thisweekinitaly.com

 Sophia Loren –Loves to Take Her Clothes Off

You will recall that Sophia posed nude (not quite) for the 2007 Pirelli calendar.  Now she says she will strip at the soccer stadium if her beloved Napes soccer squad makes it to the championship round. Ordinarily if a 72 year old woman made this promise, it might be an incentive for the team to lose. We will see how much of an incentive it is for the Naples team. 

Prostitutes in Padua

The police of Padua have begun giving fines both to streetwalking prostitutes and to the drivers who cruise their zone looking for women to pick up. If a client gets the 50 Euro ticket, the prostitute will reimburse him out of her fee. The prostitutes and clients held a protest march against these new police practices.  It had the usual “why aren’t the police concerned with more serious crimes” theme. Usually police action against zones of prostitution (in the USA as well as Italy) is in response to some kind of public outcry; after the outcry dies down, the aggressive police action ordinarily ends. 

Tax Rebate

Italy is running a surplus in the national budget (very unusual). One proposal is to give every taxpayer a 90 Euro rebate from the surplus. Italy has a very large national debt, but the idea of repaying part of the debt seems to be of little interest.  One could view this as typical Italian fiscal irresponsibility, but then the USA has been fighting a war while lowering taxes (a step unprecedented in US history) leading to record deficits.  So the Americans at least cannot point a finger at the Italians on this point.

Italian Auto Fatalities

They are 13% above the average rate for other European countries. The article I read in its headline seemed to say that Italy had the worst auto fatality rate in Europe, but I could not find this claim supported in the body of the piece. France apparently has done a good job of cutting its auto fatality rate.  In Italy there is often talk about stronger enforcement of driving laws, especially those against drunk driving, but it appears to be only a lot of talk. 

Gianfranco Fini 

He is one of three most prominent leaders in the central-right opposition coalition in Italy.  He spoke recently in Pistoia at a rally for the central-right mayoral candidate.  Local elections are May 27 and 28.  In general the central-right is given little chance to win in Pistoia. Fini is a good speaker –almost all top Italian politicians are.  National leader Prodi is a rather bland speaker; although compared to George W. Bush, Prodi is a silver tongued orator. I don’t agree with many of Fini’s positions, but I appreciate the fact that he is always civil in talking about his opponents. He never descends to personal invective. Fini criticized strongly the general pardon passed by Parliament soon after the center-left coalition took office. Of course he did not mention that the center-left was split on this issue and if the center-right had voted uniformly against it, the pardon would not have passed. In fact the majority of both the center-left and the center-right members of Parliament approved the pardon bill. In Italy the political memory is pretty short.

————————————————————————————–

Items from Ireland

The Nicest Thing about Ireland

The Irish people. They are the friendliest, most helpful, people I have ever met on vacation. I was only in the West of Ireland around Galway. I can’t tell the extent to which my observations apply to the whole nation, but it is not a large country.

Driving in Ireland

Of course you drive and ride a bike on the English (other) side of the road.  The bike shop owner from whom we rented our bikes said when he was a young man he was hitchhiking in Ireland and picked up by a car full of Americans.  The driver was scared to death to drive in Ireland and asked the young Irishman if he could drive.  When he said yes, he became the chauffeur for the Americans for a week for an all expenses paid tour of the island.

An Adventure in Intercultural  (Mis) Understanding

We were in a pub that included among its patrons two, inebriated, toothless, older Irishmen talking in Irish. Then one switched to English (with a heavy accent exacerbated by the lack of teeth) and began to talk to my friend Debby.  Somehow she got across that she and her husband lived in Colorado. From there on the conversation went (to my ears) something like this:

Irishman: mcorentn xotysn loyens Mile High Stadium, poxwmd ,yx.ucn

Debby: Yes, we have the Mile High Stadium in Denver

Irishman: qps9vier leandof .xovmwens Broncos mocnqw0s dp04,dsob

Debby: Yes the Denver Broncos play in the Mile High Stadium.

Other than “Mile High Stadium” and “Broncos”, I did not catch another word he said. I’m not sure Debby did either.

The Irish Language

Signs in Ireland are many times in English and Irish although often in only one of the two languages. Newspapers and TV are almost all in English. Many schools teach the children in Irish with English being treated as a second language.  . Irish language schools are becoming more popular. Still when the students are on the street and out of school (either an Irish language or English language school) they overwhelmingly speak English. There is great pride in the Irish language, but I don’t think it will overcome English as the primary language. The worldwide English tide is too strong.

Sheep

There are LOTS of them.  They are not branded. Instead they are sprayed with a blotch of color that tells who the owner is. If you saw the film Brokeback Mountain in which two herds of sheep become entangled after a storm and cannot be separated, you appreciate that the color-coding system would solve this problem. On the pavement of the road I saw sprayed “No Dogs.” Apparently dogs running wild attack or chase the sheep. If an owner saw a free running dog in this area, he might well shoot it. Despite the fact that sheep wander all over the road, they are not hit often by cars as deer are in the USA.

Land of Bed and Breakfast Homes

I saw more B&Bs in one week in Ireland than I seen in my whole life in the USA and other countries I have visited. If I came to Ireland out of tourist season again, I would not bother making reservations in advance.

Rhododendrons

They are a lovely flowering plant in the USA. They are beautiful also in Ireland but so pervasive that they are treated as a weed.  They were introduced here in late 18^th century and took hold with a vengeance.

This Week in Italy number 231

Off to Ireland

I’m off this weekend for a week of biking in the west of Ireland.  The next This Week in Italy may possibly be two weeks from now.

Frustrating Reform

Little important political changes take place in Italy, and reforms that are passed are often frustrated.  Italy has too many government employees at all levels.  Someone told me that at Buckingham Palace in London there is staff of 500; at the home of the President of Italy there are 2000 employees. The Berlusconi government cut payments from the national government to local governments with the hope in part that this would force the local entities to reduce their bureaucracy. Instead local governments took some services (such as water or garbage collection) “off the books” by privatizing them –with the same people running the new private agency as ran the former governmental department. Then instead of taxes paying for these services, user fees were established. So the citizen ended up paying the same amount or more in taxes plus fees. The jobs of the government employees remained secure. 

New Train Cars

The newest generation of train cars is being introduced on the line through Pistoia.  They are very nice with new features such as a TV screen that shows the next stop, speed of train, the amount train is behind schedule (if at all), etc. The cars ride quite smoothly.  These cars of the quality one sees on German, Swiss, French, etc. railroads.  The only problem is that in three years the TV screens won’t work, the cars will be dirty, and the ride will again be bumpy. With Italy’s low train fares, you can be sure that the rolling stock will not be well maintained.  I’m enjoying riding in these cars while they are new.

Evicting a Tenant in Florence

I am involved with a group that wants to recapture a property it owns for which the lease of the tenants has expired. Of course, the tenants won’t leave. Why should they? It costs about $4000 and takes may a year to get an order of eviction. Then it takes 6 or 7 years before the authorities will execute the order and force the tenants to vacate. The staff that does evictions is kept small on purpose because Italian law favors the tenants.  So there is a 6 or 7 year backlog of such orders for the small staff that administers them.  My first thought: pay off the city officials to execute the order faster.  The guys who do evictions must be making more “under the table” than above it. But then, every landlord probably has the same thought about paying a bribe. I don’t know why anyone in Italy thinks that rental properties are a good investment.  Landlords like to rent to foreigners because they don’t have the rights Italian citizens do to delay evictions.

Italy vs. Great Britain

I know a couple where the husband is Italian and the wife English. They have fluctuated between living in England and in Italy. Now they have decided to stay in Italy. The reason –

Fashion Advisory  I don’t know if fashion trends start in Italy and go to the USA or vice versa — maybe a little of each. Anyway my readers will recall that I advised them that orange was the fashion color of 2006.  My preliminary observation of store windows indicates that, at least for men’s clothes, the color of 2007 is purple.

Consumer “Triumph”Italy was the only country in Europe in which you paid a fee every time you recharged (put money on) your cell phone. If you wanted to put 20 euro of time on the phone, you had to pay 25 euro. If you put 60 euro or more on at one time, there was no surcharge. Anyway an Italian consumer advocate led a successful campaign to get this surcharge outlawed. Such type of grassroots successful consumer actions is rare in Italy. Someone told me that the phone companies simply raised the charges for individual calls to offset the income lost by the elimination of the surcharge.

Although there are many abuses in the USA of class action lawsuits to vindicate the rights of consumers, it is still obvious that the absence of such a  mechanism in Italy to regulate corporate activities allows for practices that simply would not be tolerated in the

As Good as it Gets

My Webmaster Max Hoffmann has been working assiduously to get the server that distributes this newsletter to send a copy every week to each person on my mailing list.  I’m not sure that we will reach this goal.  It appears, however, that the people who don’t get their copy are not the same ones each week. So all I can advise is that, if you don’t receive this newsletter one week, go to www.bob.it.tt and look for it there.

American Cultural Dominance

I continue to be amazed by the salience of American values and images in Italian life.  I saw an ad for the French car Peugeot.  The ad showed the car driving down an American suburban street of a type that does not exist in Italy. Peugeot is not sold in the USA so this was not an American ad transferred to Italy. Somehow the image of American suburbia must resonate (at least the advertising agency thinks so) with Italians. As I’ve noted before there are many ads that show wide open spaces in the American west.  I think that these wide open spaces are a metaphor for Italians of the personal freedom and unlimited possibility that they identify with American life.

Love of Things American

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi has been known as a great admirer of things American. Often in promoting various ideas he would note that he was drawing upon the American experience. He is also the richest man in Italy whose various interests (including the majority of Italys private TV networks) would lead to impossible conflicts of interest in the American political landscape. In the USA a leader must give up control of such interests while in office. Well the Italians have finally discovered something American that Berlusconi doesnt like the blind trust (for assets of a political leader while in office). The center-left government has proposed this as a general rule for Italy. Berlusconi replies this is Italy, not the USA. By the way, through a blind trust or similar mechanism the other major European nations also limit the type of conflict of interest that is accepted in Italy.

New Type of Political Refugee

In Italy, as in the USA, an immigrant can try to get permanent status by proving that he is a political refugee from his homeland who might be killed or imprisoned for political reasons if he returned. Last week a young man from Albania living in Pistoia claimed such status by saying that he was threatened in Albania because he is gay. This would not fly in the USA, but in Italy, who knows.

Important Legal Precedent

A local Pistoia man was giving a ticket for following his fianc in a car in which she was traveling with another man. I assume it was under a law prohibiting stalking or maybe following too closely. The judge threw out the ticket saying that the jealous suitor was entitled to follow her. The local paper called this the jealousy defense. The prosecutor is appealing.

The Case of Aldo Moro

Moro was a leading Italian political kidnapped (four or five of his bodyguards were killed) in 1978 by the Red Brigade, left wing terrorists. They demanded that Red Brigade members in prison be released. The government refused to negotiate with the terrorists, and Moro was killed. Now Italy routinely pays ransom for the release of Italians kidnapped in Iraq or Nigeria. The question thus is still present: why did the government not negotiate to save the life of Moro. The usual answer was that to do so would have been to admit that the Red Brigade held the whole state for ransom; Italy as a nation could no longer carry out its penal sentences. Maybe so, but I think there was another factor. Politicians felt that if you started to pay ransoms for political kidnappings, they themselves would be much more at risk. In fact, I think no leading politician was kidnapped after Moro.

The Ultimate Boondoggle

In the USA conventions of associations are held in New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, Orlando, etc. places where there are good opportunities for fun outside the convention hall. I met on the train a lady from New Zealand who was attending a meeting in nearby Prato (very close to Florence). It turns out that this meeting, held in Prato every few years, is for family physicians from New Zealand and Australia.

Speaking of Prato

Prato is a big textile center. Its nickname in Italy was city of the rags. That is because in olden days a lot of the cloth was made by reprocessing used cloth. At my church Thrift Shop last month I discovered that some of the used clothes that were not sold might turn up in Prato for reprocessing. I did not realize that this still went on. We all see the labels in clothes 100% virgin wool. I thought this was meant to show that the garment was all wool, but it may signify too that the wool in the garment is not reprocessed. Maybe in this age of recycling, we should demand clothes that are not virgin wool.

Slow Reform of Italian Pension System

I have mentioned that Italy, like all western countries, has to reform its pension system to account for the fact that there are more pensioners and fewer workers. In the USA the age for full Social Security benefits is being raised in stages to 70. At present this age in Italy is due to rise to 62 in 2014.

Service Call Centers

If you call an 800 number in the USA to seek advice from your computer company about a problem, you might talk to somebody in India. Lets hope you can understand him or her. In Italy there is no foreign country with low wages where people speak Italian to which to outsource such calls. But there are southern Italy and Sicily and Italian prisons (with mostly southerners in them). A friend reports that when you call an 800 number in Italy, you may (if you are from central or northern Italy) have trouble understanding the Italian spoken by the person at the other end.

Meritocracy

There is a brief feature on one of the TV networks in which each day they explain the various meanings and connotations of an Italian word. The word recently was merit. In the discussion they talked about what a meritocracy means. They spoke of how this meant that the most able people get the positions and the recognition that they deserved. Then they went onto say that a meritocracy was not all positive because it could lead to excessive personal egotism and pride among those favored. I dont think this last comment would have been made on a TV feature in the USA explaining this word.

Note on Problems with My Web Site

A few weeks ago I had to change the company that serves as host for my web site through which I also publish my newsletter. I have had trouble sending the newsletter through the new host. I hope these problems are over, but if you did not get editions 227 or 228 (or any other prior edition) these can be viewed at www.bob.it.tt

Pistoia’s New Library

Close to downtown Pistoia is an abandoned industrial zone that has been the subject of redevelopment plans for many years. Slowly these are going forward. The jewel of the redevelopment is the new library designed by a prominent Italian architect. The recent grand opening of the building was attended by Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo. It is a stunning building.
However, both I and another friend noted that service at the new library is worse than at the old one; at present there are not enough points to check out books.

In 1982 Gettysburg College, where I worked for almost 30 years, built a new library designed by the well known architect Hugh Newell Jacobson. It appeared that his main interest was in building a structure that would win an architectural prize. The College’s librarian, on the other hand, wanted a building that would function well as an operating library. They had there battles, and compromises were made on both sides. My fear is that in Italy (where aesthetics trump practicality), in such a conflict, the architect would rule supreme. So we will see if the new library in Pistoia works as well as it looks.

Sparsely Attended Jazz Concert

My jazz loving friend Gianfranco, the watch repairman, told me of a very good jazz concert one night in Pistoia. I went, and it was an excellent event with both a quintet and a solo pianist. It was sponsored by a local charity. Last year this event played to a full house. This year the theatre was about 1/4 full. The reason – the concert was on the same night as the semi-final European Soccer Cup match between Milan and Manchester United. In fact even my friend Gianfranco stayed home to watch the game. Fortunately for those who stayed home, although they missed a wonderful musical evening, at least Milan won.

Gay Candidate for City Council

I’ve seen ads for a candidate who is one of the founders of the gay society in Pistoia and I assume is gay himself. Attitudes toward homosexuality in Italy are not easy to understand fully or summarize. On the one hand, Italians are quite tolerant of individual differences among people – I think more so than Americans. Violence against gays is rare if it happens at all. On the other hand, in Italy there is still more adherence to the traditional sex roles; the society is more male dominated than in the USA. These attitudes of tolerance and tradition I think pull people in opposite directions when it comes to issues of different sexual orientations.

Mapquest Story (continued)

I wrote last week about an amusing episode when I used Mapquest directions to go from Gettysburg to Annapolis. A woman attorney friend of mine wrote to me with another entertaining tale of misleading Mapquest directions

Your story reminded me of one time when I was accompanying a female student to a meeting in a small town, using Mapquest. We got lost, probably because Mapquest’s creators had failed to realize one of the streets it was directing you to was a one way street going the wrong direction. We stopped to get directions at a small store and made it to our meeting with about 5 minutes to spare. No opposing counsel. Finally, just as we were ready to give up and leave, almost an hour later, the opposing counsel showed up, laughing and rueful.

He said that he got lost and when he stopped, the guy at the little store told
him where to go and said, “And if you stopped here to ask for directions any of
the five times you had passed by earlier, you might have had a chance to meet up
with the two women who stopped here on their first pass an hour ago.”

Can I Have Some Mozzarella with That?

A visiting American friend ordered a salad in a restaurant. She asked the waiter if they could put some mozzarella cheese on the salad. He said abruptly and definitively “NO.” In Italy you don’t vary the menu to suit your individual tastes.

Computer, TV, and Phone Service??

While I was in the USA, I got a bill for my computer, cable TV, and phone service which I did not pay. The service was cut off in my absence. I can still receive phone calls at 0573-1941380, but I can’t make calls. I paid the bill upon my return and sent a FAX with the payment receipt to the company and asked to have service reinstituted. Of course it wasn’t. It took a phone call to find out why. They want more money than I paid (It’s a long story.). I have to decide whether to stay with this company or go to another one with the inevitable long wait to get new service inaugurated. All I can say is that these problems were totally expected by me.

The Case of the MIT Admissions Director

The story of this woman, who was fired after it was discovered that she lied about her college degree on her job application 28 years ago, has been in the news in the USA. I have a friend who may want to do graduate study at MIT so I told him about this case. He was amazed that the lady was fired. In Italy this would not have been cause to terminate her. Other than being a serial murderer, I don’t know what would be a cause to fire someone in Italy. Also the Italians would say “she is doing a good job; why would you fire her”? You can look at the Italian perspective as a more charitable attitude or as a lack of ethical standards. It is probably a little of both.