thisweekinitaly.com

Mini Cars

I wrote once about the mini cars in Italy that are so small and low powered that one can drive them without a driver’s license. I thought this was stupid because, for example, an older person who lost his driver’s license when he no longer could pass the required vision and hearing test could still drive one of these cars. It turns out that a bigger problem is at the other end of the age spectrum. Young kids get these cars, which cannot go over 45 mph, and then have the engines modified so the cars go almost as fast as any other. There have been some recent fatal accidents with these cars which is  causing a national discussion about them.

Family Fatalities

Italy has the highest rate in Europe of murders within the family. They are constantly in the news.  Although I did not see a similar statistic for murders between ex spouses or ex lovers, I am fairly certain Italy will rate high here too if not at the top. Usually it is a man who kills his ex wife or ex lover and sometimes some other family members if not a few bystanders. Of course, the overall murder rate in Italy is far lower than in the USA. Stranger murders, e.g. a drive by shooting or a killing during an armed robbery, also seem to be much less common in Italy than in the USA. So if you want to avoid being murdered in Italy, the key is to stay out of the world of romance and marriage.

To many the violence against women in the murders of wives and lovers is one thing and the general sexist, highly masculine, character of Italian culture (exemplified by Silvio Berlusconi but obviously not caused by him) is another thing.  I believe that are closely connected.

Soccer Fan Violence

A few years ago I wrote about a  new plan to control access to soccer stadiums and to identify who was sitting where in such stadiums as a means to control violence within them. This plan may have had some success.  I noted that unfortunately a lot of the violence took place outside the stadiums as people were going to and from the games (even violence at rest stops on the Autostada).  This kind of violence continues and again is getting front page coverage. Because the venues are so widespread, and the Italians are adverse to strong police measures, this will simply be an ongoing problem.

Petty Theft

I’ve written before that petty crime seems quite diffuse in Italy. One way of saying it is thieves will steal anything that is not nailed down. An article in Pistoia paper this week illustrated this fact.  Two Romanians (In Italy they identify the ethnicity of the criminals.) climbed a garden wall and made off with two land turtles that lived there. A neighbor saw this and called the police.  The turtlenappers were caught red handed with the loot in a plastic bag. Animal lovers will be happy to know that the turtles are now back again slowly moving around the garden.

I Keep Thanking the Greeks

They keep driving the value of the Euro down so my income in dollars is worth more in Italy.   Hey, the Spaniards are helping a bit too.  Let’s give a slight nod to the Portuguese. When Standard and Poor’s downgraded the rating of Greek bonds, they fell to what we call “junk bond” level in the USA.  The Italian translation for this level, however, uses a word that means rubbish, trash, or garbage.  So the Greek bonds look even worse here.

Long Time Fugitives

In Italy they often arrest Mafia fugitives who have been on the “most wanted” list for 10, 15, or 20 years.  One was arrested this week in Southern Italy after 17 years.  He has been convicted of murders and other crimes. As the police took him into the station, a crowd of his friends and relatives was in front of the station applauding him yelling that he is a “man of peace.”  Now this clearly is not the view of the whole population of the city, but that this could happen at all tells you how  entrenched  the Mafia is in the culture of southern Italy.

Free Dinners

I wrote about my restaurant owning friends who were offering two free diners to folks they called at random if the people would come within 20 minutes. Nobody was accepting their offer.  One problem was that Italians are not “spur of the moment” type of folks, especially about dinner.  There is another problem.  Italians over the telephone and through other means are bombarded with free or almost free offers that turn out to have a hidden cost.  So they quite reasonably are suspicious of anything offered as fully free even when, as in this case, it is not a trick.

It’s Hot, but the Calendar Says it’s April

It is difficult to pick clothes to wear in spring and fall when temperatures can vary considerably. I think most Italians dress according to the calendar. If it is 73 degrees at 9 am on a day in April, they still wear a coat because it is April.  If there is a rare 65 degree day in January, many ladies will still be wearing a fur coat.

Problems of American University Programs in Italy

I have a friend who has headed American university programs in Italy. I went to meet him in Perugia at a meeting of the association of such programs.  As I’ve noted before, the excessive drinking by American college students has become a problem, especially in Florence and Rome. I discovered, however, that in disciplining errant students the programs are inhibited by the fact that when a student is apprehended by the police for disruptive, drunken, behavior, this is not a public record in Italy, and the student’s name cannot be released to the University.  In such a situation students are issued what we call a citation in the USA (not arrested) and told to appear in court at a certain time. With the slow Italian justice system, the student has finished studying abroad and is back in the USA before the court date arrives.

New Kind of Child Abuse – Too Much Love

A mother and grandmother were given prison sentences (I doubt the sentences will hold up on appeal.) for smothering the development of the child with too much love.  They did everything for him so the child did not walk until age 7.  He is now 12, He is afraid to climb stairs. He is afraid to eat with his classmates at school. I’m sure there were a lot of other examples of his arrested development. Such a case could happen everywhere.  It is not typical anywhere. Still the distance between normal parental concern and oversight and a perverse smothering of the child is less far in Italy than elsewhere.

Hippie Enclave

When I helped out in the English classes at the small school in the hills north of Pistoia, I discovered that a few of the students were from the hippie community in this area called Elfi. Often these students don’t even come to school until age 10 at which point they are well behind the other students. Their standards of cleanliness are a little below par so the teacher sometimes opens the windows to deal with the odor.  One reason they eventually come to school is that to get a driver’s license in Italy your must have completed a certain number of school years.  I actually could not have identified the students in the classes that were from this Elfi community if the teacher did not tell me who they were. These particular students did not respond when I asked them questions in class, but many others did not respond either.

School Lunch Sensation

As an introduction to the story below I should note that parents who cannot afford to pay for school lunches for their children call apply to the school to get the lunches provided for free as we do in the USA. The tactic used below probably was successful in getting delinquent parents to pay, but it caused a big outcry in Italy.  Anything that appears to “harm” children in any way will be very controversial in Italy.

Vicenza – March 23, 2010 – School children in a small northern Italian town have been put “on bread and water” because their parents haven’t paid lunch money, the Italian media reported Tuesday.
Nine elementary kids (seven foreigners and two Italians) got sandwiches to eat and water to drink instead of pasta, hamburgers and soft drinks at Montecchio Maggiore near Vicenza Monday.
The town’s education chief, Barbara Ventura, denied the various ‘bread and water’ reports, stressing: “It wasn’t a piece of bread, but panini with ham, or cheese for those that can’t eat pork”.
“It’s not right to dodge the fees, out of respect for those who are in economic trouble but still manage to pay them,” she added.
School Principal Anna Maria Lucantoni said: “Giving kids a bit of bread is an insult. If we’d known in time we would have had a collection”.
“It would have been worse if the other kiddies hadn’t decided to share their pasta with zucchini, burgers, salad and fruit”.
But center-right Mayor Milena Cecchetto said: “The school was informed, as were the parents”.
“Rules are rules and have to be upheld. If these nine families really can’t afford it, the council will fork out”.
She said the town was already helping some 80 “indigent” families who had been able to prove their inability to pay.
An Italian consumers’ group, Aduc, called on Interior Minister Roberto Maroni to dissolve the town council “for child abuse and civic indignity”.
Aduc President Vincenzo Donvito said: “This council should be sent packing and a new one elected, just like administrations involved in criminal activity”.

You Can Never Become a Native

When you move to another country, you can keep up with current culture, but it is impossible to accumulate all the cultural background of those who has lived there all their life.  A really big story in Italy last week was the death at age 87 of Raimundo Vianello. I had never heard of him. He was a very important comic and actor in the first three decades of Italian television. After his death there were lots of clips of his TV appearances. When Bob Hope died a few years ago, his passing was noted in the Italian media, but few Italians, if any, understood his place in American show business. You can move to Italy (This applies for any country.), learn the language, read the history, etc. but you really can never become a 100% Italian.  There are holes that can’t be filled.

Life’s Little Frustrations in Italy

On Friday a friend was coming to see me in Pistoia from Florence. Somebody told me that there was to be a one day train and bus strike on Friday.  This does not mean that no trains run, but trains outside of rush hour are likely to be cancelled.  I warned my friend. On Wednesday an article was in the newspaper that the unions had called off the strike because of the general chaos in the transportation system caused by the closing of airports. Thursday night I was at a dinner in Florence and went to get on the 10:25 bus to Pistoia. It was unusually crowded. I then discovered that the train strike was back on again. When I got home at 11:45 I sent a text message to my friend warning her (again) that train service might be curtailed the next day.

How Low Can You Go?

I am reminded of this old line from the Limbo dance when I read some of the pronouncements of Silvio Belusconi.  Recently he said this about Mercedes Bresso, a center-left politician in northern Italy.  “You know why Bresso in always in a bad mood?  Because in the morning when she gets up she looks at herself in the mirror to put on her make-up and she sees herself, her day is already ruined.”  He has made similar remarks before about the ugly appearance of women on the other side of the political fence.  Of course this is not a problem in his party where he puts ex showgirls, ex strippers, and former half dressed TV hostesses in key positions.

All this raises an interesting question. Let’s say you favor the policies and programs of one of the two sides in the political sphere. You vote for the candidates of that side including the person for the highest position. What, if anything, could that person do that is so embarrassing, that you would at least call for a change of leadership in the majority party? If the leader appeared in public frequently in his underwear, would that be enough?   If he said he believed the earth is flat, would that tip the scale?  In the USA, if a President resigns as Nixon did, he is succeeded by another member of his party. So abandoning the leader is not turning the government over to the opposition. This too would be true in Italy. In Italy, however, the two major parties of the ruling coalition were both founded by their current leaders (Berlusconi and Bossi) and are in effect the “personal property” of those leaders.  So it is hard to see how there could be a revolt within either of these parties to force a change in leadership.  More importantly, it appears that the things that Berlusconi says and does that seem ridiculous to the rest of the world do not in fact bother a majority of Italians.

Prisoner Rehabilitation – Italian Style

In Italy some Mafia figures have become witnesses against the Mafia in order to get a better deal after their arrest and conviction. One of these, while in prison, took up painting. In Rome there is currently an exhibition of his works. He is no longer in prison. He also was not present for the opening of his exhibition – he lives in northern Italy with a new name and identity (and probably some plastic surgery on his face). He may want to sell some paintings, but he doesn’t want any personal publicity.

Fines for No Ticket on the Train

I wrote last week about the rules for validating your ticket before you get on the train. I was on a train where a passenger, a Chinese immigrant, did not have his ticket validated. The conductor first asked for a document so he could issue a fine. The immigrant either did not understand or pretended not to do so. Thus it was impossible to issue a fine. So then the conductor said the man would have to pay the 40 Euro fine immediately or be turned over to the police. The conductor even made a phone call to which there appeared to be no answer. I think the immigrant knew very well that the police were not going to come to the train station (at 10:30 pm) to deal with some guy without a ticket. (There are special train police, but these are present only at the largest stations.) Sure enough the man without a validated ticket simply got off the train at his stop and walked away. It would be interesting to know (1) the percentage of fines issued by railroad conductors that are in fact paid, and (2) the percentage of such fines given to non Italian citizens that are paid.

Visiting a Middle School

I helped a friend who teaches English with three of her classes at a middle school in a small town in the hills above Pistoia. Although the textbooks in Italian schools are more advanced that what I have seen in the USA and the grades are not so inflated, the students are not particularly diligent. Given the very indulgent attitude toward children in Italy, it is not surprising that in general the students are not well disciplined. My friend tells me that in Italy, as in the USA, very few students are held back in school –social promotion is the rule. A few of the students in the three classes I taught had an English speaking parent. So the class was simple for them. One student whose English was obviously better had been at school in Germany for two years. As I’ve noted before, the German schools are superior to the Italian ones. One student of Moroccan descent had developed fairly good facility in English from paying attention to the English videogames he played on his Playstation.

Coffee Machines

Some readers wrote to tell me that the one shot coffee machines I wrote about last week are now common in the USA, either for espresso or for regular coffee. When I worked in an office, there was a general coffee pot for everyone. Once when I was visiting Chicago about 15 years ago, I was in an elevator in a large office building. Two secretaries were talking. They were going out to Starbucks and Seattle Coffee Company to get coffees for their bosses. The talked about the particular types of coffee each boss liked (e.g. double latte decaffeinated). I thought to myself — is this a good use of employee time? Now maybe, with the new machines, the boss can get the highly sophisticated and particular coffee he wants just by his secretary putting the right capsule in the machine.

One reader noted that the little capsules from the coffee machine now are a new type of non recyclable garbage replacing whereas the coffee grounds from the moka were not.

The Shroud of Turin

It went on display in Turin just a little after I left the city. Huge crowds are coming to see it. Maybe someday scientists will be able to accurately date the age of the cloth. To me none of this matters. The simple fact is that nobody knows what Jesus’ face looked like so that no face on a cloth can be said to represent or not represent His face. Over the centuries European artists developed a conventional portrayal of Jesus’ face. It is no surprise that this face is probably much more “European” and much less “Middle Eastern Semitic” than Jesus’ actual face was. If folks draw religious inspiration from the Shroud, fine. If folks are curious as to whether the Shroud actually shows a face and how this happened, fine. People, however, who think this garment has real, important, religious meaning live in a different religious universe than I do.

Sorry Ladies

It turns out that the story about the rift between George Clooney and his fiancé over George’s devotion to playing poker was in fact a ruse perpetrating by the owner of an on line poker site. Of course many still believe that George will not walk down the aisle with her or anyone else. My advice (in poker terms), don’t fold your hand yet but , on the other hand, I would not raise the bet.

Hubbub About Busses

The local bus company redid most of its bus routes. Are the new ones better, worse, or the same in convenience than the old ones? Who knows? What was totally predictable and, of course, did happen is that there was a big public protest over the change. The bus drivers went on a one-day strike in support of those protesting. Since every change of this type in Italy is met with public protest, one can never easily determine if the change is an improvement or a step backward

Using the Law to Vindicate Honor

Here is another example of a practice I have noted before. In 1991 a ferry boat near Livorno collided with another ship. The death toll was 140. In Italy when such an accident occurs, there is an immediate investigation by the authorities. There does not seem to be an immediate rash of law suits by the families of the victims (as in the USA) although such suits may follow the conclusion of the investigation. In Italy, such accidents lead to criminal charges more often than in the USA. I don’t know what the investigation found 19 years ago, but now a second one is being opened. I assume that the first one did not satisfy the families of the victims who have formed an association. After 19 years, even if somebody is now held to be responsible, I doubt that either civil damages or criminal penalties will now occur. So why the investigation? The reason is that for the families it is a matter of dishonor that the truth about the deaths of their loved ones has never been declared.

  NOTE THIS IS AN EARLIER POST THAT IS BEING REPOSTED BECAUSE IT WAS NOT POSTED IN ORDER BELOW

This Week in Italy 363

On Turning 70 this Month

In Biblical lore (see Psalm 90) three score years and ten was a long, full life, although few people lived that long. Today life expectancy is closer to 80 than 70, but still 70 years can be seen as a full life. If someone dies at 70 or 71, few call it a premature death.

So I like to think of the years after 70 as overtime, extra time, etc. It is a gift of a longer life that remains a gift so long as one remains in decent shape physically and mentally. One did not earn it. One is not entitled to it. If it lasts a long time, that is nice. If it doesn’t, there is no reason to complain.

Medical problems multiply as one grows older. Some of thee problems only lead to discomfort; others are potentially mortal. Naturally one wants to remain comfortable. If ones general physical and mental health is good, one likes to go on living. Still to me “pulling all the stops” simply to extend life, regardless of its quality, is a losing proposition. Once a serious, terminal illness arrives on the scene, in general the extensive, expensive, efforts to squeeze out a little more time (while still remaining ill) are a waste.

In short, after 70 you should, as much as possible, enjoy living (as I most certainly do) while, at the same time, being ready to move on without a lot of extraordinary efforts to the contrary.

Being the Translator

I went to a puppet show put on by The Forman Brothers, two brothers of famous Czech film Director Milos Forman. They put on a puppet version of a Czech Baroque Comic Opera. Only one of them spoke English. So to introduce the show (in a very small theater) one brother spoke in Czech, a second translated into English, and I ( as a volunteer from the audience) then translated into Italian. Fortunately it was all very simple language.

The Wrong Personality to Live in Italy

In one sense Italy is a bad match for me. I am very absent minded and inattentive to what is going on around me. Thus I am the perfect sucker for the endemic petty crime in Italy. I have had my pocket picked more times than I care to admit. I have had my credit cards stolen once. The latest episode was a little more complex. A man asked me if I had two 50 cent pieces for a Euro. He wanted change to use a public phone. I took out my wallet. While I held the wallet in one hand, I used the other hand to look in the change purse section of it for the needed coins. The wallet was never out of my eyesight not out of my hand. Still the guy managed to get his hand in and steal a lot of bills. Rather than getting angry, the better response is to admire his dexterity.

The McItaly

I purchased one of these McDonald’s creations made totally from Italian ingredients (certified so by national department of agriculture). It wasn’t bad; it was nothing special. Italian wheat, onions, lettuce, and beef are not better than those in the USA. Italian cheese can be much better, but is not necessarily so. So the Italian ingredients did not per se in this case guarantee a higher level of quality. The other key element in the Italian cuisine, high level of care in the preparation of the food, does not apply to fast food objects. So what best about Italian food doesn’t translate into the McItaly.

The Continuing Story of the Election Snafu

To my surprise, there is not yet a resolution that allows the candidates of the PDL (Berlusconi’s party) to appear on the ballot in Rome and Lazio even though the election papers were filed late.

It seems clear that the guy who was to file the papers arrived at the correct office in time. Then he left the building for a while and returned too late. He has given various stories as to why he left: to get a coffee, to take his daughter to school, to pursue an argument with a person of a different party. Another version is that the party called him out of the line to make some final adjustments to the list. Had nobody noticed he came back too late, I am sure the papers could have been stamped with an earlier time, but somebody did notice. So now the lateness was obvious and could not be denied.

What nobody here seems to realize was that this was not a case of exceptional incompetence of an unheard of sort. Instead it was a case of the rampant inefficiency and lack of punctuality in Italy. This time it could not be ignored or covered over as it almost always is. So we have a national political controversy.

Web Site Woes

After an absence of over a month, my web site www.thisweekinitaly.com is again on line. I had to change servers for the site because somebody hacked into the site on the old server and sent spam from it. I could not stop this, and the server terminated my contract because of the spam. I hope it does not happen again.

Passion Prevails over Prudence

A couple in Milan were arrested for making love in a cash machine booth along the street. Their defense was that they thought the glass of the booth obscured people looking in from the outside. Although it is possible that the glass may have done so, the prudent thing to do would have been to look through the glass into the booth before they entered it. I guess that passion sometimes obscures the scientific spirit in people to test a hypothesis.

One for Sherlock Holmes

In 1990 a young woman was murdered in Italy. In such a case the most immediate suspect is always the husband, boyfriend, ex husband, or ex boyfriend. In this case it was the boyfriend. The medical report indicated that the woman was killed about 4 pm. The boyfriend could prove that he was elsewhere at that time. So the case against him was dropped. Now he is being charged again with the crime. A new medical report has determined that the death may have occurred one or two hours before 4 pm? How do you get a more accurate estimate of the time of death 20 years later?

Another Example of Comparative Politics in USA and Italy

Last year there was the tape recording of Silvio Berlusconi talking to the high priced prostitute about her sleeping earlier with Vladimir Putin and now with him. Hardly a ripple in Italy. It seems that everybody’s phone calls are tapped here. So this week there was a tape of Silvio talking to the head of one of the three public TV networks and telling him to get rid of a TV talk show host who had been critical of Berlusconi. (You may recall that the three public networks each has an acknowledged different political slant from more conservative to more liberal – naturally the critical TV show as on the more leftist network). This will not cause any permanent controversy. I don’t know if Italy has a procedure to impeach the President of the Council, but it is hard to imagine what a politician would have to do to invoke the process – kill his mother and then spit on her grave?

Being Up and Being Down in Italy

One local paper has a column where each day two people are featured – one with an up arrow and the other with a down arrow. Then there is a very short statement of the positive news for the person with the up arrow and the opposite for the other. Recently Kathryn Bigelow got an up arrow. Naturally it mentioned that she had won the Academy Award for best director but then cited too other facts that put her in a positive light – still very sexy at age 58 and living with a younger man.

This Week in Italy 366

A Probably Inevitable Development

Almost daily it seems that the number of Nigerian street merchant/beggars increase in Pistoia. These folks offer for sale handkerchiefs, cigarette lighters, socks, etc. If you don’t want to buy anything, they ask you for money to eat. Recently Nigerian woman have begun to show up; before all of these merchant/beggars were men. In newspaper this week was an article that some of these women offer an additional product – sex.

Extraordinary Italian Efficiency

I have mentioned before that in accommodating the extraordinary crowds at the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the Italians showed a remarkable degree of planning and efficiency. Someone told me that a few years after the funeral a delegation of Germans came to Rome to learn from the Italians about their methods of administering the funeral because an event was imminent in Germany with potential problems of an excessively large attendance. The idea of the Germans seeking advice from the Italians in such a context is counter intuitive. As I noted at the time of the funeral, however, if something is considered sufficiently important in Italy, the Italians can be quite well organized and efficient. The problem is never lack of ability; it is simply that very few things are deemed so important as to require a coordinated, efficient response.

Unique (at least for Italy) Advertising Idea

At my favorite Pistoia pizza place, where one of the owners is an American from Massachusetts, they are trying something new in promotion. Every night they call a local phone number or two at random. They tell the folks that if they arrive at the restaurant within 20 minutes, they will receive two full free dinners that night. (The restaurant offers a grilled meat menu and side dishes as well as pizza.). Of the first 60 calls, how many free dinners did they have to provide? Zero. Those called said “we’ve already eaten” or “we already have dinner plans, “etc. Italians are generally traditionalists and creatures of habit. “Spur of the Moment” is simply not the Italian style—especially when it concerns something as crucial as food. The fact that the restaurant is serving few, if any, free meals does not mean the venture is a failure – it may well stir up discussion and curiosity about the place among those called and their friends.

Where Do You Find a Quick Summary of the Day’s News?

Some Italian newspapers have a “The News in Two Minutes” column in which the major stories of the day get about two sentences each. Other papers have, at the head of some stories, a quick review of prior stages in the story’s development, but this is not frequent. My friend the author about Italy Linda Falcone (Italians Dance and I’m a Wallflower and If They Are Roses) recently confessed on her Facebook page that she reads the daily sports gazette which is Italy’s largest selling paper. She has not become a soccer diehard; instead she reads the three pages near the end of each issue titled “Other Worlds.” These three pages probably have the best daily news summary in Italy.

Troubles with the Train –Part I

I wrote a while back how, in Italy, if one of the top express trains is sufficiently late, the passenger gets partial refund of the ticket. It used to be a refund was available when the train was 30 minutes or more late; now it must be an hour or more late. I was on a train that arrived 61 minutes late – for a trip that is scheduled for 37 minutes. I went to get the refund about a month later. The clerk checked the tickets and said that the train on that day had been only 55 minutes late. I said that was not true. I have a fully accurate watch and the train stopped at the platform 61 minutes late. The clerk said that may well have been true, but the time of arrival of the train is calculated not when it stops in the station but when it passes a sensor located at the farthest reaches of the station property (which could be, for example, a half of a mile from the station platform). Of course this sensor could be correctly located at the platform in the station itself, but that means fewer trains would be on time within the stated limits. Example 1001 of a type of institutional dishonesty that is rampant in Italy.

Troubles with the Train – Part II

Before you get on a regional train, you have to stamp your ticket in a machine to validate it with the date and time. The reason is that tickets are often not collected on the train. If you did not stamp the ticket in the machine and it was not collected, you could use it another time. If you get on the train without validating your ticket, you can go to the train conductor and tell him or her that you forgot to do so. He or she will then validate the ticket manually. If, on the other hand, the conductor comes to ask for the ticket and it is not validated, you are subject to a fine.

It turns out that the fine also applies even if you go to the conductor (before he or she arrives in your car) to confess that you forgot to validate the ticket and get him or her to do so. The fine apples, but is not collected because at this point the conductor knows you are not trying to ride the train with a non validated ticket that you hope to use again.

After I got on a train, I immediately realized I had forgotten to validate my ticket and went to find the conductor. When I found her, she was in an argument with two Romanian passengers. She had asked for their tickets and found them to be not validated. Thus she was giving them a fine. The fine could have been up to 40 Euro, but she was assessing only the lower 5 Euro fine. They were still quite unhappy. I then presented my ticket. She could not easily waive the fine for me (as is typical) while giving the fine to the Romanians for a similar (not quite the same because they had not sought her out) offense. So for the first time ever, I had to pay a 5 Euro fine even thought I notified the conductor in advance that my ticket needed to be validated. It turns out the conductor never did get to the car where I was sitting to collect tickets before I got off the train. So if I had not sought her out, I would not have gotten a fine. We can just say my honesty was bad timing in this case.

So Much for Historical Accuracy

My sons get a great kick out of going with me to a film where I announce “this scene is supposed to be taking place in 1943, but that is a 1946 Buick.” Such little mistakes are not uncommon. Recently on Italian TV there was an Italian film about the Italian boxer of the 1930s, Primo Carnera. He was for a short while heavyweight champion of the world although some historians say his ascent to this post was secured by the Italian Mafia in the USA that fixed fights. (He was a giant man, but also very clumsy as shown in the old fight films.) Regardless of the truth of how he got to the top, in 1934 Carnera fought Jack Sharkey for the heavyweight title. In the film there is a scene showing television commentators talking about this upcoming fight. Commercial television did not arrive in the USA in any meaningful sense until 13 or 14 years after the Carnera/Sharkey fight. A little bigger mistake than the automobile from a slightly wrong date.

Goodby Moka

The moka is the little Italian coffee pot that makes up to three cups of espresso. It is standard in Italian homes, but now is being replaced by automatic home espresso machines. The machines use a little pre-measured plastic container of coffee called a “cialda.”

This Week in Italy 365

For Some Readers of This Week in Italy –Welcome Back!!

A few months ago when I had to change web servers, two things happened. My web site that displays my newsletter each week (thisweekinitaly.com) was off the web and I lost the addresses of some subscribers to my newsletter via e mail. I have been able to recapture those addresses. So if you have not been receiving the newsletter for a while, this is why. The newsletter archive is again on the web at address indicated so you can, if you have nothing better to do, look at the issues you missed. This updating of the address list may lead to some duplication so if you now get two copies, either simply eliminate one, or let me know if you want me to remove the duplication.

Financial Adjustments Pursuant to Divorce

Here is an exact translation of a short newspaper article

A 37 year old husband separated from his wife has asked her to reimburse him for the cost of breast enhancement surgery that he gave her as a gift during more happy times. . He is requesting the 3,500 Euro because he now is no longer able to enjoy the gift. His wife has agreed to pay him one-half of the cost of the surgery.

As I Predicted ….

At the very last minute the slate of candidates of the largest party (that was off the ballot in Rome and Lazio because the election papers were filed late) was reinstated in these regions. One of the most amazing things in Italy is how there can be yelling, wringing of hands, endless controversy over some “terrible” decision when it is obvious from day 1 that in the end the decision will be reversed. The Italians can’t pass up the opportunity to talk endlessly about something that everybody knows in the end won’t matter at all.

Election Results

Although the political party of Berlusconi lost votes in the election, this lose was more than offset by gains for his coalition partner, the far right Northern League. The main center left party lost votes, but a center party strongly against Berlusconi gained votes. All in all the center right coalition gained more power in the regions. As always in Italy the center right is more compact in its alliance while the center left is more likely to fragment over ideological or personal issues. The campaign itself was an embarrassment – little discussion of the issues and lots of discussion of Berlusconi. It is a real Cult of Personality just as it was with Mussolini. This is not to say that Berlusconi is a good or bad political leader; it is simply that politics revolves around him as a person rather than his policies and programs.

Nothing illustrates the pervasive irrationality of Italian politics better than the problem of the South. Southern Italy does not have a vibrant economy. Whatever progress that has occurred there in the standard of living has come from government transfer payments to the South. There are an excess number of government jobs allocated to the South. The Northern League rails against this phenomenon of aid to the South. It wants the tax money that is collected in the North to stay in the North. Its contempt for the South is not concealed. The Northern League is a key party in the center right governing coalition. So you would assume that this coalition would do poorly in the South. Not so. The center right wins in half the regions of the South. Of course if a region is dependent on government hand outs and favors, it may be that the party in power uses these to build political influence in that region. Also, some of the League’s positions, such as the anti-immigration one, may resonate in the South as well as the North.

New Italian Car

While in Turin I passed a dealer selling cars with the DR brand. I never heard of this car so I went in to ask about it. The dealer said this car had been sold in Italy for three years. It is made in Italy in a factory in the region of Molise. I was surprised that a new car could arrive on the scene in Italy, and I never read or saw anything about it. So I looked it up on the internet. It turns out that the DR is a Chinese car with the name Chery in China. The parts for the car are shipped unassembled to Italy where it is put together. (although one Italian told me that only the wheels are put on the car in Italy.) There are four different models. You can decide whether this qualifies as Made in Italy. At this point 8,000 are sold a year in Italy.

This is the opposite of the usual practice. In clothes for example, the cloth is often cut in Italy and then sent to China to be assembled. I can only assume that the savings in import duties by bringing the Chinese car into Italy in parts rather than fully assembled offsets the increased labor costs of putting it together in Italy.

Ladies, There is Still Hope

As I have noted before, if George Clooney coughs, it is a news item in the Italian media. The latest story is that his engagement is not going well because he now prefers playing poker at Casinos to being with his lovely fiancé. So if you can find a way to reach him with your communication, you can tell George that you would be willing to let him play poker as much as he wants.

French vs. Italian Food

France and Italy have a friendly rivalry as to which nation has the best cuisine. The Italians say that what is called fine French cooking began hundreds of years ago when a French king married a noblewoman from Naples who brought the secrets of Italian cooking to France. I’ll let the historians argue about that claim. What is true is that the French are the largest consumers of pizza in the world – eating twice as much per person as the Italians. Some of these pizzas have a French flair; I saw on TV one done flambé with Cognac on top. Still the large consumption of pizza in France reinforces the Italians’ bragging rights.

Political Advertisement

In Turin I saw a TV ad for the radical Communist Party (not one of the two other, larger—but not very large–Communist parties). All the ad showed was street protest demonstrations. Maybe there were a few shots two of policemen roughing up some demonstrators. So what is the message: vote for us because we are willing to march in the streets? Lots of parties here march in the streets. Maybe it is: remember those wonderful days of political protest in the past—we are still doing it. The silliness of the far left in Italy is unabated.

Going Away to Discover Something about Home

In Turin I stopped in a large store called Eat Italy that contained a grand variety of Italian food products as well as some imported ones. This establishment had a series of small restaurants in it, each dedicated to one kind of food product. There was a meat restaurant, a fish one, a vegetable one, etc. One of these was for cold cuts and cheese. The special for the day at this one was cured ham from Pistoia. I never have heard that Pistoia produces a cured ham that is of especially high quality. I checked with a few locals in the food business after I got back. At first they too were puzzled, but then they remembered that there is one small producer of ham in the province whose product is considered of to be very fine.