thisweekinitaly.com

Bicycling Safety

During the television coverage of the Giro d’ Italia. a three week long bike race, there were public service advertisements about the principles of bicycling safely. In the USA bicycle safety education is seen primarily as for children. In the Italian TV spots, the cyclists were adults. Of course many more Italian adults use bicycles than in the USA, and sometimes, like Italian drivers, the cyclists don’t always follow the rules of the road.

Why so much concern for a local election that does not affect the composition of the national government? In one of the houses of Parliament, Berlusconi has only a narrow working majority. There is a group of politicians in the center that could desert him for the opposition. If he can turn around the situation in Milan, they will see him as still having his political magic, a man not be denied. If his opponents win in Milan, he will be seen as a star in decline and some may abandon the ship now.

Joplin Tornado from an Italian Perspective

Italy does not have tornados. It has earthquakes, and when a big one hits some buildings collapse and others don’t. You don’t see a scene such as that in Joplin where whole areas look like they were carpet bombed. The Italian announcer noted that in the USA houses are made of wood, not masonry as in Italy, and thus cannot withstand the power of the tornado. If the Joplin tornado had hit an Italian city, the damage would have been much less. The houses here are much more solid. Also Italy does not have mobile homes which, of course, offer little resistance to a tornado.

Comparative Quality of Life Among Nations

In recent years there have been various attempts to find a new way to compare the “prosperity” on nations other than the tradition one of comparing the Gross National Products (GNP) of goods and services. This week I read about one of these programs that surveyed items such as income, environment, security, educational system, health system, satisfaction with work, satisfaction with political system , etc. It was for the world’s major industrial nations, not third world countries. Australia rated number 1 followed by New Zealand, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries. The USA ranked number 7. Italy was number 24. The only Western European nations below Italy were Greece and Portugal. Maybe if the survey had included satisfaction with the climate, Italy might have done better versus the Scandinavian nations. It is not the first survey I have seen of European countries (often with different dimensions than this survey) where Italy ranked near the bottom with Portugal and Greece. As I have noted before the very low ratings Italians give to the political system and other public enterprises probably affects Italy’s ranking in such surveys. Italians rate much higher their satisfaction with their friends, family, and personal life.

This Week in Italy 417

Florence’s Gardens in Full Bloom

I wrote last week about my trip to the Bardini gardens. At this web page http://thisweekinitaly.com/bardini-gardens you can see the photos I took. They were done with a cell phone camera of low quality so I doubt that they can be enlarged with good results. Another famous garden is Florence’s rose garden. Here is a page with some nice photos recently taken at the rose garden including views of the city from the garden http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?fbid=10150249315651614&set=a.10150249315556614.371540.39400431613&type=1&theater .

Access for Those with Disabilities

Italy has laws similar to those in the USA about guaranteeing access to public places for persons with disabilities. The problem is more difficult in Italy because of the many old buildings. I am teaching English to a professor of Architecture from Florence who specializes in architectural issues of access. We were reading together an article from the USA about urban access plans. The professor noted that these plans in the USA were remarkably similar to those of Italian cities. I replied that the Italians undoubtedly are very good at writing up plans. The issue in Italy is never what is planned on paper but what happens (or more correctly doesn’t happen) in reality.

Accident at a Steel Plant

About two years ago there was an accident at a steel plant in Italy owned by a German company. Several workers died. Managers of the company were charged with criminally negligent homicide, and one was recently sentenced to a long prison term. Of course, this verdict is being appealed. Meanwhile the German company this week announced that it was closing one of its facilities in Italy that has 2000 workers. The articles I read briefly did not draw a connection between this closing and the criminal conviction of a company executive, but I certainly did.

Beauty vs. Practicality

I was at a fair featuring the work of Italian artisans and craftsmen. One man displayed very attractive cufflinks. I noted to him that in my opinion few Italian men now wear French cuff shirts requiring cufflinks. (The same is probably true in the USA.) He did not deny this fact, but said simply that this item made a beautiful gift. My guess is that if I gave a pair of these to an American friend, he would say to somebody else “Bob, gave me these very pretty Italian handmade cufflinks, but they are not much use to me since I don’t wear French cuff shirts.” If I gave these to an Italian friend he would say “Bob, gave me some elegant, attractive cufflinks.” In Italy the beauty of the gift is justification enough without looking at the practical implications.

The Arrest of Head of IMF in New York on Rape Charges

The Italian newspaper articles on this case contained the sentence “He risks up to 20 years in prison in the USA on these charges.” Later this was expanded to “70 years. “ This sentence really implies two different things. One it is a comment on the harsh (in the Italian view) sentences for crimes in the USA. Two it implies that the risk is real; the man is not going to go free because of his high position. The sentence thus embodies two common attitudes in Italy toward the American justice system: it has harsh penalties, but it is not a system in which the rich and famous can avoid paying for their crimes (which is often assumed to be the case in Italy) .

Illegally Exported Art from Italy

I have commented at times on the increased Italian effort recently to recover art works that were claimed to be illegally exported from Italy. I once included a link to an article published in the USA arguing that an American museum curator was the victim of false charges in Italy. Now two American authors have published a book ,Chasing Aphrodite , that claims that many American museums, especially the Getty in Los Angeles, knowingly purchased items that were being illegally sold for export by shady characters in Europe. The book does claim that the practice has stopped, and that the Getty is now a leader in the reform effort.

Museums argue that when pieces enter their collection, they are well preserved and available to be seen by many more persons. This is true, but when museums are willing to buy illegally obtained items, this encourages the theft, looting, and illegal sales of such items.

Comments from Readers – Value of the Euro and Also Prevalence of Bike Thefts

The drop in the value of the Euro following the rumor that Greece might withdraw from the Euro zone is attributed to the fear that countries like Portugal and Spain would then follow Greece’s example, and the Euro would become a less pervasive common currency. The European Union existed before the Euro was established, and some European Union members have never adopted the Euro. So the shrinking of the nations using the Euro would not necessarily mean that the European Union would decline in size. Still there seems to be a worry that the fate of the EU is somehow tied to the fate of the Euro.

A reader wrote to note that in big cities in the USA used bikes are often stolen or vandalized for parts. Drug addicts and kids will steal anything. Less desperate thieves consider both the ease of opportunity and the value in deciding what to steal. Even if a bike is easily taken, it is less likely to be taken when it has little or no value. The greater value of used bikes in Italy make them more likely theft objects. I have had little things stolen off of my bikes more often in Italy than in the USA , even things like the little computer unit (that shows speed, distance, time, etc.) that has no use without the base and sensor connected to it.

By the way, a thief in Italy this week did not correctly assess the ease of opportunity for his crime (even though he may have been right about the value of the item to be stolen) . He and two buddies broke into a small electric substation to steal copper wire. Something went wrong , and he was electrocuted.

Italian Elections

This week administrative elections were held in many parts of Italy for posts such as mayor, President of Region, etc. These elections did not concern the national government; still Berlusconi and others treated the elections as a test of his personal popularity. The party of Berlusconi did more poorly in these elections than in the past. So the discontent with Berlusconi that has been discussed recently in the media had its first important result at the ballot box.

My Latest Article in The Florentine, English Language Newspaper of Florence

The Cost of Living in Italy

The dollar has been taking a beating in relation to the Euro in recent weeks. When this happens, someone whose income is in dollars suddenly finds the cost of living to be going up in Italy. When I came to Italy in 2002, one Euro equaled about $1.08. The Euro has gone as high as $1.60 but usually fluctuates between $1.25 and $1.40. Recenly it was close to $1.50. If it were to stay at $1.50 or above, I would seriously have to consider whether Italy was getting too expensive for me to live here. The dollar did recover a little last week when there was a rumor that Greece might opt out of the Euro zone. I find it interesting that such a rumor lowers the value of the Euro when one would think that losing the most debt ridden economy in Europe would make the Euro stronger.

The Bicycle Thief

This the title of a famous early post WWII Italian realistic film. Theft of bicycles is still common here. Whereas in the USA higher priced bikes tend to be more likely to be stolen, in Italy used bikes of not particularly good quality are taken. The better bikes are said to be shipped to eastern Europe to be sold; the cheaper ones are stolen for transportation according to tradition by immigrants (Although as the title of the famous film indicates, there were bicycle thieves in Italy before the immigrants came).

A friend just had her bike taken when she left it for less than two minutes unlocked outside her building. In Italy it is hard to find secondhand bikes. The bike shops sell few. There are no yard sales. Police do not usually have auctions of abandoned bikes. (Abandoned bikes often seemed to be permanently chained to posts throughout the city.) In the USA a person wanting cheap transportation can get a bike for almost nothing at a yard sale; in Italy he or she is more likely to steal a bike. Fortunately my “around town” bike, which I found abandoned in the basement of my building, is so rusted and decrepit looking that it is less likely to be taken.

A Pleasant Morning in Florence

 I went on an excursion to Florence with a friend. Our first stop was the church of Ognisanti where we viewed a recently restored crucifix by Giotto dating from the 14th century. This work has been in restoration for 10 years. I don’t think they were working on it 365 days a year for that period, but the Italians are masters of restoring art works. A photo of the crucifix is attached to this newsletter You can click on the photo to enlarge it and then use the zoom feature on your computer to see even more details..

Our second stop was the Bardini gardens that were in full bloom and also afford a wonderful overview of the city of Florence. In the same complex is the Bardini museum where we saw an exhibition of art works concerning the rediscovery (or maybe re-appreciation is a better word) of  Italian paintings from the 1600s by a group of artists of the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibit included both 20th century works and those of the 17th century from which these artists drew inspiration. You could not pay me to live in central Florence, but on a warm spring day it is a city of undeniable charm and beauty.

 Travel Guru Rick Steves Visits Italy

Here is a brief comment about his visit from Rick’s web site

“Dear Traveler, I’ve been in Italy exactly a month, and I’m struck by how Italy is a land ripe with people who want to connect. Nowhere else in Europe does a country share its quirky secrets like here. And, even though I don’t speak the language, I make more friends here per visit than in any other country. Even struggling onto a crowded bus in Rome is a chance — almost an obligation — to discover what’s on the mind of whoever is wedged up against my shoulders. Anyone can do it. Maybe that’s why so many Americans marry into this culture.”

A friend saw him in a Florence restaurant where he seemed to be unrecognized by everyone else. No surprise. Few Italians would know who he is.

The Jewish Section of Pitigliano

 I visited this unoccupied tourist site on my bike trip. It was at least my third visit to such a place in an Italian city. Very often Jews were restricted to living in a particular ghetto area. I have the feeling that even where this was not required, Jews stayed together. Italy did not have a large Jewish population compared to many European nations, and anti-Semitism was not common in Italy. Some cities in Tuscany were traditionally more welcoming to Jews than areas in the rest of Italy. Even though the percentage of Italian Jews killed in the Holocaust was far less than in other nations the Germans occupied, my guess is that the Jewish population in Italy is nevertheless smaller than it was before World War II. In Pitigliano the Jewish population was in the 1800s about one-quarter of the city’s residents, but it had declined to under 100 before World War II as Jews left for other cities and countries. The 30 Jewish residents in the city in 1943, when the Germans arrived, were hidden by local citizens and none was shipped to a German death camp.

Money Laundering

With the widespread illegal activity of the Mafia and the Italian propensity for tax avoidance, money laundering is a big problem in Italy. The Bank of Italy recently estimated that the amount of money illegally recycled equals 10% of the gross national product.

The Cultural Influence of The United States

 I mention from time to time how pervasive in Italy is the coverage news and events from the USA are. Here is another example. The major newspaper, La Repubblica, now once a week publishes a four page insert in English of stories from the New York Times. This same Italian newspaper printed a full translation of President Obama’s interview on CBS about the raid on the Bin Ladin complex.

Still the differences in the two cultures are also apparent in the newspapers. When a Belgian cyclist was killed in the Giro d’Italia, this event got three full pages of coverage. Although the stories, of course, described the facts of his accident, the emphasis was on the emotions surrounding the event. The balance between emotions/facts is simply different in Italy.

Income versus Wealth

I wrote recently how despite the fact that personal income figures for Italy lag behind those of most of Western Europe, still the level of individual wealth in Italy is very high. An article in the newspaper this week illustrated this fact. It noted that the cost for houses near the sea in Italy are more expensive than in the rest of Europe and, for example, twice as high as those prices in France. I am fairly sure that the average income figures are higher for France. The French economy in general is at least a bit stronger (probably more) than that of Italy. So how can sellers get twice as much for a beach house in Italy than France? There are mysteries about life in Italy that are hard to decipher.

Photos of My Recent Bike Trip

These can be found at web address http://thisweekinitaly.com/about-this-blog/spring-2011-bike-trip . The one of people cavorting in a stream is from near Saturnia. There is a large spa there whose pools are filled by thermal underground springs, but near the spa there is an area where you can lounge in the warm waters without paying to enter the spa. It is as nice as it was when I last visited in 1999 with one minor exception – I did not see any topless babes this time. The cathedral photos, inside and out, are of the marvelous edifice at Orvieto. The church dome photo is that of the church at Montefiascone discussed in first item below. There are some Etruscan tomb pictures. The final one is a statue of a Buttero, an Italian cowboy of the Maremma area.

 Debating Dome Dimensions

 The tourist brochure for Montefiascone in Umbria, which I visited on my bike trip, says that its Cathedral of S. Margherita has the “third largest dome in Italy” (after St. Peter’s in Rome and the cathedral of Florence). To a citizen of Pistoia “them’s fightin’ words.” Why? Because Pistoia claims that the dome of its Church of the Madonna of Humility is the third largest in Italy. In all fairness the Italian version of the Montefiascone brochure says only that its dome is “among the largest in Italy. “ I don’t know why the English version makes the more specific claim, and we departed from the city before the tourist office reopened for the afternoon. So I was not able to get an explanation.

Buying a House in Pitigliano

The old city of Pitigliano is very well preserved with its building of tufo stone. “For Sale” signs are everywhere on these buildings. Here is my explanation. In the old city the streets are so narrow you can hardly drive a car in them and certainly cannot park one. The rooms in the houses are probably small and dark. There are few shops and services in the old section. So an area that is lovely to look at may in fact be a quite inconvenient place to live.

We Buy Gold

Italy seems to be overrun with shops that buy gold for cash. They buy jewelry, for example, at less than the market value of the gold it contains, melt it down, and resell the gold at a profit. Italians probably have more wealth in gold than Americans. As I have noted before Italians often have a safe at home with jewelry, cash, etc. in it. This leads to robberies where the thieves break into the house and hold the family hostage until the safe is opened up. Shopkeepers often bring the day’s proceeds home at night rather than depositing them in the night deposit window of the bank. This may have more to do with tax avoidance than distrust of banks.

Stamps at the Post Office

I have mentioned the new higher postage rates for mail going aboard. Letters and post cards to the USA cost 1.60 Euro. There is no 1.60 Euro stamp so two or three stamps have to be purchased to equal this amount. I went to a large Post Office in Viterbo to get some post card stamps. The lady who took my order went into the back and did not return for 5 minutes. I could not figure out what was the problem. She returned to tell me that they did not have a combination of stamps equal to 1.60 Euro at the Post Office. They could give me stamps that equal 1.50 Euro or 1.70. I have not had problems getting stamps for Euro 1.60 at the tobacco shops where I usually buy stamps. The Post Office could of course give me a postage meter stamp for Euro 1.60, but I did not have the cards with me to affix this item.

Ruining the Day (Temporarily) of an American Student in Italy

I saw a group of American women students on Saturday discussing their plans for the evening – naturally which pub to go to. A few minutes later I saw one of them on the street. Unlike many American students she did not have what the Italians call the American “soap and water” look – a fresh face without much makeup. She in fact dressed and made herself up more like an Italian girl. So she was disconcerted when I said loudly to my friends as she passed by “there goes an American student; I can tell.” I did relieve her anxiety by telling her that I had seen her and her friends talking in the shop. I told her that they should not misbehave at the pub that evening.

Advertising Road Signs

In Italy it is common to encounter a sign along the road that advertises a store in the town you have just passed through. In short the store is behind you in the opposite direction that you are going. Of course the sign can serve as a reminder to visit the store when you next are going into the city rather than leaving it, but I think in the USA the emphasis would much more likely be on putting signs on the way into the city where the store is located.

 Mileage Signs

Actually they are kilometer signs that tell you how far it is to the next few cities. You might pass one that says 22 km and then a little farther on one that says 24 km. At that rate you are never going to get there. (This has happened to me in the USA too, but far less often.) My favorite on the bike trip was two signs, directly across the road from each other, that listed different distances to the next city. I guess the guy who takes care of one side of the road doesn’t talk to the guy who does the other side.

Maintaining Employment Levels Through Government Jobs

I have mentioned how the economy of southern Italy is overly dependent upon government jobs and various government programs that pump money into the south. Here is a good example from this week’s news. The Forest Service in Sicily has more employees than in other regions of Italy that are far more heavily forested. There is another problem. The basic services are provided by forest rangers who fill the entry level jobs in the agency. In Sicily the are 14 persons at this level but 841 in higher management positions. When this became known, the new head of the Service assigned some basic inspection and maintenance duties to some of the management personnel. One was quoted as saying he is too old to do such duties now. The salary of the forest rangers is 1,400 Euro per month. Management personnel earn from 2,100 to 2,400 euro per month. Those 14 forest rangers must be among the best managed and supervised employees in the world.

Restaurant Oddity in Orvieto

Our bike group ate at The Zeppelin restaurant in Orvieto which was unusual in two ways. First, the menu. Italian cooking is based on traditional recipes made with high quality ingredients and special care. Innovation is rare. Zeppelin had traditional dishes but also featured innovative ones. I had an appetizer of a muffin made with chick peas, a mousse of pecorino cheese, and dried figs. Secondly, although Italian restaurants are often quite attractive, a theme restaurant such as this, is quite rare. At Zeppelin there were models and pictures of zeppelins throughout the restaurant. The food was very good.

Italian Reaction to the Bin Laden Raid

I have written about the Italian aversion to the use of violence by the government or citizens. This is certainly not a vice. The Italians see measured violence as only a last resort. I am sure because of this attitude there will be more discussion in Italy than in the USA about questions such as “Was Bin Laden a danger to those attacking his home?”, “Did he appear to be armed?”, “Did he resist arrest?” In a military action such as this raid, you tell your troops to take no chances: feel free to shoot anyone who is a danger of who might be a danger. If you are unwilling to take this attitude, don’t do the raid. It is a crude generalization, but there is some truth in it, that Italy is a country of words while the USA is a country of action. For such highly sophisticated maneuvers, I’d much rather have an American unit than an Italian one.