thisweekinitaly.com

Silvio Berlusconi

As you may have read, Premier Berlusconi did not quite make his goal of
being the first Italian government since WWII to complete a full term. In
Italy, unlike Great Britain, a government call fall without losing a vote of
confidence in Parliament. If some parties withdraw from the governing
coalition and a major reshuffling of the cabinet is required, this too
requires the government to resign and a new government to be formed. In
this case, two parties withdrew from the covering coalition; even though
Berlusconi still had a majority in Parliament, he had to dissolve the
government and form a new cabinet. He is still the Premier (actually the
title is President of the Council), but politically he is substantially
weakened. Some of his allies are requiring that he change direction
somewhat to avoid what looks like an upcoming defeat in next year’s general
elections.

Ticket Refund

This week I went to get my refund on the ticket I could not use from Germany
to Italy because a connecting train was late in Germany. I could not
receive a refund or credit for this in Germany.

1. Went to Pistoia train station where the clerk told me I had to go to Florence to get refund on an international ticket
2. In Florence I asked the customer service person in station where to go. He directed me to Passenger Services office.
3. At Passenger Services I was told to go to any ticket window (not necessarily the international window) to get a refund.
4. I confirmed with service representative at ticket windows that I could go to any window.
5. When I got to ticket window I was told I had to go to international ticket window for refund
6. I started to complain and a supervisor in ticket area put me at front of line at the international window.
7. I got only a ½ refund. To get a full refund I needed to have the ticket stamped in Germany confirming that it was not used because the German train was late. Of course nobody in Germany had mentioned (or probably even knew) this fact.

A Woman’s Touch

My sister is visiting me and her project has been to organize and redecorate
my apartment. I think she knows that after she leaves, things may slowly
return to “normal” in this location. The redecoration is inhibited by the
fact that it is a furnished apartment so you cannot replace the furniture.
Still if you want to see my apartment looking beautiful, you need to come to
visit me NOW.

Liberation Day

This day in April 25 commemorating the liberation of Italy from the German
occupiers in 1945. It tends to be a celebration of the political left who
see themselves as the heirs of the Italian Partisans who fought the Germans
from 1943-45-even though there were Partisans from the center too. In
Florence a right wing group wanted to have a counter demonstration on April
25 and people were outraged. Still it is clear that Fascism in Italy is
much more acceptable today in Italy than Nazism is in Germany. In Germany
the foreign minister is in trouble in part because he ordered that in the
internal newspaper of his agency obituaries not be published of current
foreign service officers who under Hitler held offices as Nazis. This issue
would never arise in Italy; obituaries of those who served Mussolini would
be published without controversy.

Changing Phone Companies

I wrote last week about changing the company that serves my cell phone.
Well it turns out (as often) that it is a little more complicated than I
planned. The change was to take place about 7-8 days after I made an
application.

1. Eight days after my application, I got a phone text message from my
   current company (WIND) that there was a problem in my request to change to a
   new provider (TIM).
2. I went to TIM store to find out what was the problem
3. I discovered that the documents I had presented when I registered my
   phone number with WIND (either a passport or a PA driver’s license) three
   years ago were not to same as the documents I used to apply to WIND (Italian
   Identity card and Codice Fiscale). I did not have these latter documents
   three years ago. Matching documents are important to avoid people
   registering stolen phones in their own name.
4. I had to go to WIND store to find out what documents I had used three
   years ago. I was able to find out that it was a PA driver’s license only.
5. I took my PA driver’s license to the TIM store so that both TIM and TIM
   would have the same document in their records. But it turns out that
   although WIND would accept my driver’s license as a valid form of
   identification, TIM would not.
6. So now I had to get my new documents (Identity Card and Codice Fiscale)
   into the records at WIND. I had to send them via FAX to WIND with a request
   that my contract with them (which is about to be terminated) include also as
   identifying documents these two new items.
7. The clerk at TIM tells me that it will be another 15 days until service
   changes from WIND to TIM, but I am willing to bet that it will take another
   visit to TIM store to get this done.

Handcuffed Child

Italians were appalled by he videotape of St. Petersburg policeman
handcuffing a 5 year old child (sullen but not resisting) in a school
principal’s office. I read the full account of this incident including the
child’s “out of control” behavior that led the school to call the police.
One might say that if the TV showed the whole story, people would see this
differently. Not in Italy. Showing the whole episode would not have
justified the handcuffing to Italians. I often comment on things that I
think are “better” in Italy or in the USA when one compares one nation to
the other. This incident in St. Petersburg shows the USA at its worse.
School officials, afraid of law suits, are unwilling to use any force to
restrain the child. They call the police, who are authorized to use force,
but the police
act in a totally inappropriate way. A Police Department spokesman makes a
justifying statement that is so stupid that it does not even merit
discussion.

Road Resurfacing

I got a notice on my mail box abut resurfacing of some streets in Pistoia.
In addition to telling what would be done and when, it has the usual polite
Italian language. “We will try to limit as much as possible any
inconvenience for traveling and parking on the streets. Please excuse us
for the inevitable inconvenience. We are working to improve the viability
and the safety of the streets.”

Legal News

Italy is becoming more like the USA. Recently there was the first case in
Italy to award damages for pain and suffering in a medical malpractice suit.
Next a court ruled that a non invited slap on the rear end of a woman by a
man violated the Italian law against sexual violence. It should be noted in
the latter case that the sentence was suspended and the offender was given
no criminal record.

Another Way that Italy Resembles the USA

I changed phone companies on my cell phone. It takes a week for the change
to become effective. Suddenly I received a call from my old company telling
me that (because I was such a good customer) they had some prizes and
discounts for me if I stayed with them. The way to become a “good customer”
who deserves prizes is to in fact be a bad customer who changes to another
company. I could not follow on the telephone the exact details of what I
was being offered. As always with such offers they cold not send it to me
in the mail in writing (so I could review and understand it). Also I could
not go to the local shop of the phone company to get a written description
of this great deal I was being offered. All this is just like telemarketing
in the USA. Ultimately I just refused their offer and decided to stay with
the new company that also is offering me incentives to change to it.

Wedding in Stone Chapel

My son’s wedding in Germany was in the stone chapel of a recently renovated
castle. It was the first wedding to be held in this newly redone building.
The temperature outside was about 60°. In the chapel you could see your
breath when you breathed. (Probably about July this building will warm up)
It was a lovely and fortunately not a long ceremony.

New Pope

As I suggested, the new Pope is not an Italian. There is much more coverage
of the Papacy in general in Italy than in the USA. For the past few years
Cardinal Ratzinger’s name was constantly in the news. I had the feeling that
he in fact was “Acting Pope” while John Paul II was off on trips and in
declining health. So Ratzinger’s election may have been making formal
something that already was true in fact. Some thought that the new pope
might be someone more “moderate” on doctrinal issues than John Paul II, but
in his long Papacy, John Paul II appointed many cardinals
whose views are similar to his so it is no surprise that the new Pope is in
the tradition of John Paul II. There have been photos here on TV and
perhaps in newspapers (I saw such photos only in the German tabloid, Das
Bild) of the new Pope at age 14 in his Hitler Jugend uniform. I note,
however, that his brother claims that the family was anti-Nazi because
Nazism conflicted with their Catholic beliefs.

My New Class

I signed up for a new 12 week program on Art and Intercultural
understanding. There will be two sections of the class – one for Italians
and one for non Italians. When it was time to set the class meeting times,
the Italians all voted for 9-11 p.m. while the foreigners voted for
6:30-8:30 p.m. For the Italians it was most important that the class
meetings not conflict with the dinner hour. First things first.

Finding a Place to Stay in Pistoia

I got a message from a friend of a friend who was coming in June to take a
one month intensive course in Italian in the nearby town of Monsumanto
Terme. She had an offer of a place to stay in that town with a roommate for
750 € for the month. She thought she might find a better deal in
Pistoia. I found her a lovely B&B in Pistoia for 550 Euro. Her professor
in the course, however, said that it was best that the students live in
close proximity to each other. This in fact may be true, but you can also
bet on one thing. The housing recommended to her by the teacher or by the
organization offering the course is a place for which the teacher or
organization is getting a “commission” for steering students to it.

A Train Trip from Germany to Italy

Returning from my son’s wedding, it took me 16 hours. Why? Because the
first train I took in Germany was 20 minutes late getting to Nuremberg so
than all of my other reservations for the trip were useless. I could not
get a refund in Germany for the unusable ticket from Munich to Florence even
though they could confirm that my first train was late and this was the
reason I could not use the reservation I had. I think I can get a refund
for it in Italy. Meanwhile the replacement ticket I purchased in Germany
for the Munich-Florence trip costs almost twice as much as my original
ticket.

Germany

I am in Germany today to attend the wedding on my younger son.  The couple
will have both a civil and a religious ceremony. There will be another
wedding ceremony for them in Pennsylvania in December.  Let’s hope that
getting married three times for the first time makes a successful marriage.

Gays in Italy

I mentioned last week that there is less of a gay power movement in Italy.  
So there is no big political issue, such as Gay marriage, on the agenda
here.  In election last week in Puglia (in the more traditional South!) a
gay man was elected governor.  How can I explain this?  I think the Italians
are both more tolerant and more traditional than Americans.  So if you asked
an Italian “Would you vote for a Gay candidate?”, the answer is more likely
to be “yes” than in the USA.  But if you asked an Italian “Would you be
greatly upset if your son was gay?”, the answer here also is more likely to
be “yes.”

Italians Unorganized?

Italians have a reputation for disorganization, but in handling the crowds
at the Pope’s funeral, they did a splendid job.  I think the Italians are
quite capable of handling a complex organizational task: organization simply
is not a high value in Italy.  They certainly can do it, but often they
don’t do it.

Pope John Paul I

He is the one who lived less than a month after being named Pope.  His
successor was the recently deceased Pope.  There is a book “In God’s Name”
that claims that John Paul I was poisoned after he started to look into the
management of the Vatican Bank. This type of idea resonates with the
Italians who see some kind of conspiracy behind any unusual event.

Understanding Italian

I’ve discovered that the most difficult thing to understand in Italian (or
probably any language) is the “throw away” phrases at the end of a sentence.
  For example if someone says “Picasso was one of the greatest artists of
the 20th century-or any century for that matter,” the last part of the
sentence tends to be said more quickly as a sort of a side comment.  These
phrases are very hard to catch in a foreign language.

Famous Local Resident Dies

The newspaper headline said “one of the fathers of Pinocchio dies.”  The
book Pinocchio was written in the 19th century so I wondered how anyone
dying now could be one of the “fathers.”  The headline of the other paper
clarified the matter.  In Italy (or at least Tuscany) little wooden figures
of Pinocchio are common.  The many who died was the first person to make a
figure of Pinocchio on skis.

Soccer Violence

This is the big story in Italy this week.  At one game fans threw incendiary
devices onto the field and one of them struck a player.  Headlines talk of
games being played with no fans in attendance or games begin automatically
ended as soon as any object is thrown unto the field.  The government says
that the organized soccer officials have to be more forceful.  These
officials say that they can’t control what fans do.  As always in Italy,
some kind of compromise, less radical than the initial suggestions, will be
worked out.

What is That Word?

Some readers wrote to ask me what is the Italian word (I spoke of last week)
for the person who is front-runner to be elected Pope. The word is
“papabile” which also can be used to indicate the front-runner in any
contest.  It also can be an adjective meaning “front-runner.” At least one
of my friends (a lady of the political left) does not want the next Pope to
be an Italian.  She says the Popes take too much of a part in Italian
politics (in ways of which she disapproves), and an Italian Pope is even
more likely to do so.

Big Wind Storm

We had in Pistoia a big windstorm with lots of damages in the large plant
nurseries.  Italy has earthquakes, but it doesn’t have disasters like
tornadoes or hurricanes.  This windstorm was unusual.

The Pope’s Death

This was covered in the USA extensively just as in Italy. In Italy I
noticed that many TV station were showing religious films after the Pope’s
death. There was a special viewing of the body for top government and
political figures. The men (They were almost all men.) had their Rosary
beads. It reminded me that you almost never see a man saying the Rosary.

Rome, of course, was mobbed. The Civil Protection agency of the government
sent out text messages to every cell phone in Italy giving suggestions for
traveling to Rome and weather forecast for day of funeral. Italian has a word that means “front runner to be elected Pope.’ Many
Italians think that next Pope will return to tradition and be an Italian,
but only 20 of the 111 Cardinals are now from Italy. So it may well be
that the balance of power has shifted in the College of Cardinals, and an
Italian Pope is far from certain.

April Fools Day

It exists in Italy-called First of April. The traditional practical joke is
to cut out a paper fish and stick it on the back of someone. The fish is
the symbol for this day.

Election Results

The Central-Right coalition of President Berlusconi suffered a strong
defeat in the regional elections. The opposition Central-Left coalition won
11 of 14 regions. The vote of the Berlusconi government has been declining
in each of the recent elections. There will be national elections in 2006.
I think in Italy, where the people are strongly “anti-government’ (no matter
who is in power), it may be typical for the opposition to have an advantage
simply because it is not in power.

Gay Eye for the Straight Guy

Many American TV shows are copied in Italy. Some thought that this show
would not cross the ocean to Italy because there is less of a “gay rights’
or “gay power’ movement here. Wrong. Although I have not seen it, such a
show does exist on Italian TV.

Electrical Switch

I had to replace an in-line cord switch on my bedroom reading lamp. I
bought the replacement switch at an electrical shop. The space within the
switch to run the wires was very small as were the terminal screws to which
the wires were to be attached. It took 15 minutes to do what should have
been a 5-minute job. Customer convenience is a lower value here than in the
USA. Sometimes I run into things in Italy that are very well designed and
convenient, but in general you find more inconvenient things here.

Visiting Friends

My good friends Bob and Janice Rhoads are visiting me from Gettysburg. When
I was in Gettysburg last winter, I stayed at their house. I tell them that I
am happy to host them after they so kindly let me stay with them for a month
last year. Their reply is “It was 5 weeks and 3 days!’

You Never Forget How to Ride a Bicycle

Nearly Lucca has an intact set of old walls that have a
running/walking/biking path on top of them. While walking the walls last
week with friends, I was almost hit first by husband and then by his wife
who had both rented bikes to ride around the walls. It seems that the
pedaling the bicycles while simultaneously steering them was a skill that
this couple had somehow forgot.

The Pope

As I write the Pope is on his deathbed. It is interesting to note how
Italian TV plays this big story. This Pope was much more conservative on
social issues (abortion, divorce, birth control) than the Italian people.
These disagreements are not mentioned. Instead the almost total emphasis is
on the Pope’s reaching out to Jews, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians. These
are actions that were universally popular. Pope John Paul II was not loved
like Pope John XXIII. Still, of course, he probably was more loved than the
Pope of my youth, Pius XII. Every time I saw a photo of Pius XII, my only
thought was “I don’t want anything to do with that guy.’

Daylight Savings Time (DST)

We have it in Italy too. Here it started on Easter morning. As in USA, the
farmers here don’t like it (They have to get up in the dark.). I have not
seen in Italy, however, a Letter to the Editor of a newspaper such as I once
saw in the Bloomington (IN) Herald-Telephone. (Indiana may be the only USA
state that does not use DST.) The writer spoke forcefully against Daylight
Savings Time and ended by saying that we should continue to use “God’s
Time,’ not DST.

Your Voters’ Guide for the Regional Elections in Tuscany

On Sunday and Monday (April 3-4) there are Regional Elections in Italy. In
Tuscany there are 14 active political parties-including two Communist
parties. For the post of Governor of the region of Tuscany, there are five
candidates. The major parties of the right and of the left have formed
coalitions behind two of these candidates. For the local slots in the
regional assembly there are 11 slates of candidates. One of these slates is
a coalition group of four parties –these candidates are running under the
banner of one party but in fact the candidates are chosen from the four
parties in the coalition. All the parties who can afford to do so,
advertise for their candidates in Tuscany even though some of these
candidates have no chance of being elected. At the national level in Italy,
parties get representation in the Parliament if they reach a certain % of
the votes cast even though the parties do not win any actual elections for
the specific seats in parliament. So for minority parties it is important
to keep their supporters energized and voting even in an election where they
cannot win the seats being contested.

Speaking of Politics

I attended two lectures about the development of modern Europe where the
professors both made the same point — in Italy the democratic structure is
based upon the principle of mass participation whereas in the USA it is
based upon the clash of interest groups. This idea goes back at least to
James Madison’s famous Tenth Federalist Paper. Of course, Italy’s 1948
Constitution founded the new Republic as a democracy; the American
Constitution of 1787 did not establish the country as a democracy but as a
republic with some democratic features.

Italian Men’s Clothes Sizes

In the USA women’s clothes sizes tend to vary –a size 12 dress by one
manufacturer may not be the same size as a 12 by another. But men’s sizes
tend to be fairly uniform. Not so in Italy. I was elated to find a lovely
sport coat in my size at a great price, but when I tried it on it was way
too small. Other coats in that size fit fine. I have noted these variances
with other items of clothing.

A Sign of Progress

Since I sometimes mention little inefficiencies in Italy, I feel obligated
to correct the record when these are remedied. I mentioned once about the
pay bathroom at the Florence train station. The cost was 60 cents (now 70),
but the machine required exact change. You could not put in a one € coin
and enter the bathroom. The machine would neither accept nor give change
for a one € coin. People were always standing around the entrance trying
to get by passers to make change for them. Now there is a machine outside
the bathroom to give change for one or two € coins.

Who Invented the Telephone?

Alexander Graham Bell? Wrong. Answer is an Italian, Antonio Meucci who did
so while living in the USA. My Italian friends tell me that scholars now
all agree that Meucci invented the telephone. His story was the subject of a
film on Italian TV. Later in life he unsuccessfully sued in court to have
his claim recognized. In the film the lawyers in the court were wearing the
kind of robes that lawyers wear in Italy but which were never worn in the
USA.

Terry Sciavo

This case got a lot of coverage in the Italian media. Although there were
no public opinion polls about it here as there were in the USA, my guess
(confirmed by some Italian friends) is that opinion here was like that in
USA. Italians generally don’t pay much attention to the teachings of the
Catholic Church on such issues. In the USA the “Right to Life’ movement has
many adherents, but the two strongest groups in it are Catholics and
Fundamentalist Protestants. In Italy, there certainly are some Catholics
who support the Church on this issue; there is nothing in Italy like
Fundamentalist Protestants in the USA.

Some of My Best Friends are Jews
.

so I want them to know that when they come to visit me in Italy, I do have
the new booklet published by the Italian Automobile Club, Jewish Tours in
Tuscany. In Pistoia you can see the section where medieval records show
that four Jewish families lived.

Expensive Chocolate Eggs

For Easter you can buy large chocolate eggs ranging in price from 5 Euros to
100 Euros. Now a 7 € large chocolate egg will sell for 3 € after
Easter. I was interested to discover what happens to a 80 € chocolate
egg (crafted by one of the Chocolate masters) after Easter. When I went to
the shop after Easter to look, the eggs were gone. One friend of mine
thought that they would be melted down and the chocolate reused — chocolate
treated as gold. The next day they were selling broken pieces of Easter eggs
at so much per ounce — perhaps from the very expensive eggs; I could not be
sure.