thisweekinitaly.com

A Little Further Explanation of Italian Medical System

I wrote recently about the public and private aspects of the system.  In addition to public hospitals and private clinics there are private clinics that have a contractual agreement with the state health system.  You can have a procedure done at one of these clinics and the state system may pay for it. These agreements save the state system the cost of building more hospitals to meet the demand for medical procedures.

Italians often ask me if a seriously ill person in the USA, who has no medical insurance, will simply be refused medical treatment and die. I explain to them the various ways people without insurance nevertheless get medical care in the USA. Italy has one of the best longevity rates in the world.  There are various explanations for this, but universal health care is certainly part of this picture. The big difference I see in universal care is not the treatment of serious illnesses, but the fact that people have no financial barriers to seeing a doctor whenever they want to.  Of course, this leads to some frivolous visits to the doctor, but it also means that potentially serious problems are dealt with earlier in the process.

A Cycling Couple

If you see a man and a woman riding together who, from their bikes and gear, are serious cyclists, you can be almost sure of one thing: the couple is not Italian.  In general Italians do not do long distance touring on bicycles.  If they happen to do so, it will almost certainly be a man alone or an all male group.

Uncontrollable Immigration

I’ve written in the past about why I think Italy will never control well illegal immigration. I’ve cited two big factors (1) the geography if Italy with its long coast line, and (2) the inefficiency of the Italian government. 

This week an incident occurred that illustrates a third factor making control of illegal immigration practically impossible. A boat of illegal immigrants headed for Sicily sunk. The passengers were picked up by a Turkish freighter between Malta and Sicily. For a while neither Malta nor Italy would let the freighter land and unload its passengers.  Finally Italy agreed to do so. It was obvious from the start that in this stand off, Italy would give in. Once stories start to appear in Italian media about the plight of the immigrants on the Turkish boat (many dehydrated, lack of food, a pregnant woman ill etc.), it becomes an emotional issue. When it becomes emotional, the Italians can’t say “no.”  This is not necessarily a vice; it shows commendable sympathy for the plight of others less fortunate (as also was demonstrated in the national response to the earthquake in Abruzzo). Unfortunately this kind of sympathy becomes another factor making it impossible to control immigration.

Is This a Tourist Town?

Recently I was with some friends in a car when we stopped at Montaione.  It is an attractive little town, and I wondered if it had many tourists.  There is one way to know for sure. Look at the offerings of the newsstand.  In this town German, French, and English newspapers were widely available.  Obviously a tourist town.

Calling in the Experts

Experts from Japan and California have been called to Italy to help advise with the reconstruction in Abruzzo.  It never hurts to get expert advice from various sources, but in fact Italy has scientists and experts about earthquakes who are as good as any in the world.  The issue is not:  what is the correct way to proceed; it is whether the Italians will do it.  Building codes with stronger standards have been successfully blocked by the construction industry for years. Even when new standards are finally put into force, they are often not obeyed. 

Lucky Bob

My church had a fund-raising Spring Fair.  One of the activities was a lottery for prizes.  As a Vestry member I was given a book of 12 lottery tickets that I had to sell. I don’t like asking my friends to buy such things, so I just bought 10 of the tickets myself at 2 Euro each. I ended up winning a box of six bottles of wine and a dinner for two at a restaurant in Florence.  Despite this run of good luck, I don’t plan to start playing the national lottery in Italy.

Here is a Little Known Italian Writer Who Did Notable and Groundbreaking Literary Work

The item below is from the April 20 edition of The Writer’s Almanac, a five-minute NPR show that is also available as a daily e mail message over the internet. It highlights each day important historical and literary facts of the date and also includes a poem.

It’s the birthday of the poet and satirist Pietro Aretino, born in Arezzo, Italy (1492). He wrote a set of 16 sonnets to accompanying the drawings of artist Giulio Romano, who had made a series of very beautiful and very pornographic images. Aretino’s “Sonetti Lussuriosi”; were very lewd and very popular. He is considered one of the inventors of modern pornographic literature. There wasn’t much money in pornography at the time, and so Aretino survived through patronage. People would pay him to write flattering stories about them, or write vicious satire about their enemies. He also wrote a version of Plato that was set in a brothel.

Understanding Your Medical Report

A friend went to the hospital for some X rays.  He got back, as always in Italy, both the X rays themselves and a report of findings from the radiologist.  The report had three short paragraphs noting areas where there were some abnormalities. The abnormality in each area was described with a different Italian word, but the three words used are quite similar in meaning in Italian. My friend did not know if these seemingly similar words have in fact different connotations in medical terminology. So he took the report to his physician.  The physician said the three words meant the same thing and that none of the abnormalities were significant.  My friend asked why the radiologist used three different words. His doctor replied “because in Italy we are taught in the writing class in school not to repeat the same word in close proximity.” As always in Italy, “style” is more important than anything else.

Golf Anyone?

The Province of Pistoia has one full golf course and a small course with 6 par 3 holes and 3 pitch and putt holes.  This province is about the size of Adams County, Pennsylvania where I lived and has more people than Adams County. There are about 11 golf courses that are all or in part in Adams County.  Because of its terrain, Italy does not have a lot of golf courses.  I spoke recently with the man who manages the little one near Pistoia. Pistoia is surrounded by large plant nurseries so it took local golf enthusiasts two years to get even enough land to build this tiny course. I suggested to the guy that he should look toward retirement in the USA.  For an Italian golf enthusiast living in the USA would be the same as a sexual pervert with a shoe fetish who landed a job in a woman’s shoe store.  It just doesn’t get any better.

True Help for Disaster Victims

Some news stories told of various places where victims of the earthquake were fed while they were without a home.  The stories were quick to point out that the menu included buffalo mozzarella that was sent to the afflicted area. In a time of trial, eating well is still important.

Somebody Has Got to be at Fault

I mentioned last week how Italians, in the face of a natural disaster, seem compelled to find somebody at fault (other than God). This tendency showed up again this week in another context.  The weather predictions for Easter Weekend uniformly forecast rain over much of Italy.  Consequently many Italians cancelled plans to go to the beach or fit in a last weekend of skiing. Easter was in fact clear and sunny.  Resort owners blamed the weatherman for their lost revenue and met to try to decide where they could apply to receive damages for lost income. They did decide against suing the weather service. I have no idea if they will be successful in finding money somewhere else. 

Selling Cars in a Bad Economy

Car sales are a little up in Italy due to large rebates, discounts, and zero % financing.  This does not help much the sellers of expensive high-end luxury cars.  Recently a man signed a contract to buy a $150,000 Ferrari.  The next day he sent a fax trying to cancel the contract. He claimed that the woman salesperson seduced him into the purchase. She gave him six shots of grappa and did a then striptease in front of him.  Maybe American car dealers need to use a little Italian ingenuity to help stimulate the economy.

Obama Family Dog

The puppy was shown on national evening news here. I have a friend who has had two Portuguese Water Dogs for years.  At least one group wishes that Obama had stayed with his original idea to get a pound dog. (There must be pound dogs that don’t shed hair so they are ok for an allergic child.) This group is the owners of Portuguese Water Dogs. They now see a higher risk of theft for their dogs plus strong possibility that the breed will become popular and then over bred.

A Good Use for Bad Goods

Often in Italy the police seize counterfeit designer clothes.  In nearby Prato there is trial involving 12,000 pieces of such goods. A local priest  has suggested to the court that the goods be given to the Church to be sent to missionaries in the third world to clothe people there. At first glace this seems to be an excellent idea. Still in might be wise to think a little more in the long term. In churches in Italy, and sometimes elsewhere, one commonly seems posters seeking funds to help  charitable efforts in the third world. Typically these show ill-fed and ill-dressed families.  Now I think the visual power and persuasiveness of these posters will decline if the folks are wearing clothes that say Prada or Georgio Armani.

San Vivaldo

This is the name of a monastery I visited recently.  I was told there are only two monks left. On the grounds are 18 little chapels. In each one is a ceramic statue or panel illustrating a scene from the life of Christ. Most were done in the 14^th and 15^th centuries.  Of course, the walls of Catholic churches used to be covered with frescoes illustrating Biblical stories and the lives of saints.  For these ceramics and the frescoes, the goal was to give an illustrated understanding of religious stories to a population that was illiterate. The little chapels at San Vivaldo are arranged in the same order as the buildings or outdoor locations in Jerusalem where the events shown on the panels actually took place.  So a visit to this site was not only instructive; it also provided a mini-pilgrimage for one who could not go to the Holy Land. San Vivaldo is one of many such mini-pilgrimage sites in Italy.

There were once 23 of these chapels, but five has gone to ruin over the years.  A huge problem in Italy is that the artistic patrimony is so large that maintaining it all seems almost impossible.

What is a Vibrant Democracy?

When I talk to Italians about their government and the one in the USA, they often point out that Italy has a much higher voter participation rate than the USA.  This is a good thing, and the laws in Italy certainly facilitate voter participation better than those in the USA. Still, of course, voter participation itself is not the criterion of a well functioning democracy. Totalitarian nations often have forced very high voter participation rates which they manipulate so as to pretend to be democracies. A much better gauge of a flourishing democratic government is the extent to which it responds to the needs and wishes of the people and operates without corruption. I am not one of those who believe the American government is the best functioning democracy in the world, but it certainly does better than the Italian government. When Italians cite the high rate of voter turnout as a big plus for their democracy, they are once again, in a very Italian way, looking more at the image than at the practical reality.

Musical Competitions

In the Italian musical world a staple is the regional and municipal musical competitions primarily for voice or solo instruments. These provide opportunities for musical growth and enhanced résumés for young musicians.  Pistoia this week is hosting an organ competition. Pistoia is known for its many historical organs.  The Opening Concert for the competition was held in a church with one of these organs, but now facing the old organ (I don’t know how well it functions) is a new one installed in 2007. The concert featured the organ music of the century prior to J. S. Bach and then ended with two Bach works. I am far from a musical critic, but it was clear in hearing these works how Bach surpassed his predecessors by producing works with complex intertwining of layers of sound.

Italy is known for its unsurpassed patrimony of visual arts, but in general there is a strong presence of all the arts in Italy.

The Earthquake

In the first response to such a tragedy, the Italian emergency aid system and the Italian public are at their best. (Italians were quite surprised at  the inefficient and ineffective response to Katrina in the USA.). Whatever disunity they may show otherwise, in the emotional response to tragedy, Italians are unified. In the United States you often hear immediate estimates of the monetary value of property destroyed in a catastrophe. In Italy this never is an initial concern. Here the total attention is on the numbers killed and injured and on rescue efforts to find survivors.

After the emergency response is over and there is the long term project of reconstruction, things may not go so well in Italy. As in the USA, it may depend upon the region. Whereas New Orleans is still not reconstructed, if a catastrophe like Katrina had hit Minneapolis, you can bet that the reconstruction would be much farther along in that city. Similarly in the central and north of Italy, reconstruction goes on much better than in the south.

As expected already there is discussion after the earthquake about recent buildings, supposedly earthquake resistant, that nevertheless collapsed. I have no faith in an earthquake resistant building in Italy or a hurricane resistant building in Florida. First, I think it is hard to know exactly how much force a building can resist. Second, I would never be sure that the construction, despite the claims, actually fully complied with the rules for a resistant building. Here is an easy place to cut corners and save money.

As I have noted before in Italy there is a much stronger impetus than in the USA to find somebody at fault when people die in what might be considered an accident or natural disaster. In the USA, people might try to sue to recover damages from somebody, but in Italy this desire to find somewhat at fault is not about money. It is about “justice”, that the person responsible for my son’s death is found guilty and punished. In fact, often the amount of the punishment is less important than the fact that someone is found guilty.

“Why is That Man Shouting”?

That was the question of Queen Elisabeth at the G20 meeting as she heard Premier Berlusconi yell “Mr. Obama, Mr. Obama” in an attempt to get the President’s attention. Berlusconi is often like a child. In fact his childish demeanor can at times be engaging. In terms of his personality, he is often difficult to dislike. My complaint would be that, like a child, he has almost no sense of what is morally or ethically appropriate to say. He doesn’t simply lie: he says things that are disgusting in their insensitivity. Clearly more Italians are amused than are disgusted by him.

At the Bar

A couple of weeks ago I ate lunch at a bar in Florence. At this bar, you take your canned drink from a cooler along the wall. Two weeks ago I asked a waitress, as I was standing by the bar with my Diet Coke bottle in my hand, for a glass with ice and a slice of lemon. She said this to the bartender who handed her these items. This week I was back in this bar again. I got my can from the cooler and walked up to the bar. Before I said anything, the bartender handed me a glass with lemon and ice in it. Just a small example of the high level of professionalism one often finds in bartenders in Italy.

Level of Italian Newspapers

I’ve never seen in Italy the weekly tabloid newspapers, with ridiculous headlines, that you see at supermarket check-out lines in the USA. I’ve never seen in Italy daily sensationalistic tabloid papers as you have in England and at least in New York with the New York Daily News. Italian papers are written at a higher literary level than those is the USA. Still sensationalistic stories are not absent. Within last two weeks I have seen stores about a pregnant 12 year old in Great Britain and a pregnant 13 year old in Germany. Hardly earth shaking news.

Speaking of Trite News Stories

With the Italians fascination with children, almost anything that happens within the school system can appear as a story in the media. An extreme example was the story on national television news last week of a teacher who fined a student 50 cents because the student refused to stop chewing bubble gum and making noise by popping the bubbles or cracking the gum.

Brief Political Update

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how some members in Parliament of the governing Center-Right coalition had refused to go along with a law proposed by that coalition concerning doctors and teachers reporting the names of illegal immigrants. Now this same thing has happened again. A law to make expulsion of illegal immigrants easier failed to pass the Parliament because of defections in the Center-Right group. I think when a group has a very narrow majority in Parliament, the pressures for the group to remain cohesive are higher than when the group has a large majority. The Center-Right has a large majority, and now fissures in that majority are starting to show.

The Earthquake

In the first response to such a tragedy, the Italian emergency aid system and the Italian public are at their best. (Italians were quite surprised at  the inefficient and ineffective response to Katrina in the USA.). Whatever disunity they may show otherwise, in the emotional response to tragedy, Italians are unified. In the United States you often hear immediate estimates of the monetary value of property destroyed in a catastrophe. In Italy this never is an initial concern. Here the total attention is on the numbers killed and injured and on rescue efforts to find survivors.

After the emergency response is over and there is the long term project of reconstruction, things may not go so well in Italy. As in the USA, it may depend upon the region. Whereas New Orleans is still not reconstructed, if a catastrophe like Katrina had hit Minneapolis, you can bet that the reconstruction would be much farther along in that city. Similarly in the central and north of Italy, reconstruction goes on much better than in the south.

As expected already there is discussion after the earthquake about recent buildings, supposedly earthquake resistant, that nevertheless collapsed. I have no faith in an earthquake resistant building in Italy or a hurricane resistant building in Florida. First, I think it is hard to know exactly how much force a building can resist. Second, I would never be sure that the construction, despite the claims, actually fully complied with the rules for a resistant building. Here is an easy place to cut corners and save money.

As I have noted before in Italy there is a much stronger impetus than in the USA to find somebody at fault when people die in what might be considered an accident or natural disaster. In the USA, people might try to sue to recover damages from somebody, but in Italy this desire to find somewhat at fault is not about money. It is about “justice”, that the person responsible for my son’s death is found guilty and punished. In fact, often the amount of the punishment is less important than the fact that someone is found guilty.

“Why is That Man Shouting”?

That was the question of Queen Elisabeth at the G20 meeting as she heard Premier Berlusconi yell “Mr. Obama, Mr. Obama” in an attempt to get the President’s attention. Berlusconi is often like a child. In fact his childish demeanor can at times be engaging. In terms of his personality, he is often difficult to dislike. My complaint would be that, like a child, he has almost no sense of what is morally or ethically appropriate to say. He doesn’t simply lie: he says things that are disgusting in their insensitivity. Clearly more Italians are amused than are disgusted by him.

At the Bar

A couple of weeks ago I ate lunch at a bar in Florence. At this bar, you take your canned drink from a cooler along the wall. Two weeks ago I asked a waitress, as I was standing by the bar with my Diet Coke bottle in my hand, for a glass with ice and a slice of lemon. She said this to the bartender who handed her these items. This week I was back in this bar again. I got my can from the cooler and walked up to the bar. Before I said anything, the bartender handed me a glass with lemon and ice in it. Just a small example of the high level of professionalism one often finds in bartenders in Italy.

Level of Italian Newspapers

I’ve never seen in Italy the weekly tabloid newspapers, with ridiculous headlines, that you see at supermarket check-out lines in the USA. I’ve never seen in Italy daily sensationalistic tabloid papers as you have in England and at least in New York with the New York Daily News. Italian papers are written at a higher literary level than those is the USA. Still sensationalistic stories are not absent. Within last two weeks I have seen stores about a pregnant 12 year old in Great Britain and a pregnant 13 year old in Germany. Hardly earth shaking news.

Speaking of Trite News Stories

With the Italians fascination with children, almost anything that happens within the school system can appear as a story in the media. An extreme example was the story on national television news last week of a teacher who fined a student 50 cents because the student refused to stop chewing bubble gum and making noise by popping the bubbles or cracking the gum.

Brief Political Update

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how some members in Parliament of the governing Center-Right coalition had refused to go along with a law proposed by that coalition concerning doctors and teachers reporting the names of illegal immigrants. Now this same thing has happened again. A law to make expulsion of illegal immigrants easier failed to pass the Parliament because of defections in the Center-Right group. I think when a group has a very narrow majority in Parliament, the pressures for the group to remain cohesive are higher than when the group has a large majority. The Center-Right has a large majority, and now fissures in that majority are starting to show.

The Earthquake

In the first response to such a tragedy, the Italian emergency aid system and the Italian public are at their best. (Italians were quite surprised and the inefficient and ineffective response to Katrina in the USA.). Whatever disunity they may show otherwise, in the emotional response to tragedy, Italians are unified. In the United States you often hear immediate estimates of the monetary value of property destroyed in a catastrophe. In Italy this never is an initial concern. Here the total attention is on the numbers killed and injured and on rescue efforts to find survivors.

After the emergency response is over and there is the long term project of reconstruction, things may not go so well in Italy. As in the USA, it may depend upon the region. Whereas New Orleans is still not reconstructed, if a catastrophe like Katrina had hit Minneapolis, you can bet that the reconstruction would be much farther along in that city. Similarly in the central and north of Italy, reconstruction goes on much better than in the south.

As expected already there is discussion after the earthquake about recent buildings, supposedly earthquake resistant, that nevertheless collapsed. I have no faith in an earthquake resistant building in Italy or a hurricane resistant building in Florida. First, I think it is hard to know exactly how much force a building can resist. Second, I would never be sure that the construction, despite the claims, actually fully complied with the rules for a resistant building. Here is an easy place to cut corners and save money.

As I have noted before in Italy there is a much stronger impetus than in the USA to find somebody at fault when people die in what might be considered an accident or natural disaster. In the USA, people might try to sue to recover damages from somebody, but in Italy this desire to find somewhat at fault is not about money. It is about “justice”, that the person responsible for my son’s death is found guilty and punished. In fact, often the amount of the punishment is less important than the fact that someone is found guilty.

“Why is That Man Shouting”?

That was the question of Queen Elisabeth at the G20 meeting as she heard Premier Berlusconi yell “Mr. Obama, Mr. Obama” in an attempt to get the President’s attention. Berlusconi is often like a child. In fact his childish demeanor can at times be engaging. In terms of his personality, he is often difficult to dislike. My complaint would be that, like a child, he has almost no sense of what is morally or ethically appropriate to say. He doesn’t simply lie: he says things that are disgusting in their insensitivity. Clearly more Italians are amused than are disgusted by him.

At the Bar

A couple of weeks ago I ate lunch at a bar in Florence. At this bar, you take your canned drink from a cooler along the wall. Two weeks ago I asked a waitress, as I was standing by the bar with my Diet Coke bottle in my hand, for a glass with ice and a slice of lemon. She said this to the bartender who handed her these items. This week I was back in this bar again. I got my can from the cooler and walked up to the bar. Before I said anything, the bartender handed me a glass with lemon and ice in it. Just a small example of the high level of professionalism one often finds in bartenders in Italy.

Level of Italian Newspapers

I’ve never seen in Italy the weekly tabloid newspapers, with ridiculous headlines, that you see at supermarket check-out lines in the USA. I’ve never seen in Italy daily sensationalistic tabloid papers as you have in England and at least in New York with the New York Daily News. Italian papers are written at a higher literary level than those is the USA. Still sensationalistic stories are not absent. Within last two weeks I have seen stores about a pregnant 12 year old in Great Britain and a pregnant 13 year old in Germany. Hardly earth shaking news.

Speaking of Trite News Stories

With the Italians fascination with children, almost anything that happens within the school system can appear as a story in the media. An extreme example was the story on national television news last week of a teacher who fined a student 50 cents because the student refused to stop chewing bubble gum and making noise by popping the bubbles or cracking the gum.

Brief Political Update

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how some members in Parliament of the governing Center-Right coalition had refused to go along with a law proposed by that coalition concerning doctors and teachers reporting the names of illegal immigrants. Now this same thing has happened again. A law to make expulsion of illegal immigrants easier failed to pass the Parliament because of defections in the Center-Right group. I think when a group has a very narrow majority in Parliament, the pressures for the group to remain cohesive are higher than when the group has a large majority. The Center-Right has a large majority, and now fissures in that majority are starting to show.

Used Car Fraud

The American phrase “would you buy a used card from this guy?” tells that in the USA used car salesmen are not held in the highest esteem. The headline on local paper revealed a fraudulent scheme by which used car dealers were setting back the odometers on cars so they appeared to have been driven fewer kilometers. This is hardly a new scam anywhere. If I bought a used car in Italy, I would not be certain that the mileage on the odometer had been set back, but I certainly would not be betting my entire fortune on the odometer being correct. This was true even before I read the article in the newspaper

Does the Name “Helmut Lang” Mean Anything to You?

It meant nothing to me when I saw it on a quite elegant jacket on a used clothes table at semi-weekly Pistoia market. It was a new garment with price tag still on it. The size was 44 which is equal to a men’s size 34 in the USA. I have no male friends that small. In fact, I have few friends who are still working so that they wear a business jacket. At size 44, however, this item might well fit some women I know and it was very appropriate for women’s business wear. So I purchased it. I could not resist because the price tag said 748 Euro which is about $1000. I got it for 5 Euro, and sent it off to a lady friend in the USA who still works in an office. I then looked up Helmut Lang on the Internet. He is an Austrian designer who has a partnership with Prada. Now, of course, there is a chance that the jacket is simply a knock-off (made in China?), but it looks good, and at 5 Euro you can hardly be swindled.

Italian vs. American Attitude toward Business

An Italian I know is starting a personal business installing things like security systems in private homes. He has printed up some brochures. Someone suggested to him that he leave a few of these in a popular bar where the owner allows people to set out advertising brochures. He replied that he did now want to do so because he does not like the owner of the bar. Now he has every right to like or dislike whom he pleases, but I don’t think the typical American, seeking customers for his business, would allow his personal opinion of the owner of the bar to influence the decision to leave some advertising there when the brochures might stir up some business. In Italy the emotional is always closer to the surface than in the USA.

Another Item on Business in USA and Italy –the Restaurant Business

My American friend who is half owner of a pizza and grill restaurant in Pistoia had a small fire in the exhaust hood over the grill. Smoke but no damage to the restaurant. Before you can start the grill again it has to be approved by the fire department and the health dept. To get the part and repair grill was easy, but getting bureaucratic clearance is not. The restaurant was opened four years ago. Now there are new rules with which it has to comply because the fire triggered a new inspection. Meanwhile, the income is being lost from grilling meat which is better than the income from making pizzas.

The owner tells me that one can start a restaurant in Italy with a lot less capital than in the USA. Once you get started, however, the bureaucracy and taxes in Italy are a lot more burdensome than in the USA.

Political Update

The center-right governing coalition seems to be growing stronger while the center-left opposition group is struggling. As I’ve noted before one could reasonably vote for Berlusconi and his center-right group on the grounds that it is better than the opposition, but the center-right does little to address the major problems of Italy. Italy needs a government that is more than simply less bad than the alternative. Berlusconi is a master of using image and ignoring substance.

Here is one of many examples. In Italy, as elsewhere, there are limitations for home owners on how much of their lot can be used to construct the home. The limitations on building in Italy are generally more severe than in the USA. Many Italians would like to be able to add onto their house without a great bureaucratic tangle. Berlusconi proposed a law to eliminate many restrictions and make this process simpler. This would also help the construction industry. At the very beginning of the discussion of this law, I asked a friend whether the restrictions on land usage were primarily a local and regional matter as they are in the USA and many other nations. I was told “yes.” Guess what – this proposal of Berlusconi is discussed ad nauseum in the media. Finally it is withdrawn because the regions and municipalities oppose it as an infringement on their authority. I’m not even sure the national government has the power to pass such a law. Berlusconi looks like a hero to average Italian for proposing something I am sure he too knew could not be done. The best thing to read to understand Italy is – the children’s story, “The Emperor Has No Clothes.”

The idea is not quite dead, but it has been referred now to the regional and local governments where it should have begun

You Know the American Auto Business is in BIG TROUBLE…

…when you have to turn to an Italian company to bailout Chrysler.

New Food Regulations

I’ve mentioned before that in Italy any drink that says Orange in its name must have at least 12% orange juice in it. This is one of many rules guaranteeing genuine food. Now the European Union has issued uniform rules in this area which are very lax. For example, an Orange drink can have no orange juice. Now Italian food makers can still follow the old Italian rules, but in Italy imported food items from other EU nations no longer need to comply with these rules.

Italian TV Catches Up

For the first time on Italian TV I have seen instant subtitles of programs, such as sports events and news programs that are not pre-recorded. I assume this system uses some kind of computer voice recognition software. In the USA at times, with such a system, the subtitle has the wrong word if the computer did not exactly understand what the person said. I haven’t noted this problem in Italy. It may be better software, but it is also the case, that Italians pronounce words more clearly and distinctly than do Americans. This is partly due to the fact that in Italian there are very few silent letters in words.

Solving a Marital Problem, Italian Style

Occasionally I remember seeing in personal advice newspaper columns in the USA, letters about a spouse who had become a computer addict. Sometimes the spouse was accessing porn sites or entering chat rooms with personal of the other sex. The Italians have added a new verb to their language – “chattare” which means to chat on the Internet. I discovered this new verb in a story in the news about a Sicilian who was upset because his wife chatted with other men on Internet. He did not write to an Italian Ann Landers — he just cut his wife’s throat. Initially his 15 year-old son confessed to the murder because the boy did not want his younger sister to be without a parent, but it soon became apparent who the real killer was.