thisweekinitaly.com

The Mystery Bus

I am in Sicily for the Carnival in Sciacca. I stay with a family that lives a few miles out of town and take the bus to and from the city when I have errands to do. The first day I took the bus, I went to the bus stop to get the bus back to the house. I could not remember the number of the bus I needed to take. So when the first bus arrived, I asked the driver which bus I needed. He told me the number 5. The number five was due at 1:15. I was waiting for it at 12:50. By 1:45 it had not arrived. The first driver whom I asked about the bus number passed by again. He asked me why I was still there. He had seen the number 5 bus further down its route; why hadn’t I gotten on it? I told him it did not pass by. He gave me a ride to a spot further on his route where I could get the number 5 bus. The next day I was at the stop at 1. Again no number 5 bus by 1:45. When a different bus arrived, I asked what had happened to the number 5 bus. The driver said it had already passed, and he had seen it farther down the line. Once again, in fact, it had not passed. The 1:15 bus is the last bus until 4:15. My guess is that the driver runs late, does not want to start his lunch break late, and simply cuts short the route — eliminating the stop where I was waiting. No use complaining in Italy. I’m not sure the bus company cares that much, and if it does, there is little it can do to the driver. It is practically impossible to fire a full time worker in Italy.

One Result of the ‘Impossibility’ of Firing Full Time Workers in Italy

It is increasingly difficult for job seekers to get a permanent full time job. Employers naturally do not want to be saddled with employees they cannot get rid of. The rules on job security are great for the older workers who have permanent employment and a considerable obstacle for new workers entering the job market.

Now a Nice Word about Bus Drivers

I was on a bus that goes down a very narrow road. Obviously there is no parking on this road because the bus passes along it with almost no room to spare. Still we came upon a car parked half way on the road. It was a very tight fit. The bus driver got out and folded back the car’s rear view mirror so it would not be clipped. As a bus driver, I would have been tempted to knock off the mirror as a reminder to the car owner not to park there.

Hot Chocolate

I saw the package for a hot chocolate mix you prepare at home. It did not show a steaming cup of liquid hot chocolate. It showed a cup filled with thick hot chocolate and a spoon to eat it with. It is not a pudding mix but a hot chocolate mix.

Visit Exciting Ft. Worth Now!

I knew when I listed last week some USA cities that Americans were unlikely to visit as tourist attractions, that somebody would object. Read below what a reader wrote about Ft. Worth. Even if Ft. Worth has a lot to recommend it, I still think that Americans don’t conceive of secondary cities as vacation destinations.

Cowboys and Culture,only in Fort Worth! Ft. Worth has so much to offer a
visitor. Go to Ft. Worth’s Cultural Center for three major art museums within
walking distance of each other. In a great building by Louis Kahn,the
Kimbell, http://www.kimbellart.org/index.cfm, has a stellar collection with works by Caravaggio, Donatello, Duccio,and Rembrandt. The Modern Art
Museum,designed by Tadao Ando and composed of 5 pavillions seeming to float on a 1.5 acre pond,features 20th and 21st century works by Kiefer, Picasso, and Pollock,http://www.mamfw.org/info.html. The Amon Carter Museum,in an elegant building designed by Philip Johnson, features American art, with works of O’Keeffe, Remington, and Russell, http://www.cartermuseum.org/.
You’ll find the Texas Cowboy Museum, the National Cowgirl Museum, the Fort Worth Zoo, and the Stockyards. Go to the Fat Stock Show and see the Big Cows, go to the ballet, eat Mexican food. Caruso even came here to sing at the opening of a rodeo! Fort Worth is great! (And I do love Pistoia) Ciao, Ann
 

Carnival in Sciacca

This is a big event for which the city almost closes down for four days. This is the 107th edition of the Carnival. There are large floats, not with flowers, but with figures. These floats are 3 or 4 stories high. The figures move. Each float has a theme. Each night there is a procession of the floats. Each float comes to a central stage. On the stage the group that sponsors this float put on a singing and dancing exhibition. There are special songs written to fit the theme of the float. Sometimes there is even a theatrical skit, humorous, based on this theme. In addition there are dance routines by local schools. The first night the entertainment lasted until 2 am; I did not last that long. A very impressive event. Unlike the Mardi Gras in New Orleans , however, there are not young women wearing only body paint. In general this is a festive, but not a rowdy celebration.

Although not rowdy, there are certainly some well lubricated spectators. I thought on the final night the winners of the float competition would be announced. Not so. They are annouced a few days later. If announced on the last night, there would be a fear that the event could become rowdy as winners and losers expressed their emotions.

At carnivals in the USA, there used to be (I haven’t seen it recently) the strong man apparatus where you hit the lever with the sledge hammer to see if you could ring the bell. Now in the USA I see the booth where you get three hits with a regular hammer to drive a nail completely into a piece of wood. In Italy there is something different — a machine where you kick a soccer ball as hard as you can and the machine electronically records the strength of your kick.

A word about the food at the Carneval. There are the usual items such as cotton candy, candy apples, etc. You can even get hot dogs and hamburgers, but there is much more. Everywhere different types of meats are being grilled. The smells are wonderful. The variety of options is so very tempting. As elsewhere in Italy, at a carnival too, you can eat much better than in the USA.

The Carneval is really an event that involves the whole city. Many schools put on elaborate dance numbers with the students in lovely costumes. At these I noticed that in general the girl students were in front and the boy students in back. It is a lot easier to teach the girls to do the dance steps correctly

Northern Perspectives on the South of Italy

Italians from northern and central Italy often speak of those from the south (including Sicily) as lazy, non tax paying, schemers who figure out ways to get along without much work, especially by exploiting governmental programs. They also say that economic development in the south is impossible because of the widespread criminality. On the other hand they speak of southerners as more friendly and genuine. If you ask someone from central or northern Italy where, in Italy,the lifestyle is best, they most likely would say the south.

Would You Buy a Used Car From This Guy?

In the USA this question is sometimes used in politics to indicate that a candidate is untrustworthy. But the reality of life is more complex than this simple phrase indicates. Let me apply the question to the Italian context.

The two major politicians are Romano Prodi and Silvio Berlusconi. If both were used car salemen, I am sure that your friends would tell you to go to Romano, a simple, direct, guy. They also would advise you to stay away from Silvio, a silver tongued con man. You go to see Romano, but you can’t resist stopping to check with Silvio. As a result, you buy a car from Silvio. It is a piece of junk that requires constant repairs, but every time you bring it back to the dealer, Silvio has a charming story of how this is the last time the car will need any work.

The problem in politics often is that you (the citizen) would in fact buy a used car from this guy.

Who is Beppe Grillo??

He is an Italian comedian, satirist, and now social reformer whose blog is the most read Italian one. It comes in an English edition too, the first of the three links at the end of this story. He was banned from TV for a while for making impolite remarks abut a political leader. As I mentioned once before, in Italy (unlike in the USA) politicians can easily sue critics for libel. Beppe was also called in by the judges one time to tell how he knew about (and was joking about) the Parmalat bankruptcy before it was publicly announced that the company was bankrupt. In the USA some executives of Parmalat would have gone to jail for the fraud they committed, but not in Italy. The other two links below are to a Wikipedia article on Beppe and an article from the European edition of Time which named him one of the European heroes of 2005.

http://www.beppegrillo.it/english.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Grillo

http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2005/grillo.html

The Italian Drug Problem– An Epidemic??

If you believe the newspapers, drug use is rampant in Italy. Articles in the USA about the drug problem usually highlight three aspects (1) the crime of selling drugs, (2) the problem of the crimes committed by those seeking money for drugs, and (3) the medical problem of treating drug addiction. In Italy the second item, drug crime, does not seem to get the coverage that it does in the USA. Still it is hard to imagine that drug addicts in Italy don’t turn to crime to support their habit.

The High Cost of Driving a Car in Italy

In Italy car prices seem to be a little lower than in the USA although this may be because many models are smaller than those sold in the USA. Everything else about owing a car costs the same or more in Italy. Yearly registration fees are much higher than in the USA as is the cost of gas. Insurance is at least as expensive. You are more likely to have to pay to park in Italy. Toll road fees are much higher. I don’t know a lot about the car inspection laws, but I doubt that in Italy one could drive legally the kind of junk cars I used to pilot in the United States. All these costs are the same or higher in a country where the average income is much lower. The public transportation system is much better than in the USA, but still the rate of car ownership in Italy is the second highest in Europe.

A Conference on Tourism

I went to a conference sponsored by the Province of Pistoia on tourism here. In general the number of tourists in Pistoia has been growing. As far as tourism from the USA goes, I think cities like Pistoia face a generic problem. First time tourists to Italy usually go to the most famous cities, Rome, Florence, Venice, etc. This makes sense. Where do repeat tourists go? Many go back to the big cities to see the major attractions again or to see less famous ones they missed the first time. Too few think of the smaller cities such as Parma, Lucca, Ferrara, Pistoia, Bergamo, etc. I think one reason is that in the USA smaller cities have little to offer a tourist. Who wants to visit Fort Worth, Columbus, Ohio, or Kansas City to see the sites? But in Italy the smaller cities have premier works of art and architecture. These smaller cities are a constant amazement.

Not Just Beautiful Smaller Cities

I have a good friend in Pienza (province of Siena) whom I visit from time to time. We usually take a little drive to see something interesting in the area around Pienza. Usually it is something or somewhere I’ve never heard of. Last week it was the little town of Radicofani– two churches with some exceptional ceramics and statues inside. Charming streets – if you could airbrush out the TV antennas, you were back in time 300 years. Not every little town in Italy is beautiful, but the percentage of very attractive towns in Italy is much, much higher than in the USA.

Fortune Tellers and Card Readers

They are much more common in Italy than in America. Today the newspaper headline spoke of a card reader who had fled the country in the face of an unpaid tax bill of 700,000 Euro. Think of the money one has to earn to owe that much in back taxes. I assume that one day recently, he looked at the cards and their message was “get out of the country, now!”

Paternity, Italy vs. USA

I wrote last week about the 13 guys being given a DNA test to see if they are the father of the bar maids baby. I’m sure they are all hoping for a negative result. In the USA, on the other hand, guys are lining up for tests to prove that they are the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s child.

A Minor Victory in Italy

I went with some friends from Pistoia to a cinema in Florence. They drove and we parked in an underground garage in the center of Florence. When we went to leave the garage, my friend had lost the ticket that you insert into the machine to determine the fee you owe. We went to the office of the garage. Ordinarily the rule is when you lose such a ticket, you may the maximum fee. In the USA you can tell your story of woe to the attendant and hope that he or she might charge you only for the time you in fact were parked. You can do the same in Italy, but here there is a high level of mistrust so that the attendant is more likely to think that you are trying to pull a fast one. Thus I was very pleased when my friend was charged only for the time he told the attendant that we had parked in the garage. It sounds like a little thing, but it was unexpected.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

A friend sent me an article from “The Wall Street Journal” by Noble laureate in economics Edmund Phelps which argued that a main cause for the lagging economic performance of traditional European powers like Germany, France, and Italy was a deficit in the entrepreneurial spirit among workers and employers. Phelps argued that in today’s world economy this deficit inhibits economic growth. This article is not out of line with some thoughts I have pondered. In Italy the government has proposed that supermarkets can sell gas as they do in the USA. Here this has led to a strike by gas stations. The owners argue that they make very little on each liter of gas sold and should not take the blame for high gas prices.

A friend of mine, no left winger, expressed sympathy with the gas station owners. Similarly many Italians want to retain the system of small shops which certainly leads to higher prices. I too enjoy the small shops. Italians have every right to prefer traditional ways of doing things (which include many archaic practices besides the marketing system) rather than new marketing schemes, even if this preference raises the cost of living What they don’t want to admit, however, is that the poor economic growth of which they complain is tied to these traditional ways of doing things. They want the growth without making the changes, sometimes painful, that today fuel economic growth. Furthermore, the network of social program that Italians don’t want to cut simply cannot be maintained at current levels without more economic growth.

   Soccer Violence — the Unending Story
 A couple of years ago (newsletters 137, June 18, 2005 and 147, August 27, 2005) I wrote about steps the government had taken to stop violence within the soccer stadiums.  All major stadiums had to institute certain crowd control and monitoring systems.  As of today (no surprise) only six stadiums are in compliance.  Recently there was a riot in Catania outside of the stadium between fans of the two squads. A policeman was killed.  This led to a national uproar. In last Sunday’s paper, the first 14 pages concerned this story. All major soccer games were canceled for two weeks. The government now is banning all fans from stadiums that do not have the required security features. Games are being played in empty stadiums. Some say that the policeman was simply the unfortunate victim of the riot; others say that it was a premeditated murder in which one of his enemies used the occasion of the soccer riot specifically to kill him. Who knows or who will ever know?  What you can know is that the current talk about “zero tolerance” of such riotous behavior is just talk.  “Zero tolerance” in Italy has the same meaning as “the tooth fairy” in English.