January 2012
Monthly Archive
Fri 27 Jan 2012
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More About the World’s Favorite Ship Captain
The revelations just keep getting more bizarre. The cook on the ship said that the captain ate a full dinner after the collision with “a lady friend.” Well, food and sex do come ahead of safety for the Italian male.
Meanwhile the captain says, perhaps quite rightly, that the cruise company likes its ships to pass close to land to show their elegance. What the captain forgot to mention is that other captains commanding the ships were able to meet this request without running aground.
At the Cinema
I went to a movie theater in Germany (to see The Muppet Movie in German) where the tickets were reserved for particular seats. Not only that, but the cost of the ticket varied according to how far your row was from the screen. In the USA in 2011 the sales of tickets to films declined noticeably. I would not be surprised to see differential pricing by seat location spread to the USA as a way to get more profits from fewer spectators.
At the Coffee Shop
An espresso or a cappuccino costs about twice as much in Germany as in Italy. So here is a minor advantage of living in Italy. The trains in Germany (despite my recent complaints) are still generally better than in Italy, but cost a lot more. The more expensive coffee is Germany is not better.
At Church
I went to an American Lutheran Church in Frankfurt. In Florence I am a member of an American Episcopal Church. The church in Frankfurt was very well attended. There appeared to be more parishioners where the whole family is German than in Florence where most Italian members are part of a bi-national family. I met a couple who are German but speak English at home so their four year old daughter will learn English. Such an arrangement would be very rare in Italy because few Italian couples both speak English well enough to do it, and there would be a fear that the child would be behind in learning Italian.
At the Bank
In Italy you cannot take out more than 250 Euro for each withdrawal from a cash machine. I am told this may change with the new reforms in Italy. We will see. This costs me money because I have to pay a fee at my bank for every withdrawal made abroad. So If I need over 250 Euro, I incur one or more extra fees.
In Germany this 250 limit does not apply. Perhaps there is some higher limit, but I took out 400 Euro in one withdrawal with no problem.
Joe Paterno
His death was noted in Italian press in a story about his career and the recent scandal at Pennsylvania State University. American college football gets almost no coverage in the Italian sports’ sections. So the death of a college coach, even a famous one, ordinarily would not be news here. Paterno, however, was an Italian American. This gives his story value in Italy.
American professional football gets some coverage in Italy, but not a lot. You can bet, however, that when legendary Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi died this story was in the Italian media.
Fri 20 Jan 2012
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Greetings from Germany
I am in Germany visiting my son and his family. I have noted on my recent visits here the decline in efficency in Germany, al least so far as the train system goes. This time my train was 40 minutes late. It costs twice as much as a train in Italy.
My impression, far from scientific, is that as Italy in fact becomes more efficient each year I am there, Germany is going in the opposite direction.
Empty Threat
A city in Tuscany proposed putting a “pillow tax” from 50 cents to 3 Euro and 50 cents per night on hotel bills within the city. The difference in the tax depends upon how many stars the Hotel has. For a one star hotel the tax is 50 cents; for a five star one it is 3 Euro and 50 cents. The hotel owners in the city are threatening to lower the number of stars for their hotels in order to pay a lower tax. Now if a hotel goes from, let’s say, 3 stars to two stars, it has to lower its room rate to that appropriate for a two star hotel. Probably this is a reduction of about 30 euro per night. Now what hotel is going to take a 30 Euro reduction in its room rate in order to reduce a tax by one Euro? One would hope that the reporter writing the article about this threat in the newspaper might point out this simple calculation, but that assumes more independence of thought than is usually shown in Italian journalism.
Trip to Siena
I took a day trip to Siena with some visiting American friends. Siena is always a charming city to visit. My trip reminded me of one of favorite stories about the Italian character. Siena is the home to the famous horse race, The Palio, that has been run for centuries twice a year around the main plaza. In the 1980s, The New Yorker magazine sent a reporter to Siena to write an article on this spectacle. The author soon discovered that over the centuries the race had developed a complicated and intricate set of rules. He also discovered that these rules were almost universally ignored whenever one of the groups with a horse in the race could gain an advantage by doing so. So the writer asked the mayor of Siena how he could justify the fact that there were so many rules about the Palio when in fact the rules seemed made to be broken. The mayor’s response was “without rules you have anarchy.”
Standard and Poor’s Downgrade of Bond Rating for Italy and Other European Nations
As can be easily imagined, this downgrade was poorly received in Europe. Some talk of a conspiracy by the USA and/or some large financial institutions to sabotage the Euro. In general I am less of a fan of conspiracy theories than are the Italians. Ironically, I think the head of the Italian government was not unhappy about this development. He is proposing, and Parliament is passing, some reforms that are possible now only because Italy faces a serious crisis of confidence. Once this crisis lessens, it will become much more difficult to get Parliament to approve such measures which are opposed by powerful interests. So those favoring long term reforms want to “keep the heat on.”
The Cruise Line Catastrophe
The news in Italy has accentuated the contrast between the man who was the hero of the event by saving many passengers even when he suffered a broken leg and the Captain of the ship who emerges as an incompetent coward. Unfortunately the captain is an Italian, but the people of the island of Giglio redeemed the nation’s reputation by their generous and heroic response to the tragedy.
The theory is that the captain came too close to the island as a way of making more impressive the customary “salute” of the ship’s horn as it passed the land. In hearing this I was reminded of a scene in Fellini’s film Armacord. This film is a remembrance of Fellini’s years as a youth in Rimini. Many of the features in the film are “bigger than life” as they must have appeared to a small boy. In the scene I recall, all the town goes down to the beach to see the passing of a new, grand, ocean liner. The ship that passes is in fact two or three times larger than any liner that was ever built. In height, if not in length, the modern cruise ships are larger than this fictional liner.
Back from the Dead
Five years ago an elderly lady went to see her ill sister who then died in the hospital. Somehow the local registry office thought that the woman herself had died, and her death was then reported to government offices. So she lost her pension, health coverage, etc. Now this seems to be an easily corrected mistake. You simply go down to the registry and show them you are still alive. The woman did this. It took, however, five years for her finally to be restored to the annals of the living. If records have to be changed in a number of government offices, it takes a long, long time.
Paying for School Days
In Italy the schools are financed nationally. The government pays the salaries of the employees. Beyond these salaries, the schools need money for paper, chalk, soap, mops. etc. The government does not pay fully for these, the parents do in part. An article in the newspaper showed that in high schools in selected cities parents pay up to 50% or more of these costs. This is another example of how in Italy the family pays for costs that the government covers elsewhere.
Sat 14 Jan 2012
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Christmas at Cortina –Scrooge Arrives
Cortina is a popular ski resort town for the rich and famous. This year over the holidays Scrooge arrived in the uniform of the tax police. They performed a blitz in the town discovering (1) that many luxury cars on the street were registered to persons who declared less than 30,000 Euro per year on their income tax or to businesses or societies that also showed little income and (2) the official sales receipts for the shops rose dramatically if a tax policeman was standing by. Of course, you don’t need to go to Cortina to check the data base for registrations of luxury cars against the income tax data base. This can be done from a computer at the tax agency. If this would be done systematically the result would be a drop in the sales of luxury cars in Italy and/or a precipitous rise of the registration of such cars, owned in fact by Italians, in Switzerland, San Marino, Monaco, etc.
Italy tries to fight tax evasion by new laws, but the problem is embedded in culture. There are now, in addition, advertisements on TV urging people to pay their taxes. The theme of these ads is that by evading taxes, you are not harming the evil,. corrupt government (the typical rationalization for evasion) ; you are instead robbing your fellow citizens of needed services.
Stores Open 24/7? — A New Controversy
The government has lifted the regulations limiting the hours that stores can be open. Stores can be open all the time if they wish or as much of the time as they want to be. The small merchants are up in arms. They often have no employees other than the owners so it is difficult to extent the hours. They claim the government is favoring the supermarkets, large chain stores, etc. This kind of complaint is typical in Italy. This time it may have a germ of truth. The large stores always give buyers a receipt for purchases which then registers the sale for tax purposes (The cash register is connected to the tax collection system). The small store may or may not provide a receipt. So for the purposes of collecting taxes, sales in the large stores are better for the government.
Marriage Annulments –Catching Up with the USA
The Vatican has been upset for years about the number and ease of ecclesiastical annulments granted to Catholics in the USA. These are given overwhelmingly to allow divorced Catholics to remarry in the Church. Now the number of annulments in Italy is growing drastically – 3,000 in 2011. Proportionate the number of Catholics, I don’t know how the new, higher rate of annulments in Italy compares to that in the USA; my guess is that the USA is still ahead. For the Catholic Church more annulments is in a way “a no brainer.” The Church rules about marriage have little effect in limiting divorces among Catholics. In the USA the divorce rate among Catholics is not lower than that of Protestants, and divorces are growing rapidly in Italy. If divorced people who remarry outside the Church are not considered married and also can’t take communion , they just leave the Church. A hard line on annulments would not change anyone’s behavior, but would result in a greater loss of members.
Decline of Horse Racing
In Italy, as in the USA, horse racing has declined in importance as there are now an almost infinite number of ways for gamblers to exercise their passion. In the USA the salvation of some horse racing tracks has been the installation of slot machines at the track. This has not happened in Italy, and the horse racing business seems to be on its last legs. As always in Italy, this business in trouble looks to the government to solve the problem.
Lost in Translation
I often watch the David Letterman show on Italian TV which, unlike almost all other American shows, is not dubbed into Italian but has instead Italian subtitles. In reading the subtitles, you can see how much is lost in translation. A lot of humorous dialog depends upon the selection of just the right work to convey a subtle point. It may be that there is no Italian word that has the same connotation. At best you would have to explain in a sentence or two of Italian the meaning of the English word. Of course this is impossible when you have subtitles. When I note this phenomenon, I am amazed at authors like Conrad and Nabokov who wrote beautifully in a foreign language that was not their native tongue.
When RAI, the Italian public TV network, shows a film that it produced itself, you can view it, using the text function on the remote, with either Italian or English subtitles. The English subtitles are generally good, but every once in while a big error occurs. In a recent film, one character said to another that he saved her from being hanged at the gallows. The word for gallows in Italian is forca. The subtitle read “I saved you from the fork.”
A Trip to Lucca
I went to Lucca with a friend to see two art exhibits – one of works from the modern art collection of Peggy Guggenheim (whose personal museum is in Venice) and another about the silk trade between Lucca and China over the centuries. The first was in the Contemporary Art Museum of Lucca which is a very impressive museum space. The second was in the City Museum of Lucca. This exhibit also was very well presented with only one problem – no heat in the building. I don’t know if this was a temporary problem or if the building (an old palazzo) has no central heating. It was warmer outside than inside.
By the way, the museum in Lucca of the house of the opera composer Puccini, which managed to be closed for renovations in 2008 while all of Italy was celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth (See newsletter 303, January 10, 2009), is now open again for visitors.
Fri 6 Jan 2012
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Cultural Conflict
This time between Danish and Italian cultures, but many nations would be like Denmark in this story. The Breda works in Pistoia makes train cars, subways cars, streetcars, etc. It often has big contracts, but it is always on the verge of bankruptcy. Recently it completed a big order of cars for Denmark which are piling up outside of the factory rather than being delivered to Denmark. Why? Well before taking delivery the Danes sent some personnel down to inspect the new cars. They did not just look at them; they tore a car apart to determine if it had been assembled according to the specifications. They discovered items such as the use of an 18 mm bolt when the specifications called for a 20 mm bolt. Were such substitutions made as an attempt to cut the costs by Breda or was it just carelessness in following the specifications? Regardless of the reasons, the Danes refused to take delivery without a substantial adjustment in price. The Italians probably said “the cars look and work all right; what’s the big deal”? The Danes said “we contracted for cars built to our specifications.”
Some Praise for Italian Train System
What I am going to describe may be standard practice in some countries, but it is the first time I have seen it in Italy. I was on a train in the evening from Florence to Pistoia. It left Florence 18 minutes late. It was scheduled to get to Pistoia 10 minutes before the last train of the evening left Pistoia on the route going north to Porretta Terme. The conductor came through the cars asking if anyone planned to transfer in Pistoia to the Porretta train. If so, she would call ahead and hold the Porretta train until our train came into Pistoia. In fact they did hold the Porretta train.
Sharing the Grief
The government has instituted tax increases to deal with the short term problem of getting Italy’s debt under control. Of course, there is a lot of discussion as to whether the sacrifices of the new program are equitably spread among various economic classes. It would be both politically and mathematically impossible to place all the burden for the needed revenues upon the rich. So any plan will touch all segments of Italian society. I can’t say whether the current plan is the best balance among competing interests. Here, however, is the political reality – it is impossible to come up with a plan for which some substantial segment of Italians will not say “ I’m paying too much and the others guys are paying too little.” (I’m sure this is true in similar situations in other nations t0o.)
Ten Years Under the Euro – The Effective Purchasing Power of the Average Italian Family
In the last 10 years, since the Euro was introduced, the purchasing power of the average family has declined almost 40%. At the introduction of the Euro in 2002, there was an immediate inflation as merchants raised prices in the conversion process. After 2002, however, the decline in purchasing power has had nothing particularly to do with the Euro. There has been steady low level inflation and no increase in income. Of course all nations using the Euro formerly had the control of their own currency including how much to print and possible changes in valuation. Such tools for economic adjustment were lost when they adopted a common currency.
New Years Eve –Bang, Bang
New Years Eve is the evening for BIG firecrackers – the kind that set off car alarms throughout the neighborhood. This year, however, these items were banned in many cities with police seizing large amounts of illegal ones. The reasons for the ban are (1) danger – of course every year some people blown off fingers if not more, (2) In Milan because they add more dust to the already polluted air (a bit of a stretch for a rationale) , and (3) because of the panic reaction they induce in some cats and dogs.
Pistoia was one of the cities banning firecrackers. When I went down to the main plaza at midnight, however, it sounded like WWII. Throughout Italy two people were killed and 500 injured by firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. In short, the police seized a lot of illegal fireworks, but did little to stop the public from igniting them. When a fireworks factory explodes (as happens at times in Italy), it is easy to understand how there are fatalities, but how does someone kill himself lighting ordinary firecrackers? In one fatality case this year, the guy had a stash of fireworks in his apartment, probably to sell illegally. He had a criminal record. He set off one in the apartment and this caused a chain reaction and they all ignited. You can view this as a tragedy and/or the deceased’s Holiday Gift to the human gene pool.
Gospel Choir Concert
Gospel choirs are very popular in Tuscany –perhaps in all of Italy. I went to a concert of two local ones. One was called the Black and White Gospel Choir; we expected a mixed racial group but the name referred to the colors of their choir robes. The Catholic tradition does not really include enthusiastic, highly rhythmic, singing. So the gospel choir provides an outlet for those who enjoy such music.
Now, For Sure, the Old Italian Lira is Worthless
After the conversion to the Euro in 2002, one could take old Lira to the Bank of Italy and redeem them for Euro at the fixed rate of the date of conversion. I had about five Euro worth of old Lira that somebody sent me, but by the time I got around to trying to redeem them, the Bank of Italy branch in Pistoia had closed. The closest one is in Florence, and for five Euro it was not worth making a trip to that bank while in Florence. Recently I discovered that a friend who has a clothing shop, as a promotional item, was allowing people to pay in old Lira for his goods. (He was not the only merchant in Italy to try this scheme.) So I thought I would give him my old Lira to add to those people had used to buy things from him. I then discovered from him that in December the new government had terminated all redemptions of Lira for Euro. So he is left with Lira equal to about 150 Euro with which he can do nothing.
Revisiting a Patriotic Film
In newsletter 398, January 7, 2011, I wrote about the film We Believe, a film based upon the Italian independence movement that was released to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italian independence. I saw the film in Italian. I noted that it was not heroic in nature – giving a lot of emphasis to the conflicts and betrayals within the movement. I recently watched it again on TV, this time with Italian subtitles which gave me a better understanding of the dialog. Still it was not all clear because there were references to historical figures without any explanation of their role and philosophy in the events. I was like an Italian watching a film about the American Revolution in which there were cryptic references to John Adams, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, etc. Actually my knowledge of this part of Italian history, far from extensive, is probably more acute than that of many Italians. So a lot of Italians too viewing this film may not have fully understood all the subtle points.