature inversion occurs where the LA basin air
becomes stagnant and then smog builds up.”

Talking to Mamma on the Train

On the train from Rome to Florence there was a man talking to his mother
on his cell phone. He was talking to her about when he would arrive
someplace.
Suddenly he was saying, over and over and louder and louder, “Momma stay
calm, Momma don’t get excited.” One would have thought he had just told her
that her best friend died. All the jokes about Jewish mothers in the USA
are easily
applicable to Italian mothers.

Illegal Construction

In Italy, as in USA, you need a building permit to construct a building.
If you build a structure without a permit in Italy, it is subject to
condemnation
and demolition. But in Italy, you can pay a fine and make the building
legal “ex post facto.” Recently a headline in the newspaper announced new
rules for how to make an “illegal” building a “legal” one. Perhaps in some
places in USA too, it is possible to later cure the defect of no building
permit for a new structure, but I doubt that the rules for how to do so
would
be highlighted in the headline of the local newspaper. The headline is a
good indication of how common the practice of illegal construction is in
Italy .

First Hint of Fall

The trees in this section of Italy do not turn colors as beautifully as
those in Pennsylvania. So the first hint of fall (in addition to slightly
cooler nights) is the sale of roasted chestnuts by street vendors.

A Special Purchase for an Italian Friend

My friend, the elderly watch repairman, asked me to bring him something
from
the USA, Lucky Strike cigarettes without filters. In the USA, I discovered
that this brand is no longer in mass production, but I found some (at a
premium
price) at a cigarette distributor. My friend loves them for the aroma of
the smoke. These are the cigarettes that he remembers the GIs smoking after
the war. Perhaps they were among the first cigarettes he smoked. The years
immediately
after the war were hard ones in Italy, but clearly my friend has some warm
memories of this time when he was a young man that are brought back by the
aroma of Lucky Strikes (without filters).

Confirmation of an Earlier Observation

I mentioned last week the Italian propensity for finding dark motives
behind
what appear to be simple events. A friend sent me an article from an
American
newspaper that mentioned this phenomenon and the Italian word for it. The
article concerns the new season of the TV show “West Wing” and says in
part:

“Some fans of the show are already ascribing the switch from
a Democratic fictional president to a Republican one as a sly political
statement – an effort by NBC to curry favor with the real powers that be.
(Martin Sheen, who plays President Bartlet, was Hollywood’s most visible
critic of the war in Iraq last spring.)

That reasoning is what Italians call “dietrologia,” the art of finding
dark,
ulterior motives behind the most obvious decisions…”

Getting My Driver’s License Renewed in Pennsylvania

I use my PA driver’s license primarily as a form of photo identification
in Italy. I also need it for the very few times I drive a rental car.
So I got it renewed while I was home. My renewal was accomplished 6 months
before the expiration of my current license in March, 2004. So I did not
have the ordinary renewal form that one gets in the mail about a month
before
the expiration date. Thus it took a little longer to complete the renewal
process — two hours at the driver’s license office. Still the whole
atmosphere
at the office and attitude of the staff were in marked contrast to Italy.
The staff were there to serve the clients as quickly as possible. Those
waiting in line were not complaining about the poor service.

Despite all the jokes about government employees, in the USA the “How can
I help you?” attitude is much stronger than in Italy. In Italy the attitude
is more like “I have a state job for life so I don’t really care what you
think about the level of service in this office.”

Making a Go of It as an Immigrant

I’ve seen immigrants in Italy at stop lights who rush out to wash your car
windows as you stop for a red light — just like in New York city in the
past if not in the present. But I saw a new way to earn a few coins
recently.
In Italy, at the supermarket, to get a shopping cart you insert 50 cents in
a slot (like the system used at some airports in USA for baggage carts).
When
you return the cart, the 50 cents comes out of the slot and back to you. I saw
a guy in the parking lot of Supermarket. For those who did not want to
bother
returning the cart to the store to retrieve their 50 cents, he took the
carts
back for them and kept the money. I give him credit for hustling to earn
a living.

Although I am still in the USA, my adventures in the United States offer
some interesting contrasts to my experiences in Italy.

Also I have in previous newsletters compared Italy to foreign countries such
as Spain, Sweden, the United States, and Germany. After six days in Los
Angeles, I can also compare Italy to another foreign country — California.

A Suggested Book to Read

I’ve read an interesting book, “The Dark Heart of Italy”, written by Tobias
Jones and published by Faber and Faber in London. I recommend it for those
wanting to learn more about Italy today (even though I don’t agree with all
of the books conclusions). It is the observations of a young Englishman
who taught in Italy for two years. He notes how difficult and convoluted it
is in Italy to ever get at “the truth” of a particular controversial event.
If there seems to be an obvious and clear explanation of an event, many
Italians will reject it as too simple. Theories of convoluted conspiracies
always abound.

I saw a small example of this propensity this summer. When it first became
very hot, Italy suffered from a blackout, in part because of the increased
demand for electricity caused by the use of air conditioning (There is air
conditioning in Italy, just not as much as in the USA.). The Italians do
not have coal or oil resources. They have rejected the use of nuclear
power. As a result they import electricity from France, which has many
nuclear power plants. The official explanation of the blackout was that
demand had grown so high both in France and the nearby countries, that
France temporarily could not export its usual amount of electricity to
Italy. But a friend’s father was adamant in his belief that France cut the
power allocations to Italy in retaliation for Italy’s supporting the
American position in the Iraq war.

Following (and Exceeding) the Italian Example in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has long been known as a city with a poor system of public
transportation, but in downtown LA there are public buses everywhere. There
is also a new subway system. (The buses and subway provide good public
transportation in downtown LA and nearby areas; the LA area is so large that
the subway does not reach much of it and it takes too long ride a bus a long
distance.) The new subway system has an “honor system” even more optimistic
in its assumption than what one sees on Italian trains and buses. I have not
seen such an honor system before in the USA. You buy a subway ticket in Los
Angeles, but you don’t have to use the ticket to get through a gate to get
to the subway train. I did not see conductors collecting tickets on the
train. There is a $250 fine for riding the subway without a ticket. So
there must be “spot checks” from time to time as there are on Italian buses.
But on Italian buses and trains there is a machine where you are supposed
to validate the ticket before starting your trip so you can’t use the ticket
again if it is not collected today. There is no such validation machine in
the LA subway although perhaps the tickets may be stamped by date and only
good on that date.

The Getty Museum

I visited the new Getty Museum in LA, which is on a hillside with a
magnificent view of the city that is only obscured by the frequent smog. I
noted that one bus driver euphemistically called this phenomenon, “haze.”
At the museum there is an orientation film of six minutes about the complex.
The film explained the exhibits and the plan of the museum in a very
simple and straightforward manner. I’ve never seen a film like this in an
Italian museum. Where there is a film, it is usually about a specific
artist or exhibit and much more sophisticated than the one at the Getty. In
Italy it is probably assumed (perhaps wrongfully) that if one is at a museum
one already knows a lot about art and artists. It is also assumed that a
map of the museum (if one is provided) is all one would need for a visit.
Just a small example of how things tend to be more “user friendly” in the
United States.

Reverence for the Flag

Italians, and as far as I can tell Europeans in general, do not have what we
might term “the religion of the flag.” If an Italian wins an event at the
Olympics, one might see many Italian flags waving in the stands. But flags
are displayed much less. The one exception is in areas such as Catalonia
and the Basque area of Spain. In these areas one sees a lot of Catalonian
or Basque flags, but that is because the local folks want to emphasize their
difference and their desire for independence.

If the highest court in Italy ruled (as did the U.S. Supreme Court) that
flag burning was a protected form of free speech under the Italian
Constitution, nobody would propose a constitutional amendment to overturn
this ruling..” (This is a hypothetical example because in Italy flag
burning would not be a crime in the first place.) The Italians would say, I
think, “it’s a piece of colored cloth, not the nation itself — if somebody
burns it is no big deal.” This all came home to me even more as I watched a
story on TV in California. It concerned a man who had started the movement
to recall Governor Gray Davis. This man was speaking at a meeting. He often
wears a necktie with a United States flag design. At this meeting there was
no flag in the room, but the group usually started by saying The Pledge of
Allegiance” to the flag. So the speaker opened his coat so that the flag
tie was fully visible, and then the group said the Pledge facing his
necktie. This would be ludicrous in Italy.

California Recall Election

I watched a TV show in California about the 135 candidates in this election.
I have noted that in Italy there are so many major parties (about 6-8)
that it is impossible to let a representative of each one talk on the news
at night. So the news stories show the faces of various leaders but there
is a narration summarizing their various views rather than direct statements
from them all. Well with 135 candidates this problem is even worse. So the
California TV stations ask the minor candidates to send them an “audition
tape” stating their views. Then the TV station decides which, if any,
candidates have sufficiently interesting views to merit a segment on the
news. As you might well imagine, this causes the candidates to become more
outrageous in their views so that the TV stations will find them interesting
(or amusing) enough to show them.

The Judicial System

I have mentioned that some Italians believe that the judges in Italy are too
politicized and too powerful for the good of the country. But I don’t know
what the Italians would with the judge that I read about in the Los Angeles
Times. A woman judge in California was charged with two counts of drunken
driving and one count each of assault and battery and intimidating a witness
with a gun. She was able to plead guilty to the drunk driving charge in
return for the dropping of the other two. The drunken driving charges
(unlike the other two charges) were misdemeanors for which she would not
lose her job.

It seems that, while drunk, she had a violent argument with her female
domestic partner in which she threw things at her partner and apparently
also pointed a gun. The judge then left the premises, drove off, and was
arrested for drunken driving (I don’t know if both drunken driving charges
or only one of them derived from this incident.). This might have been a
little “over the line” even for a judge in Italy.

The Grotto Spa

Before I left for the USA, I visited a spa in a grotto in nearby Monsumato.
The cave has hot springs running though it so it like a steam bath. You sit
in the hot atmosphere as long as you like. They ask for silence, which did
not please me greatly. I bought a book to read, but my glasses fogged up.
Later I realized I should have read it without using the glasses. Even then
sweat might have dripped off of me unto the pages. By the way, in Italy
these treatments are covered by the national health plan. After the “steam
bath” you go for a massage, but a different kind of massage. You go into a
single shower room and turn on the shower over your head. Then a female
attendant “massages” you with a stream of high-pressure water from a hose.
It was very invigorating, but as I turned around so that my front, rather
than my back, faced the attendant, I realized that ones worst nightmare
might be at that point to discover suddenly that an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend
was in charge of the hose.

Divorce Italian Style

When I tell my friends in USA that many Italians are separated but not
divorced, my American friends guess that this is because of the Roman
Catholic nature of Italy. But as I understand it, in Catholicism it doesn’t
matter if you are separated or divorced (because you are still married in
the eyes of the church). The problem arises when you remarry. Then you
cannot take communion unless your first marriage has been annulled. In Italy
divorce is a long process and expensive. Furthermore, I think that a woman
with a child at home is in a better legal position to get payments from the
father if the couple is not divorced. So the reasons to not get divorced
are more practical than religious.

In Italy one cannot automatically get an annulment through the church as you
can in the USA. (“I think he had his fingers crossed behind his back when he
said the wedding vows.”) So second marriages in Italy tend to be civil
marriages, not in the church. In contrast, I know of nobody in the USA who
has filled out the forms and paid the fees who has not been granted an
annulment (or in some cases multiple annulments).

What Did I Notice Most When I Returned to the USA?

The number of obese people. I heard on the news that 18% of American
children are overweight. It sure seems that this figure is higher in
south-central, Pennsylvania.

Visiting New York with Italian Friends

I went to New York for a day to visit with some Italian friends who were
spending a week there. I wanted them to see a Broadway show. So we went to
the TKTS booth near Times Square where they sell tickets for ½ price on the
day of the show. The TKTS windows open at 3 p.m. We went at 2:30 but there
was already a long line. My Italian friends were afraid we would spend
hours in line, but we got our tickets at 3:25. There is no way we could
have gotten these tickets in Italy within 25 minutes after the window
opened. My friends were pleased. The show (Movin’ Out) had an 8 p.m.
curtain time. At 8 p.m. I told my friends the show would start soon; the
curtain went up at 8:07. In Italy the curtain would not have gone up any
earlier than 8:30 when the tickets said 8. In fact in Italy, at 8 less than
½ of the audience would have arrived.

Keeping Cool in Church

My church in Florence does not have air conditioning; very few, if any,
churches in Italy do. We start the service at 10 in the summer rather than
the usual 11. I told the pastor that when I came home I would look for some
of the paper fans that funeral homes traditionally gave to churches for use
in the summer. But I could find no church in Gettysburg that has an old
supply of these fans in a closet somewhere. I found out where I could order
them, but the price and the minimum order were both too high.

While waiting in line at TKTS in New York, I noticed that many people had
such paper fans with an advertisement for “The Lion King” on them.I was
told that the fans were available on a table in front of the booth. When I
went there, no more Lion King fans were on the table. But I did find a
supply of fans advertising another show. I made a few trips to the table
and eventually got a supply of 80 fans. My church will have to decide if
they want to put in the pews next summer fans that advertise “Menopause The
Musical” and include the first verse of that rousing song “I’m Having a Hot
Flash.”

The Talk by the Official from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture

The gentlemen spoke at a meeting of the Gettysburg Rotary club. He talked
about how agriculture is becoming more efficient through the use of business
principles and scientific advances. He talked about the changing eating
habits of Americans in terms of where they eat, how long they eat, and what
type of food they eat. He said that the goal was to meet the desires of the
people for convenience, affordability, and nutrition. Never once did he
mention the quality or flavor of the food produced. It is almost as if food
in the USA is a “necessary evil” – you have to eat something.

In fact food in the USA is more convenient and affordable than in Italy. I
don’t think it is more nutritious. But despite the move in Italy to
households where both parents work (so there is less time to shop for and to
prepare food), food remains culturally important in Italy in a way that is
unheard of in the USA. In Italy convenience does not trump all the other
values in the preparation and consumption of food.

I’m in the USA but I did accumulate enough items in Italy before I left to
have a newsletter.

Corrections

In my last newsletter I said I would be in Los Angeles at Millennium
Biltmore Hotel from August 16-21. Obviously this should have been September
16 — 21. Also a friend wrote to say that in the USA the health warnings on
cigarettes are no longer uniform in wording but reflect different health
risks from smoking (as do the ones in Italy).

Cooking Lessons

Twice in Italy I have ended up talking to a man (two different men) on my
way back from the grocery store and in the discussion I have mentioned what
I purchased at the store. Each man then went into a long description of the
best way to cook one of the items, including which ingredients to add to
make it taste best. This has never happened to me in USA.

Politics — Governmental and Soccer

After I gave my extended account of Italian politics today in a previous
newsletter, I read an article in a major Italian paper which made many of
the same points that I did. This does not mean that my account was correct,
but at least it is in the mainstream of Italian thought. I despair,
however, of ever understanding the far more complex area of the politics of
Italian soccer. As I have said there are three main levels of Italian
soccer, the A, B, and C leagues and teams, according to their records, can
rise or fall from one level to another. Now everything is in chaos because
of, as far as I can tell, the following factors: (1) a scandal about
irregular accounts in the ways that some teams raise money, (2) a
reorganization of the B league to make it larger (against the wishes of the
current squads at this level), (3) the movement of some teams from one level
to another, not on the basis of their records on the soccer field, but on
the basis of the regularity or irregularity of their financial accounts, and
(4) the negotiation of a new TV contract with SKY TV of Rupert Murdoch.
These are the only 4 factors I could deduce; there are probably more. To
show you how serious this matter is, the head of the B league, who opposes
certain changes, says that he fears for his life. A few years ago Major
League baseball in USA reorganized its leagues. If, for example, the
President of the St. Louis Cardinals had opposed the plan of reorganization,
I doubt that he would have said that he feared for his life.

The Italian Economy

Once again I was in a discussion about the economy with Italian friends who
bemoaned how poor Italy is. Italy has few natural resources, but in a
modern post-industrial economy, brainpower and initiative are more important
than deposits of iron ore and coal. The Italians are very clever and
resourceful. A recent newspaper article says that 11% of Italians live
below the poverty line, and 4.2% are very poor. Of course, different
countries may use different definitions of “poor.” Also there are the usual
regional differences with the poverty rate being 5% in the north, 6.7 % in
the central area, and 22.4% in the south. One of my friends said that Italy
needs to have a more “consumerist” way of life to be more prosperous so that
money circulates more. And in fact there are public service advertisements
on TV that urge Italians to buy more to make the economy more robust. In
town, however, there are stores everywhere; it doesn’t look like a non
consumerist economy. I was having this conversation in the backyard of the
home of a young Italian (a home, as is often the case, which was passed down
through the family). This home is nicer than my house in the USA. He has
two separate wood fired ovens to cook the pizza.

The Heat Wave in Europe

In France there was a major political blow-up about the number of old people
who died (as old people often do) in the heat wave. The French Minister of
Health may have to resign, if he has not already done so. In Italy too some
old people died, but there was no big political issue. I assume the number
of deaths was much higher in France. Why the difference? Perhaps the
French are less accustomed to very hot weather. Perhaps the Italians, with
a great emphasis on the family, do a better job of watching over the old
folks. Perhaps the social services do a better job in Italy — there were
volunteers who called upon older citizens to check up on them and bring them
water.

Group on the Train

As I was coming back from church on Sunday a group of older citizens came on
the train. They apparently were looking, without success, for a block of
seats where they could be seated together. They were working their way
through the cars in their search, but the door to the next car forward did
not work well, so they ended up mostly in our car. To say they were noisy is
an understatement. They were also arguing and all talking at once. It was
like there was an audition for parts in an Italians version of the
“Honeymooners”, and all in our car. They were going to Montecatini Terme,
but decided to get off at the first stop instead. There would be a one hour
wait for the next train with no guarantee of seats all together on that
train either. Somehow one member of the group did get to the car in front
of us; he returned to find out that his friends had gotten off, and he was
the only one of group left on the train.

All this was to the great amusement of others on the train. It turns out
that the group was from Puglia in southern Italy. Here all the stereotypes
of the southerners as ignorant, bumbling peasant types seem to come true.

Women’s Married Names

Married women retain their maiden name in Italy. So on the doorbell of a
home of a married couple, the names might be Lazzari — Mencini. But the
children take the name of the husband so there are not, in general, children
with hyphenated names.

Controlling Street Vendors

I wrote once about how the police make street vendors close up shop, but
then when the policeman leaves, the vendors simply set up shop again. It’s
like a game. I noted that in New York, the police seized the merchandise of
the vendors which is an effective way to stop them. I discovered that once
in Pistoia a policeman tried to seize the vendor’s merchandise. The crowd
of citizens began to berate the policeman; they said the man had a right to
try to make a living. These vendors are not Italians, but the Italians do
at times buy from them. It’s hard to enforce a law when the public does not
agree.

Getting my Permission to Stay in Italy Form Renewed

Only five trips to the police station this time. First time at 5 am to sign
the list for appointments. Nobody was there and there was no list. I
returned at 7 am — too late — there was a large crowd. The next day I
return at 5 am. There was a list. I was second on the list, but when the
station opened at 7 am, I discovered that on this day, the form I wanted to
present was only processed in the afternoon. I returned in the afternoon. I
got on the list. Not only did I get on the list, but, miracle of miracles,
they actually distributed the form to be completed to people waiting in line
so it is ready to submit when you get to the window. I got into the station
for an appointment, but at the window, the man required two additional
photocopies of documents that were not required last year. Next morning, 5
am again. I get on the list. I get in for an appointment, and my papers are
accepted. But somehow they lost the fingerprints they took of me last year;
so I have to go to another office in the building to get fingerprinted
again.