January 2007
Monthly Archive
Sat 27 Jan 2007
Posted by Robert C. Nordvall under
2007[2] Comments
Remember, Remember, Remember
I have had trouble for the last two weeks publishing my newsletter through my web site. If you get a short version of it, simply click on the first of the two long blue web links at bottom of newsletter or go to this link www.bob.it.tt to read the full edition.
Pure Dark Chocolate
A friend sent me a bar of Hershey’s new pure, dark, chocolate. It is 60% cacao. In Italy you can buy chocolate that is 75% or 80% cacao. This is probably too bitter for the American palate. An Italian friend noted that Americans in general like sweeter food than Italians.
Reform of the Italian University System – What Usually Happens to Good Ideas in Italy
A few years ago some reforms were instituted in the Italian university system because it has a very low graduation rate. The percentage of university graduates in Italy is low by European standards. One of the reforms was to start at online university. Another was to allow some credit for life experience for older students returning to the university. Both of these ideas are used in the USA. In fact Italian graduation rates are rising. In Italy, however, various occupational and professional organizations started working out standard agreements with universities for the automatic credit to be given to their members for life experience if the members enrolled in the university. To get more students, some universities started upping the ante of the credit they would give. Now some persons could get a university degree with only one year of study! Shall we be kind and just call this “a slight erosion of standards.” Very typical of Italy. No matter what new law is passed, Italians figure out how to turn it into a scam for their personal benefit. Of course, this happens elsewhere too, but it is an Italian national sport.
Crisis at Italian Hospital
At an Italian hospital a young girl was having a routine appendectomy. There was a power black out. By the time she was transferred to another hospital in an ambulance, she suffered severe brain damage from lack of oxygen. I assume, perhaps wrongfully, that in the USA hospitals have a back up power supply to avoid such a situation.
One More Comment on Used Clothes at Semi-Weekly Market
Sometimes a sports coat or suit jacket will have a label in the pocket that tells for whom it was made (or to whom it was sold) and when. I recently bought a very nice hand tailored sport coat (for $ 4) that looked like it might, at the most, be a few years old. It fit me perfectly. It was made in 1984. The quality of well made Italian clothes is noticeably better than similar items in the USA.
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Notes from European Figure Skating Championships in Warsaw
I am in Warsaw this week for this event. When I came here what I knew about competitive figure skating would not fill a thimble. Now it might fill a juice glass. I don’t understand the scoring system. Obvious mistakes, like falling, are not good, but not necessarily a disaster. Everyone says the scoring is “political” or biased. I could not say this is true or false.
The competitors skate under the flag of their country, but in pairs skating many couples include persons from two different countries. The women skaters in pairs competion are much slimmer than those in the singles competition. In the pairs comeptition, their male partners have to lift them and carry them in various moves. In only one of about 75 routines that I saw in various pairs events, did the woman skater lift the man skater during their routine. It was a bold move, but unfortunately after a few seconds the woman collapsed on her rear end and dropped her partner on his head.
I have been surprised at how few skaters complete a routine with no obvious (to me) errors. In the pairs free skating there are two compulsory figures ( both the couple doing a triple jump at the same time and the man throwing the woman in the air while she completes such a
jump) that are the most difficult. The first night of the competition, none of the 18 couples did both of these figures without making an error that even I could detect. Skating competitions now require difficult moves that inevitably lead to many errors.
They show during the breaks films of skating champions from the past. The skating is more athletic now, but no more graceful: in fact it may be a little less graceful.
A Little Irony Probably Lost on the Poles. During the awards ceremonies, there is background music being played, a medley from South Pacific. As the silver medals are being presented, the song played is “This Nearly Was Mine.”
About Warsaw
Because of the skating events, my time for sight seeing is limited. Warsaw as COMPLETELY destroyed by the Germans in 1944, so anything old here has been reconstructed. One has to admire the Poles for what they suffered during the war and for their comeback after it. There are plenty of events and things to see, but I would not. call it a particularly beautiful city. I am enjoying the Polish food, but it is amazing that everyone in this country does not die of a heart attack by age 30. The ultimate example of the heavy food is a type of flavored grease they serve to put on bread instead on butter.
Some Polish Prostitutes Haven’t Migrated to Italy
I’ve mentioned the prevalence of Eastern European prostitutes in Italy. Some girls have stayed home. Each night in my hotel room someone slips an advertisement under my door for the service “Top Secret” which provides beautiful girls or (if women aren’t what you want) goodlooking men. If you get to Warsaw and in your hotel these annoucements don’t arrive under the door, the mobile phone number is 0-508 747 784. Service available 24 hours a day.
Polish TV
In Italy US television shows are dubbed. In Poland they are overvoiced. Since the overvoice cannot take place at the very same moment as the original dialog (which is still retained) because there would be two langauges being spoken simultaneously, the overvoicing comes slightly after the original dialog so you can hear the English clearly before the Polish ovevoicing arrives. This makes it easier for me to follow such shows,
Sat 20 Jan 2007
Posted by Robert C. Nordvall under
2007[4] Comments
Cell Phones in Church
At my church in Florence they begin each service with an announcement to turn off your cell phone. When I went to church in Sciacca recently, there was no such announcement. During the service, cell phones rang. Now it may be (1) the priest just forgot to make this request, (2) it is never made because it is not considered a problem if the phones ring, or (3) it is not made because it would do no good. Italians do not seem embarrassed when cell phones go off (or even to talk on cell phones) in church, at concerts, or at the movies.
Where is My Camera When I Need it?
A few years ago I mentioned how I wished that I had my camera at the outdoor market one day when an elderly lady was holding up a very brief, very sheer pair of ladies’ underpants for close inspection. Another such moment arose this week. In a large public square a child of about 6 was riding a miniature electric powered motorcycle with maybe a top speed of 10 mph. He had his crash helmet on. The motorcycle had training wheels. I don’t think he had the leather jacket yet, but this will soon arrive.
Death Announcement Notices –Tuscany vs. Sicily
In both places death announcements (with funeral details) are pasted on public walls. In Sicily, however, there are many announcements commemorating the third anniversary of a death. I’ve never seen these in Pistoia. My guess is that these third anniversary announcements are a little sign that in more traditional Sicily, the family is a bit more important than in Tuscany (where it certainly is very important).
Does This Kid Have to Pay to Ride the Bus? A Clever Idea
In the USA usually there is a statement that children over a certain age (let’s say 6) have to buy a ticket on bus or other public transportation. It is difficult for the driver to tell who is 6 or over, and kids (and their parents) may lie about their age. On the bus in Sciacca there was a line one meter high on a panel next to the driver. It was announced that kids taller than this line have to pay. A clever idea, although I don’t know if this one meter rule is in fact enforced by the driver.
Recharging My Cell Phone — Not as Hard as I Thought
Most people in Italy add money to their cell phone (which operates on a cash basis not on a monthly contract fee) by buying a card on which you scratch off a number and enter it into your phone. You can also have the phone recharged for you at many shops through a computer connected directly to the cell phone service provider. I’ve always done the latter. I’ve avoided the scratch off cards because I did not want to encounter a phone “menu” in Italian to take me through the recharging process. Someone gave me a card as a Christmas gift, and I dived in and dialed the number on the card to start the recharging process. The menu was in English. Why? Because when I bought the phone, it was originally set up to display its options in English. So the cell phone service provider has me as an English speaking customer in its computer.
Who Is Il Commissario Montalbano?
He is the main character in the most popular detective story books in Italy written by Andrea Camilleri. The author is now an elderly man; these books have been written since the 1920s. They take place in Sicily, and are the subject of a popular television series. Probably some films have been made also. I recently saw an episode on TV, and was pleased that I could follow about 80% of what was going on.
What is ‘I Promessi Sposi’ (the Engaged Couple)?
It is by far the most read novel in Italy. Everybody reads it in school. I don’t think there is a novel in the USA that is read in all schools. Mark Twain used to be popular, but his books are banned in some schools as not properly morally uplifting. “I Promessi Sposi” is set in the 19th century. A friend admitted to me that it bored her when she was a student (as it must many students) but as an adult, she really enjoyed it. I bought a copy and hope to start on it soon.
Editorial Cartoon You Won’t See in the USA
Italy has to reform the national state pension system. There is a debate about whether to implement disincentives for people to retire early or incentives for them not to retire until later than the typical retirement age. In the newspaper was the following cartoon. It had two panels. The title was “Dilemmas of a 60 Year Old.” In the top panel the 60 year old man is shown thinking about the issue of incentives vs. disincentives. In the bottom he is thinking about a condom and the question of whether it stimulates or retards the sensation during sexual intercourse. Regardless of what one thinks of the “humor” of this cartoon, you aren’t going to see something like this on editorial page of an American newspaper.
Other Americans Living in Italy Who Write About Their Experiences
The service on which I maintain my web site brings to my web site links from other sites of a similar subject. I’ve looked at three maintained by American women in Italy. They use photographs which I have not figured out yet how to post on my site. Here are the URLs for those of you interested in other perspectives on living in Italy:
http://americaninitaly.blogspot.com/
http://www.blogcharm.com/amborg
http://athomerome.blogspot.com/
Medical Care in Italy and the USA
No nation can afford to give all its citizens, at the cost of the state, the kind of top flight medical care that is available, for example, to a well insured American. So all nations “ration” medical care in one way or another.
In the USA HMOs and insurance companies can decide for which procedures they will pay. For those without medical insurance, medical care is usually available in some manner, but clearly is not as accessible as is it is for the fully insured.
In Italy all citizens have access to a state financed medical system. Non citizens who have a legitimate job also are covered by reason of their employment. Non citizens without a job, such as I, can pay to become part of the system. This means that non citizens who do not have a legitimate job and don’t pay the fee are not part of the state system, but they are not denied medical care. They may not get the extent of care given to those in the state system, but they can obtain some level of care without cost. In Italy medical care is considered a basic human right for anyone living in the country.
The media are full of stories about problems and failings of the state medical system, especially about delays in getting tests. This is true in part because the system is state financed so its operation is “political” news. As in most countries with a state system, Italy has a parallel private system. So if you want to see a doctor more quickly or get an operation faster, you can pay to do so.
Italy has one of the highest longevity rates in the world: considerably better than that of the USA. There are probably many reasons for this: diet, customs, style of life, etc. The fact that medical care is easily available is also one of these reasons. People don’t defer going to the doctor for financial reasons.
All medical systems have their plusses and minuses. There are debates in many nations about how to change the system in terms of delivery of services and/or financing of the costs. These debates may propose a system more public or one more private. I, however, have never seen in any of these debates, the proposal that the nation adopt a system such as the American one. In the world, the medical system of the USA is considered an aberration, not a model, mainly because it does not provide universal care.
Speaking of Medical News
For my friends just a quick note that my latest CAT scan (for the separation of the lining of my aorta) shows no change. The situation continues to be stable as it has been for two years. I have no particular symptoms. I’d like to take less of the four medicines I now use to prevent high blood pressure, but the doctors are not yet willing to risk a diminution of the medicine.
Fri 12 Jan 2007
Posted by Robert C. Nordvall under
20071 Comment
Notes from Sicily
I am again visiting the family in Sciacca, Sicily that I visited last fall.
Saying ‘Daddy’ in Sicily
In Tuscany children say ‘babo.’ In Sicily they say ‘papà.’ Why the difference? In the Sicilian language ‘babo’ means a cretin.
Sunday Dinner
When I was a boy my family often ate Sunday dinner at the home of my Aunt Carrie and Uncle Frank. She, assisted by her mother-in-law who lived with them, was a marvelous cook. My own mother was not so it took little incentive to get us to Aunt Carrie’s. In Tuscany the pasta is served with a very light sauce (pasta asciuta) with generally no meat in it. My aunt of course cooked in the southern Italian style. The sauce always had meat, and the meat cooked in the sauce could be a second course. This is the pasta I had at the parents of my host in Sicily. Beef, pork, and sausage were cooked in the sauce, and served as the second course. As I tasted it, I was a boy again in Chicago remembering everything about my aunt’s apartment.
Crechè Scenes
I went to two ‘living crechè’ scenes. I especially liked the one in which the baby Jesus had a plastic pacifier in his mouth. Both were part of a general outdoor exhibition that also included demonstrations of traditional Sicilian crafts. One also had traditional Sicilian Christmas songs. As I’ve mentioned before the great majority of the Christmas music one hears in stores and on the radio in Italy is in English. Someone told me (with disgust) that he saw a television program in Italy about Christmas around the world. In each nation visited there were songs sung in the native tongue, except in Italy where the songs were in English.
The Two Sicilies
If you ask an American what he knows about Sicily, the word ‘Mafia’ will soon appear in the conversation. I stopped by an art exhibit in a former church. The artist is a young man who studied political science and then sociology, but gave that all up to be an artist. His name is Termine Cologero (Vicolo Porta di Mare 4, 92019 Sciacca (AG)). Unfortunately he has no Web site. He does copies of famous paintings. At the exhibit was a description of his work that noted that his studio was close to the church. I asked him where his studio was exactly. He took me outside of the church and showed me. He apologized that he could not leave the exhibition to show me the studio, but he invited me to go by myself for a look. The door was not locked only closed to keep out the cats. It was a studio and his apartment. So here in a place associated with crime in many people’s minds, a stranger is invited to just enter the empty apartment and look around. There were paintings everywhere. This kind of openness is not at all unusual in Sicily. One of the paintings he had was a copy of ‘The Scream’ by Munsch. The original of this was recently recovered after having been stolen from a museum a few years ago. I told Termine that he was lucky the police hadn’t visited his apartment while the search for the orginal was still going on.
Lillo Sutera
He is another Sicilain artist (among other things) whom I have met. Unfortnately he too has no Web site. After retiring two years ago, he began to collect small pieces of flat rocks that are common on and near his property. With a few cleverly placed paint strokes he turns these into faces of animals or humans and other forms. This art work of recycled stones is consistent with a general pattern of his life. He is a what we might call a tinkerer and one who recycles objects. The house (which he designed) is decorated with ‘found’ objects, mostly things discarded by others. The hand painted ceramic tile floor from a destroyed church was saved by him and used in various locations as a decorative highlight in the home. He has a ‘museum’ of old farm and home tools and instruments. Much of the food he and his wife eat is grown on their small plot. He has his own special recipes for curing the olives from their trees-they are delicious.
The Market at Sciacca
I visited the weekly outdoor market. As at Pistoia, there were stands with low cost Chinese goods. Unlike Pistoia, there were few stands with Italian goods of better quality and higher cost. Just a little evidence that Sicily is poorer than Tuscany. In general, however, Sciacca is prospering. There is a building boom as it becomes a more popular tourist city. Unfortunately for the local residents, this popularity leads to a steep increase in real estate prices which makes it difficult for them to afford a house.
Palermo
I took a day trip to Palermo. Of course I was able only to taste a few of the city’s attractions. The arabic influence, from the time the Arabs controlled Sicily, was evident in many places. I saw a church which from the outside looked more like a mosque than a Christian church. At the palace of the Norman kings of Sicily, who ruled in the 12th century, the chapel was largely decorated with geometric patterns done by Muslim workmen from north Africa. I paid 4 Euro to see the chapel, only to discover that about 70% of it, including the most major parts, was covered as part of a cleaning or restoration process. A little warning at the ticket office about this fact would have been appreciated. Palermo is certainly a city well worth visiting, and I plan to go back.
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Financing the Rail System in Italy
I have noted that the rail system has very low fares. It has (no surprise) also high deficits. Although not operated by the government, this system is obviously subject to certain political pressures. After not raising fares for five years, they were raised as of January 1, but only on the high speed long distance trains. This is easy to do politically because these are trains that already have higher fares and are used by more ‘wealthy’ Italians. Sort of like a ‘luxury tax.’ You can raise these fares without an outcry, but you don’t raise a whole lot of money in doing so. The vast majority of train trips are on the regional trains. Raising these fares would have a big impact on revenues, but is politically impossible. In all countries sometimes what you can do politically is not effective and what would be effective you cannot do politically. This problem is magnified many times in Italy compared to most other places.
Montecatini
This spa city near Pistoia is known around the world. From reading the local newspapers one would think that its main business is not the spas but prostitution. In Montecatini you get high end prostitution, call girls not scantily dressed ladies who stand along the highway and hail passing cars. Many of these women are from Eastern Europe and quite attractive. They come not only to work at their trade but to find a husband. My Uncle Sully’s first wife was a woman he met in a house of prostitution. Later she left him. He was, to say the least, no prize. In general I would think that the men one meets as a prostitute are either lower class guys you would not want to marry or upper class guys who , given your background, would not marry you. But in Italy the ‘prize’ of having a beautiful, foreign wife is attractive enough for some Italian men of means and social standing to marry a former prostitute.
Fri 5 Jan 2007
Posted by Robert C. Nordvall under
2007[2] Comments
This Week in Italy 216
Wealth in Italy and the United States
The median Italian family income is 21,600 Euro. The median in the USA is $43,200. Although the Euro is worth $1.30 on the exchange market, in fact the buying power of a Euro in Italy is about the same as a dollar in the USA. So in cash income, Americans are twice as wealthy as Italians. Of course, the two situations are not totally comparable. Medical care costs much less in Italy, and the grandparents often take care of child care. In Italy it is less likely that both parents have full time jobs. A full time job increases both income and expenses. Still on the average Italians are much less prosperous than Americans.
New Year’s Eve
I spent this evening with an Italian couple, Mirella and Franco. We ate two foods one has at this time to bring good luck for the following year– fish and lentils. During the evening we listened to the New Year’s address by the President of Italy, Georgio Napolitano. He said the usual things for such a talk including a call for the Italians to confront and overcome their problems using the best elements of their tradition. Franco is a retired army officer and like most career military officers, he is politically on the right. So nothing the President (who is a former member of the Communist Party) said, pleased him. In Italy those on the other side of the political fence can do no good.
I talked with Franco about Pistoia during WWII, There were two targets in Pistoia worth bombing– the train station and the Breda works. There were two American air raids. Neither of these two targets was hit, but schools, apartment buildings, and churches were destroyed. After Pistoia was occupied by the Allies, a Black US Army transport unit was stationed here. As a teenager, Franco became their mascot at the NCO club. When they left in May, Franco went with them for the summer months, visiting many Italian cities. He returned in the fall for school, and upon graduation, he began his career in the army.
I Botti
This is the name given to a type of very powerful firecracker. Fireworks are legal in Italy, and a big part of New Year’s Eve, but some types, such as i botti, are forbidden. This does little good. I botti sound like a bomb and set off auto and house alarms because of their reverberations.
Fireworks for private use are generally illegal in the USA. Before this was true, around the Fourth of July the newspapers had many articles about children (and sometimes adults) who were injured by fireworks. This type of article is still common in Italy.
CAT Scan
I went to get my semi-annual CAT scan on Saturday, December 30 to check the separation in the lining of my aorta. Before this exam, I have to get a blood test done and bring the results to the CAT exam. I put the blood test results in one large envelope of medical records, but brought a different large envelope to the exam. So we had a problem. I suggested that we might call my doctor in Pistoia to whom I gave a copy of the blood test results. I did not know if my doctor had Saturday morning office hours. The doctor at the hospital quickly brought me back to reality by saying “your doctor in his office on December 30 in Italy”??? In fact, I later discovered that my family doctor was on vacation over the Christmas holidays. I had waited for two months to get the CAT scan appointment so I was distressed that I could not get the test. Fortunately it is easy to schedule such tests at the end of the year; I was rescheduled for January 2.
The Death of Saddam
In Italy the news about this event largely concerned the death penalty which Italy opposes. The head of the Radical Party, after the hanging, went on a hunger strike until the United Nations would act to bring about a moratorium on the death penalty. In response to this, the Italian government formally requested that the UN take up the issue of the death penalty. This radical politician has gone on hunger strikes before. He’s not slim so one of his strategies is to fatten up between bouts of famine. I don’t think this type of political pressure technique would be successful in the United States. In Italy, however, it would be a great embarrassment for the government if this guy died on his hunger strike.
First Babies of the New Year
The newspapers had stories about the first babies born in Italy as a whole and also in our region. Many of these babies were born to immigrant mothers. Immigrants are now 5% of the Italian population and 10% in some large cities. These official figures probably undercount the immigrant population. If current immigration rates and differential birth rates continue, the results will be drammatic with 25 years.
High Polluting Cars
In Europe there is system to gauge the pollution potential of cars with Euro 0 being the most polluting and I think Euro 5 being the least. In Florence now one cannot drive a Euro 0 or Euro 1 car within the city. At the same time the government has begun a program under which a person trading in a Euro 0 or Euro 1 car for a new car gets a subsidy of up to 4000 Euro toward the price of the new car. My guess is that even with this subsidy, many owners of the very old cars don’t have the money to buy a new one. My guess also is that many of these very old cars traded in (which I assume the law says must now be junked) will find their way to other parts of Italy or abroad where the pollution rules are not so strict.