thisweekinitaly.com

Jazz Singer at Concert

I went to a jazz concert in which the woman singer sang mostly in English. She had a jazz style, maybe a little like Sarah Vaughn, twisting and bending the words for musical effect.  Whereas I can understand Sarah when she sings this way,  with the singer’s slight Italian accent, the modification of the lyrics often rendered them unintelligible to me.  So I was in the same situation as the rest of the audience – I  did not understand fully what she was singing.

The Trial of Berlusconi

I wrote last week that the nation’s leader was the subject of a court proceeding for alleged corruption, and also that the Parliament (controlled by Berlusconi) had passed a law giving  top public officials immunity from court cases while they were in office.  What I did not mention is that the case against Silvio is going forward because Italy’s Constitutional Court (which he does not control) had ruled that the immunity law is unconstitutional. So the case against him is going forward.  It should come as no surprise that another reform being pushed by Berlusconi is to limit some powers of the judiciary (although he is not proposing to eliminate the power of Constitutional Court to invalidate laws).

Graphics in Italy

Brochures and posters here are usually very inventive and attractive. At times they are hard to read, using, for example, yellow ink on a light background so that there is not enough contrast for the text to be easily legible.  I think that aesthetic considerations (Is it attractive ?)  may take precedence over practical ones (Is it easy to read ?) in such cases.

Score One for Italy

In Pistoia if you have a large item to get rid of (like my broken washing machine), you call the city and make an appointment for it to be picked up at your house.  They come very quickly. There is no charge.  In Germany my son faced the same situation.  He had to go to the town hall to get a form.  After you complete the form, you receive in the mail a few weeks later a post card telling you when the pick up will be.  You have to pay a fee for this service.  One of the many surprises in Italy is that some things work remarkable well.

Declining English Skills

I speak English often during the day because I have many people with whom I work teaching English to them.  Nevertheless, I find that my skills in English are declining.  People will ask me the English word for a certain word in Italian, and I can’t remember what it is.

Bi-Lingual Children in Italian Schools

The children of a couple where the wife (and almost always it is the wife) speaks English and the husband speaks Italian, take English as a subject in the Italian schools along with the other students. The parents want the child to take English because usually he or she does not know how to write well in English even though speaking English well.  These children are often reluctant to let the teacher know that they speak English.  The reasons are many: (1) not wanting to be different that the other students, (2) not wanting the teacher to demand more of them, and (3) avoiding possible conflict with the teacher.  In Italy many Italian teachers do not speak the language well. A student who does so may be a threat to the teacher.   The idea of the teacher as the Authority Figure is much stronger in Italy than in the USA.  It is not likely (although possible) that an Italian  teacher of English would say something like “We are very fortunate to have Harold in our class who speaks English.  Harold can help his classmates and even lend me a hand if there is something I don’t fully understand.”

History Item on TV

On November 22, the story on “A Minute from History” on the news was the Kennedy Assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.  What was fascinating is that the story did not talk about Kennedy in history or the effect of his assassination on events in the USA.  Instead it concentrated almost totally on the controversy about who killed Kennedy.  The Italian love of “conspiracy” theories was obvious in this emphasis.

Returning to Italy

I met an English woman who married an Italian after which they lived for about 25 years in the USA.  Their children were born and live in the USA; the grandchildren are there. Nevertheless, when her husband retired, they moved back to Pistoia to be closer to his family.  Since her husband left Italy after marrying this English woman, his family is not enamored of her.  She would very much like to return to the USA.  This is another small example of the kind of situation a foreign woman would never envision when she marries an Italian, but which is very typical.

Going to an Art Exhibit in Florence

I went to the opening of an art exhibit of a group of American artists (mostly American women married to Italians).  The address on the invitation was at 7/r on a certain street.  I assumed the “r” stood for “rear”—rather foolishly because the Italian word for rear doesn’t start with “r.”  It stands for red (rosso) because in Florence there are two sets of numbers on the buildings—blue ones or red ones.  The two systems are not coordinated. So number 7 red may be next to number 39 blue.  After a few inquiries, I found the exhibit.

How to Milk a News Story for All It is Worth

The headline in the USA might have been as follows –Jealous Husband Kills Wife.  After the crime took place, the lawyers for everyone involved would tell them not to talk to the press.

In Pistoia:

Day one “Murdered by her husband to whom she revealed her love for a Pistoia man”  Maybe a touch of local pride here
Day two  “Lover called to identify body at morgue.”
Day three  “The lover speaks: ‘ She came back to find me and then the tragedy’.”

Day four “ I saw her lover in her face and then I killed my wife.”

Politics and Italian Court System

I have noted before that the judiciary in Italy is highly politicized. This
item was mentioned too in the book review I included last week in this
newsletter. Here is an another example. When Premier Berlusconi was first
elected in the early 1990s, his government ended quickly in the wake of some
alleged financial improprieties. When he was elected the second time, he
succeeded in having a law passed to give top government officials immunity
from
legal cases while they are serving in office. Meanwhile, however, the cases
against him continued. One night I saw on TV a case in which the prosecutor
was
recommending an 8 year sentence for Berlosconi for some financial
shenanigans (including , as far as I could tell, bribing a judge). In any
case,this story was the number 5 story on the nightly news. Such stories
are a bit
“ho hum” in Italy.

Italian Traffic Deaths

In the newspaper there are often stories of traffic deaths. In one case an
accountant died in a crash (not wearing his seatbelt) about two years after
his
father had died in a similar crash. I looked up on Internet comparative
statistics for Italy and other countries on traffic deaths. The ones I
found
from 1996, showed Italy as having a higher traffic death rate per mile
driven
than the USA, but not a particularly high rate for a European country. The
rate
in Italy is not vastly higher than in the USA, and given the better road
system
in the USA, the Italian rate to me does not indicate a lower level of the
ability of drivers. Someone did tell me that around Pistoia (as in
Gettysburg,
PA) a quite typical traffic death is one early on Sunday morning in a single
car
accident of a drunk driver.

Making a Bank Deposit

I made my first deposit in my new savings account. It is a passbook
account.
My bank in USA does not use passbooks anymore for savings accounts, but
maybe
many American banks still do. The deposit was made using a computer and a
machine that stamped the new balance into the book, but it took about twice
as
long (probably about one minute) as a similar transaction in the USA. The
teller handled more paper and had to make more entries; he even took out a
scissors and cut off the corner of the check that I was depositing. For me
the
difference between a 30 second and a one minute transaction is of no
importance, but if you multiply this little difference by all the times
there are similar little inefficiencies in Italy, you come to understand why
almost everything goes so slow here.

School Reforms

The Education Minister has instituted some reforms in the Italian
educational
system. As I mentioned before, with my limited understanding of the
problem,
these reforms seem to me not to get at the heart of the issue. Still the
reforms are very controversial and have led to many “strikes” by students
and
teachers. There was a one-day strike of students in Pistoia last week. As
you
can well imagine, it did not take a lot of persuasion to get students to go
along with the idea of a strike. I don’t know what the schools need in
Italy to
improve, but I am fairly sure that any reform (wise or not) will receive
widespread opposition by some groups who are happier with the status quo.

Politics and Art

I’ve mentioned before how much of life in Italy is politicized. For
example,
the Supermarket chain where I shop is known as the “Communist” one –whatever
that means. Here is another example. I was at a restaurant recently and
noted
some paintings on the wall. One of the persons at our table said these were
done
by a “leftist” artist. The subject of the art, however, was not political.
If
I mention a film I might want to see, someone might tell me that the
director is
a “leftist” or less likely a “rightist” director. The film, however, might
be
about a family situation that has no political content. All this reminds me
of
the time I was in West Virginia talking to some local folks who informed me
that the owners of a nearby restaurant were a lesbian couple. Because of
this,
the locals did not want to go there. When I go to a restaurant, I care
about
the food and price, not about the sexual orientation of the owners. When I
look
at an picture or see a film, I care about the quality of the item, not about
the
politics of the maker.

At the Cinema

The Odeon cinema in Florence shows films in their original language. I went
last
week to see the Spanish film, A Bad Education, which was to have English
subtitles. When I got there, a sign was on the box office saying due to
“technical difficulties” the film that night would not have the subtitles.
Technical difficulties was a euphemism –there obviously was nothing wrong
with
the projector (which would project the film without the subtitles). Either
the
theatre had ordered the wrong print of the film, or the distributor had sent
the
wrong print.

The Italian Economy

When you discuss the Italian economy with Italians they often note that
Italy has
few natural resources. They say that the economy here depends solely on the
initiative and brains of the people. The point I think they miss is that
modern
Western European economies in general are not based upon natural resources.
The gross national products of Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain, etc.
do
not seem to me to be based much upon deposits of coal, iron, oil, or
aluminum.
I don’t think the weaker performance of Italy’s economy has as its base this
lack of resources.

The Cold in Winter

It does not get very cold here, but many Americans find the damp,
penetrating
cold to be more uncomfortable than the lower temperatures in the USA. The
cold
here is a little like the cold in states like Tennessee. Cold doesn’t bother
me
much, but I have a friend here who tells me that he never owned wool socks
in
Chicago, but he has six pair in Italy.

Some Statistics about Italian Teenagers

Here are some statistics from a recent large scale national survey. You can
compare them to what you know or think the similar figures would be in the
USA:

67% drink alcohol (not illegal here for teenagers)
45% smoke up to 5 cigarettes a day
34% smoke over 10 cigarettes a day
57% prefer a secure job to a brilliant career
55% prefer beauty to intelligence
9% are religiously faithful
98% own and use a cell phone (30% send or receive more than 15 messages a
day)
For the law that one has to wear a helmet on a motor scooter:
80% obey the law in northern Italy
42% obey the law in southern Italy

Houses and Churches

When I was looking for an apartment in Italy in June 2002, I saw one with a
little door in the kitchen wall that, when opened, looked into the sanctuary
of
the church next door. One could just open the little door and got to church
in
a bathrobe. Recently I visited a friend in whose apartment the kitchen wall
is
the outside wall of the apse of the abandoned church next door. I don’t
think
one can easily live quite this close to a church in the USA.

I have three long items in this week’s newsletter. I’ve put them at the end
so you can read them or not as you desire.

Italians and Smoking

One in three Italians are habitual smokers by age 15. Smoking is more
common among adults than in the USA, but by no means universal. I can’t
think of an Italian friend of mine who smokes. Younger people seem to smoke
more than in America.

Expanded Supermarket

The supermarket where I shop recently expanded. It is as large as the
supermarkets where I shopped in the USA. Supermarkets and other large
stores are now an established phenomenon in Italy although small shops are
still far more common here than in the USA. There has been some resistance
to the trend. The first supermarket came to Pistoia in the 1960s. At that
time the mayor of the city was the son of a shop owner. The supermarket had
no large parking lot. The mayor placed a policeman in front of the market
who then gave tickets to anyone who stopped to load or unload the car at
that point.

Near Pistoia is one of the largest American style Malls in Italy. One of my
lady friends (a long time Communist) refuses to go to it. One small
”protest” against American cultural imperialism.

My Italian Theatre Career

I have a small part in a one act play being performed by members of my
Italian class at the Intercultural Center. So far the date of the
performance has had to be changed two times. Master scheduling of a
facility does not seem to be a strong point here. As of now the play will
be the evening of Sunday the 21st. It is The License (La Patente) by Luigi
Pirandello. Those of you who cannot come to Italy to attend will surely
want to go to your library to borrow a copy of this masterwork.

New Theatre in Town

A former cinema had been vacant for many years. Now it has been converted
into a theatre for music and perhaps plays, although I’m not sure the stage
is large enough for theatrical productions. It is, as is typical in Italy,
a very attractive facility. I don’t think it is air conditioned; in Italy
today air conditioning is still not a standard feature of renovations and
new construction.

Turning on the Heat

As soon as I wrote last week that I had not turned on the heat yet in my
apt., I had to do so as the weather turned cool. Last year I had trouble
doing this task because at first I turned up the thermostat but did not
adjust the water boiler for the winter setting. I had to get help from my
landlord. This year I carefully turned up the thermostat and adjusted the
boiler. Still no heat. So again I called the landlord. This year the clock
on thermostat was not working and needed to have its batteries replaced
which are located in a hidden panel. Maybe next year, I’ll do it all by
myself.

Shoe Repair

This service is much cheaper in Italy than in USA, about one-half as
expensive. I don’t know if this is because Italians have their shoes
repaired more often so that the volume of work is greater for the shoemaker.
With their great emphasis on the latest style, one would think that the
Italians do not wear the same shoes for many years, but perhaps they do.

Some Members of Parliament Go Wild

One night when I turned on the news, I saw a scene from Parliament in which
some members were jumping up and down and screaming and shouting in joy.
They looked like a group in a bar who had just seen their team win the
Superbowl on TV. They were members of the Center/Left opposition faction.
On its first vote, the government’s proposed budget had been rejected. My
guess is that the Center/Right majority will gets its troops lined up, and
the government budget will be passed, perhaps with some changes. It may be
that the excitement was in part simply that the opposition had won an
important vote – a difficult feat.

Meanwhile, the Berlosconi government is having great trouble delivering on
its promise of tax cuts. One reason is that Italy’s budget deficit cannot
go very high because of the deficit limitations agreed upon by countries
using the Euro. Berlosconi now talks about trying to get this agreement
changed, but it was obvious from the very start that this agreement would be
a severe hindrance to his plan of cutting taxes in Italy. So his argument
of blaming the problem on this agreement does not hold much water. The
problem is that the economy of Italy has not grown much so revenue is flat
while nobody has found the will and the way to cut government expenses to a
great enough extent to allow for a tax cut.

Padre Pio

I wrote last week about the cult of Padre Pio in Italy. This cult arose and
sustained itself, despite strong opposition from Rome. Below are excerpts
from an article about Padre Pio in the National Catholic Reporter from the
USA.

“What fascinates me right now, however, is the jaw-dropping reversal of
fortune that Padre Pio’s reputation has enjoyed — in ecclesiastical terms,
in the merest blink of an eye. This is a man who was investigated by the
Holy Office, the forerunner of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, somewhere between 12 and 25 times, depending on how you count. He was
forbidden from saying Mass in public, from publishing, from receiving
visitors, even from talking to women alone (more on that later). The
whispered consensus on Padre Pio in the halls of the Vatican was that he was
at best a naïve hysteric, at worst a con man….

In 1918, Padre Pio, then 31, reported lesions in his side, palms and feet
that seemed to mimic the wounds of Christ. A blind man who said he had been
healed by Padre Pio spread word of the stigmata, and soon thousands of
pilgrims began to flock to San Giovanni Rotondo. Padre Pio would spend up to
18 hours a day in the confessional, where he acquired a reputation for being
able to discern a person’s deepest secrets, even to predict their future.
The local bishop, P. Gagliardi, was skeptical, suggesting the Capuchins
were making a spectacle out of Padre Pio to make money. In March 1920 Pope
Benedict XV sent his physician and two archbishops to investigate. When Pius
XI became pope in 1922, another inquest followed, and Padre Pio was ordered
not to say Mass publicly. He was to be moved to another friary, perhaps in
northern Italy, maybe in Spain or America. Some 5,000 locals, however,
threatened to riot, and Rome backed down….

In the 1950s, several inquests concerned a hospital Padre Pio had created,
the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, paid for with funds donated by wealthy
devotees. (Italian leftists branded Padre Pio the “richest monk in the
world”)….

On July 29, 1960, an Italian monsignore, Carlo Maccari, later to become the
archbishop of Ancona, began yet another investigation on behalf of Pope John
XXIII and the Holy Office. The 200-page report he compiled, though never
published in full, is said to be devastatingly critical. Vatican gossip long
had it that the “Maccari dossier” was an insuperable obstacle to Padre Pio’s
sainthood.
The most spectacular element concerned rumors that Padre Pio was
involved sexually with female devotees. According to accounts in the Italian
press, Maccari included a charge that Padre Pio had sex with female
penitents twice a week. (The Latin is preserved: bis in hebdomada copulabat
cum muliere). In an attempt to get the goods, a fellow Capuchin even bugged
Padro Pio’s room, though apparently without ever gathering evidence to
substantiate the charge….

By the mid-1960s, most observers felt Padre Pio was headed for the dustbin
of church history. Paul VI, however, looked kindly on the Capuchin and
called off the dogs. In return, one of Padre Pio’s last acts, just days
before he died in September 1968, was to write a public letter praising Paul
VI’s birth control encyclical Humanae Vitae.
Padre Pio has also had a powerful supporter in John Paul II, who met him for
the first time as a young Polish priest in 1947. Oral tradition has it that
Karol Wojtyla asked Padre Pio to pray for a friend dying of terminal cancer
in 1963, who recovered. “

How Little I Understand the USA

Last week when I wanted to use an example of a highly Republican area in the
USA, I selected Grosse Pointe, Michigan (which I mistakenly spelled Gross
Point)—a wealthy Detroit suburb. A friend who once lived in the area sent
me the following newspaper article from the Detroit Free Press. I didn’t
know that there is more than one Grosse Pointe and that all are not solidly
Republican.

Grosse Pointe Park goes for Kerry

BY MARY OWEN
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
What is going on in Grosse Pointe Park?
Once a stronghold for Republican presidential candidates, the Park went
Democratic on Tuesday for the first time in memory.
John Kerry topped George W. Bush by 139 votes, breaking a Republican
tradition
dating back to at least 1980, when Ronald Reagan walloped Jimmy Carter,
according to the City Clerk’s Office. Election observers said it is likely
the
Park went Republican for many presidential elections before that.
This year the Park — the one of the five Grosse Pointes closest to downtown
Detroit and bordered by the city on two sides — was the only Pointe to vote
Democratic. The others went emphatically for Bush; in Grosse Pointe Shores,
Bush
won 76 percent of the vote.
The Pointes are often stereotyped as bastions of conservative wealth, but
that’s
no longer the case for Grosse Pointe Park, said Kurt Metzger, a research
director at Wayne State University’s Center for Urban Studies.
Though median household income in Grosse Pointe Park was $80,485, U.S.
census
data from 2000 shows more families, more racial diversity and a lower income
level compared to the other Grosse Pointes.
”The type of people who are moving into the Park are more apt to follow the
Democratic message,” Metzger said.
Some noteworthy 2000 census numbers:
•Grosse Pointe Park’s population of people 65 and older has dropped in the
last
10 years and the number of children and families has risen.
•Compared to the other Pointes, the Park has the largest percentage of
households making $50,000 or less.
•While home ownership has increased nationwide, homeowners have decreased in
Grosse Pointe Park; the number of renters has gone up.
•Grosse Pointe Park and Grosse Pointe Woods both have significant
populations of
individuals who were born outside the United States. In the Park, 44 percent
of
those residents arrived in the last 10 years. The percentage is only 22 in
Grosse Pointe Woods, where immigrants are more likely to be more
established.
Andrew Richner, a Republican who represented the Grosse Pointes in the state
House from 1996 to 2002, wouldn’t offer any theories linked to demographics.
He simply said: “I don’t think you can say Grosse Pointe Park is Republican
or
Democratic. I think there’s a large number of independent voters who vote on
issues.”
Richner, who lives in Grosse Pointe Park, noted that even though Kerry won
there, residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of state Rep. Ed Gaffney, a
Republican who beat Democrat C.J. Harrison.
Leslie Liska, a Grosse Pointe Park resident and Democrat, said she feels
she’s
in the minority.
”Although I did notice that there were a lot of Kerry signs,” said Liska, a
high
school principal in Hamtramck.
In 2000, while driving through their neighborhood with her then-9-year-old
daughter, Liska was told, “Mom, we’re the only ones who want to vote for Al
Gore.’ “ That same year, her son, now 22, was mortified that Liska would put
a
Gore sign on the front lawn while most of their neighbors declared that Bush
was
their man.
Her son voted for Kerry this time around, but the political turmoil couldn’t
be
avoided at a neighborhood block party. Liska said her husband, a Democrat
who
works as a budget supervisor for DaimlerChrysler, became embroiled in a
political debate that became so heated Liska left.
A Democratic win in Grosse Pointe Park would have been happier for Liska had
Kerry won the presidency, but she said she hopes the Democratic trend
continues.
”I would hope that it wasn’t a fluke,” she said.

Copyright © 2004 Detroit Free Press Inc.

The Book “The Dark Heart of Italy”

I noted last week that I could not find on the Web the book review that a
friend had sent me from the Chicago Tribune of the American edition of this
work . A reader of this newsletter, more resourceful than I, was able to
get a librarian to find the review. Here it is. Long time readers of this
newsletter will note a few of the items below that I have mentioned in past
newsletters.

Author of review: Marc Spiegler.
The Dark Heart of Italy
By Tobias Jones
North Point Press, 314 pages, $24
If you spend any time in Italy, the country’s paradoxes start to swirl
bewilderingly about your brain. Many people outside Italy may envy its
legendary dolce vita, or sweet life, yet to Italians, life often seems an
endless series of trials, tortures and taxations inflicted by the republic’s
labyrinthine bureaucracies. In most cities, a Renaissance masterpiece or
breathtaking piazza always lies close at hand. But the odious housing
developments and industrial parks ringing those same metropolises usually
appear to have been airlifted from behind the Iron Curtain. And while
Italians may be mythologized for their spontaneous fetes and furores, their
social interactions in fact remain beholden to dogmas determining everything
from food to fashion to family relations.
Only an outsider would think to question these codes, and in “The Dark Heart
of Italy” that outsider is Tobias Jones, an Englishman who moved to Parma
for his Italian girlfriend. Traveling all over the p eninsula, the
journalist goes nosing into various corners of Italian life, seeking clues
that can help him crack the greater enigma of his new homeland.
Naturally, the writer starts with the language itself. “The more words I
learnt . . . the more the country seemed not chaotic but incredibly
hierarchical and formal,” Jones recalls. “Even ciao was a greeting, I
discovered, derived from the word schiavo, ’slave.’ The cheery ciao,
Italian’s most famous word, originally implied subservience and order, as in
‘I am your slave.’ “ Teaching university students, he is baffled to find
them translating the same English word a dozen different ways. Though the
nation’s regions united in 1860, dialects remain widely spoken, and
regionalism rules, even to the point that many in the industrialized north
consider inhabitants from the south more akin to Africans than compatriots.
But Italy’s fracture lines extend beyond geography. Starting during the
final years of World War II, when Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime lost
control of the country, an internecine political war has ravaged the
country. In Italy, “fascist” and “communist” are not insults heaved
hyperbolically on talk-radio broadcasts but rather ideological labels
publicly embraced by mainstream politicians. Nowhere else in the world have
these two extreme ideologies retained anywhere near such strength.
At their worst, Italian politics can turn murderous, most notably during the
anni di piombo, or “years of lead,” from the late 1960s to early ’80s,
during which 1,500 attacks resulted in nearly 500 fatalities. Hoping to
understand this historical epoch, Jones starts attending a widely followed
trial posited to finally reveal the truth of the 1969 Piazza Fontana
bombings in Milan. Originally attributed by authorities to an
anarchist–killed via a faked suicide leap during initial interrogations, in
revenge for which the police commissioner on the case was later
assassinated–the bombing is now considered the work of a fascist faction
with powerful political connections. As the court proceedings devolve into a
miasma of meandering legalese and dubious testimonies, it becomes clear to
Jones that even once the verdict arrives, nothing approaching resolution
will be reached. In a country where the judiciary is so highly politicized,
he writes, “if someone receives a conviction, it’s often treated not as a
moral indictment but rather, say, like an electoral defeat: it’s a temporary
setback. He hasn’t committed a crime, just had a decision go against him.”
This relativizing modus operandi has served scoundrels of all ideological
stripes, but arguably the greatest current beneficiary is Silvio Berlusconi.
While Jones did not set out to focus on Berlusconi, the Italian prime
minister popped up wherever the author turned his attentions. Indeed,
Berlusconi’s interlocking web of power is unimaginable to people outside
Italy (not counting, perhaps, the residents of a few dictatorships). In
American terms, the situation would be roughly equivalent to President
Bush’s owning Tribune Co. and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., with all their
regional TV stations and newspapers, along with owning the New York Yankees
and the Los Angeles Lakers to give him extra appeal among sports fans. The
businessman’s clout is buttressed by a hypnotic personal charm:
”The more you watch Berlusconi, the more you realise he is simply the
political equivalent of a television salesman: he has the same slick
presentation, the breathless narrative, the quick grin, the hand gestures. .
. . When, as occasionally happens at press conferences, I am in the same
room as him, I personally find it riveting. He talks and talks and talks.
You never want him to stop. But by then, of course, you’ve been taken in.”
Like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Berlusconi first honed his
crowd-pleasing charisma as a crooner. Today, even his most egregious
offenses–including implying that Mussolini expedited Jews and political
dissidents to pastoral vacations rather than deaths by execution–tend to be
treated by supporters as a standup routine misconstrued by overreacting
opponents. Berlusconi was first elected prime minister in 1994, but this
coalition government collapsed under the weight of corruption allegations
within six months, and his history of nebulous financial dealings has fueled
attacks from within Italy and abroad–most notably The Economist’s cover
story “Why Berlusconi Is Unfit to Lead Italy,” published just before the
2001 election. Berlusconi and his media empire responded with xenophobic
outrage, laughably branding the British free-market bible a “ ‘Communist
publication.’ “ In the end, the article galvanized his supporters rather
than giving them pause, and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (a party named after a
soccer cheer) won easily.
Examining TV, the business that made Berlusconi a titan, Jones tries to
decipher why the culture that gave us Raphael, Verdi, Dante and Fellini now
gorges upon the lowest form of cathode pablum. “I had expected television to
be another example of Italian visual brilliance, a continuation of the
enjoyable beauty and erotica,” Jones writes. “Instead, switching on the
television was like introducing an insistent shopkeeper into the living
room.” Or perhaps a go-go dancer: Images of topless women inundate the
prime-time news shows, and even televised political debates can be formatted
to include stripteases.
Despite the oversexed TV programming, and despite the reputation of Italian
men as being legendary lovers, among many of them the true obsession is
professional soccer, a greater passion than religion and a larger source of
public outrage than politics. Here Jones discovers a deep disjuncture. As a
player in pickup and men’s club games, the Englishman finds his field mates
exemplary:
”The seriousness with which they play, whispering advice to each other as
they sprint across the grass or signalling where you should put the ball
just by moving their eyes, is incredible. They hardly ever foul; if, by
accident, they do, they will pick you up, bow, and apologise.”
By contrast the professional game is a fiasco, roiled by unending
controversies involving steroid use, corrupt referees and players prized for
their skill in pretending to have been fouled. At one point in 2001, a
scandal breaks out: South American stars have used forged papers claiming
Italian ancestry to circumvent a regulation limiting every team’s number of
foreign players. Investigations unfurl. The scandal widens. And then,
suddenly, the league abolishes the rule altogether:
”Anyone who had played by the book, buying Italian players and checking
foreigners’ passports, was suddenly at a disadvantage. It would have been
fairer literally to have moved the goalposts.”
Many Italians, of course, are painfully aware of the inanity, corruption and
injustice Jones details as he tries to parse the peninsula’s society. They
commonly call their own country a casino, which in Italian means both “a
brothel” and “a massive mess,” and urge Jones to leave quickly. Instead he
stays, and even comes to rue short visits home to England, already missing
Parma while he’s packing. In this sense, his book is less an expose than a
love story. As his investigations progress, we sense the author slowly
swooning. Like all great seductions, his bewitching by Italy started with
the lure of beauty. But it endures because Jones succumbs to the spell cast
by the country’s pleasures, mysteries and contradictions.

The Smart Car

This is very small car, made by Mercedes Benz, is popular in Italy. You can
park it perpendicularly in one-half of a regular parking space. It was not
produced for export to USA. I think I heard once that a Hollywood movie star
brought one to USA and spent $20,000 to have it modified to meet American
standards. Now I am told that models are being exported to USA to be sold
in selected large cities. It has a cute, small convertible model too. I
don’t know if this one too is being sent to USA.

I Was Wrong

I hypothesized that a Kerry victory might allow me to see if in fact my
theory that the Europeans’ contempt for Bush ( not only a personal contempt,
but a disagreement with his policies) was aversely affecting the value of
the dollar in Europe. I assumed that if Bush won, the dollar exchange would
not change much because it already reflected the effect, if any, of the Bush
policies. I was wrong. Here are the recent exchange rates:

0ne euro = How many dollars

Nov. 11.274
Nov 21.270
Nov 31.279
Nov 41.288
Nov.51.293

This a rapid descent in value of dollar. None of the basic realities of the
American or world financial situation changed on the day Bush was reelected.
I rest my case.

Watching a Film in English

I watched on an Italian DVD the film from a few years ago, Wonderland. I
saw it with English dialog and Italian subtitles. It took place in the
Hollywood drug scene on the 1980s. It was one of those films in which there
is a lot of background noise and music, and the actors sometimes mumble
their lines. I found myself reading the Italian subtitles to figure out
what the actors were saying in English! I also saw in Florence in English
the new film “A Love Song for Bobby Long.” For some reason this film too
had Italian subtitles. Why? When the film is shown to Italian audiences it
must be dubbed into Italian. So for whom are the Italian subtitles?

At the Theatre

I went to a play last week. It was in the dialect of Naples so I got a copy
and read the play after I saw it to gain a better understanding of it. At
one point a cell phone went off among the audience. I don’t get enraged
when this happens because I can easily visualize myself forgetting to turn
off my cell phone. But when this happens one would guess that everyone with
a cell phone would think “Did I remember to turn mine off?” and check to be
sure. So it was annoying when four more times during the play a cell phone
went off among the audience. There are certain points of social civility
that the Italians just don’t get.

Satellite TV

As in USA this service provides well over 100 channels. The one that caught
my eye was “TV Padre Pio.” As I may have mentioned, Padre Pio is a recent
saint in Italy and much loved. You see his face and statue everywhere. In
fact, I see him as a bit of a “competitor” to the Virgin Mary for the
adulation of fervent Italian Catholics. When I saw “TV Padre Pio” the
picture on the screen was a photo of his grave. I don’t know what else is
on this channel, but I have trouble seeing how it can have constant
programming on such a narrow subject.

Also on TV

I saw my home town of Gettysburg on a documentary on Italian TV. It was a
biography of Abraham Lincoln. It was an American show that was dubbed into
Italian. American documentaries are common on Italian TV.

Clock in Waiting Room in Florence Main Train Station

I am happy to report that after being out of order for about two years, it
now is working.

Weather

I understand that parts of the USA have had an extended Indian Summer. I
have not yet turned on the heat in my apartment in Italy. When there were a
few cool days, I put away my summer clothes and took out the winter ones. A
clear mistake.

The Liberation of Italy in WWII

I have reported in the past that the period 1943-45 was a crucial one in
Italy, the memory of which is still very alive and potent in Italian life
and politics. At this time in Italy the Allies were fighting Germans and
Italian Fascists (even though the main Italian government had surrendered).
Italian partisans were killing Germans and Italian Fascists, Germans and
Italian Fascists were killing Italian partisans. Germans were killing 10
ordinary Italian citizens for every German killed by partisans. Italian
partisans of the left (communists) were sometimes killing Italian partisans
of they center (Christian democrats) and probably vice versa. These
political killings did not stop with the end of the war. The internecine
battles among partisans were in preparation for the great struggle after the
war as to whether Italy would ally itself with the other western Europeans
countries or with the Soviet Union.

Just north of Pistoia was the German Gothic line, a line the Allies had
great trouble breaching. Pistoia is only about one-half way up the Italian
peninsula. Pistoia was liberated by the Allies on September 8, 1944.
Abetone, 25 miles to the north, through the mountains, was not liberated
until April 23, 1945 –almost the end of the European War. I don’t know if
after D day, the allies de-emphasized the Italian front and concentrated on
conquering France and Germany, but clearly the Allies did not capture all of
Italy until they very end of the war when all German resistance crumbled.

Staying in Italy

Each year when my lease is up for renewal, I decide whether to stay in Italy
for one more year. I don’t know how long I will stay. Of course, personal
circumstances can change in a way to make me stay or return to the USA. All
that being said, the reelection of George Bush makes it more likely that I
will stay here for the next four years. This is not because I would find it
impossible to live in USA under a Bush Presidency. Anyone interested in
politics in the USA, lives part of his or her life under Presidents he likes
and another part under Presidents he dislikes. Maybe a Republican living in
Italy in 1996 might have had the same reaction to the reelection of Bill
Clinton although, since Clinton had a Republican Congress, he was not able
to institute a lot of programs.

The reason is different. Because I worked in a university community, most
(certainly not all) of my friends are Democrats. Had I lived in Gross Point,
Michigan, most of my friends would be Republicans. I certainly don’t choose
my friends according to their political views. Many of my friends at this
point are so discouraged, upset, disillusioned, etc, by the current
political atmosphere in the USA, that it is simply less pleasant for me to
be in the United States.

It seems to me that politics have become more bitter in the USA over the
last 25 years. I find the discussion of “which side started this trend” to
be a useless one.A historian can probably point to times in our past when
politics were similarly bitter, but I only know how it has been during my
life. In Italy one sees the effect of bitter political divisions, often but
not always, growing out of they events from 1943-47 mentioned above. In
Italy this bitterness does not affect me greatly. I’d rather stay apart
from it in the USA.

Staying in Florence?

This item is one of information from my church bulletin for potential
visitors to Florence

The St. James Guest House is a spacious three-bedroom, three-bath, apartment
located on the second and third floors of the Rectory. The apartment is
furnished in antiques and fully-equipped with most modern conveniences
including air-conditioning and satellite TV hookup. With the exception of
the first three weeks in January 2005, next year is already fully booked.
We are now taking reservations for 2006. Photos, rates, and availability
information are available
on the Guest House page of our website www.stjames.it. For more information
contact Christina at info@stjames.it or by phone at ( +39) 055 29 44 17

Italy North and South

In Naples recently the government attempted to verify the disability status
(which includes a monthly payment) of the 79,000 people listed as disabled
in that city. Of these 25,000 were re-certified. The other 54,000 either
did not show up to be re-certified or did not qualify to be re-certified.
Among the “disabled” there was one person who ran in the Marathon in Naples
and a person certified as “blind” who drives a car. These kinds of stories
reinforce the common view in they north of Italy that the southerners prefer
to find a way to live off the government rather than working. As I
mentioned once before, some see the liberal granting of disability pensions
in the south as a form of hidden welfare. If you did not give out the
pensions, you would have to find another way to funnel money to the many
unemployed in the south. “Pay me now or pay me later.”

The Rich Rapists

I saw on TV a story about a famous legal case in Italy in the 1970s. Three
right upper class youth (with Fascist political leanings) abducted a lower
class girl and raped and beat her. She pretended to be dead, and they left
her. The case galvanized Italian feminists on the issue of sexual violence.
It also had political overtones of right vs. left. The three youths were
given life sentences, one of which was reduced to 30 years. One of them
escaped from prison three times. One time he was caught quickly. One time he
spent several years in Argentina before being arrested. The third time he
spent many years in Panama before being captured.

Now you might think he was a master escape artist. No. Almost any Italian
will tell you that he “bought” his way out of prison three times. Now in
the USA it certainly is better to be rich than to be poor if you are charged
with a crime (Need I mention O.J.). But in the USA, you are not likely to be
able to “escape” from prison three times. This case took place in the
1970s. Maybe things are more honest in Italy now. Still this case
illustrates a kind of pervasive corruption that seems to be greater in Italy
than in the USA.

Book Recommendation

I may have mentioned in the past the book “The Dark Heart of Italy” by
Tobias Jones. I read it two years ago in the British edition. Now it has
been released in the USA. A friend sent me a book review of it from the
Chicago Tribune, but I cannot find this review posted on the Web. Many of
the points in the book are similar to ones I have made. As the title
indicates, for the author (who lives in Italy and loves certain aspects of
Italian life) there is a dark side to life in Italy that most foreigners
never encounter.