A Crazy Canuck Living in Zany Italia!

Bravo Monti!

2012-02-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

In 22 years that I’ve been living in Italy I can safely say that I’ve only worked at two events that have come off like a Swiss watch: the 2005 funeral of Pope JPII (I was NBC’s interpreter) and the December, 1999 FIFA Gala in Rome when both Maradona and Pele’ came to receive their World Player awards (n.b. FIFA is a Swiss international sports organization)! In the former case, the mayor of Rome back then was Walter Veltroni. Leaving aside the millions of pilgrims that had come to Rome to see the body of the old Polish Pope, everything ran very, very smoothly, but just because BEHIND Veltroni and the City of Rome was the Vatican, and the Vatican in front of a few billion people who watched that same funeral on tv and with dozens of heads of state who showed up (Bush Sr,, Bush Jr. and the Clintons, just to name a few), well, Rome couldn’t put on a brutta figura (a bad image) in front of the entire world.

I also worked at the disastrous Genoa G8 Summit in 2001 (when protesters totally gutted the entire city) and at the 2006 European Special Olympics held in Rome. I was in charge of the 55 heads of delegation that had come to Rome for those same games. Memorable was it when in my office I had a dog running through my legs (yes, the real live version with 4 legs)! The dog belonged to the boss, who was the daughter of a big-shot in Rome’s local sporting community. Naturally, no one could tell her anything because otherwise… My office resembled Grand Central Station, TOTALLY chaotic and with a mutt running around between my legs too! Unable to properly work in those conditions, I got up and left the job…

Bravo instead for Italy’s PM Mario Monti who said NO to Rome’s candidature for the 2020 summer Olympics. It would be just one HUGE financial “quick sand” (the same just happened a few years ago when Rome hosted the world swimming championship. Money was sucked up with facilities that have been left to rot) with the usual corrupt politicians, businesspeople and the Mob siphoning off millions and millions of Euros, Euros which could perhaps be spent in a much better way (such as providing toilet paper in many Italian hospitals, or paper for photo-copy machines in many Italian schools which can’t afford it. Some parents even have to provide the paper for their kids)!

Just look at past events such as the 1990 World Cup held in Italy (I had been Korea’s interpreter in Udine during that event). Some twenty-four workers died rebuilding some of Italy’s (still) decrepit stadia, not to mention costs that ballooned WELL over estimates, as in the case of Rome’s Olympic stadium (the big boss then of the Italian Olympic Committee, a guy by the name of Gattai, was accused of mishandling funds. From the 80 billion liras to refurbish the stadium the total cost ended up being some 220 billion liras!). Then there are also venues which were built and weren’t even ever used, such as the Vigna Clara subway stop in Rome (I think it had been turned into a disco and then into a Ping-Pong center!), or the Ostiense Air Terminal (the old Ostiense train station is where Mussolini had greeted Hitler upon his arrival to Rome). That was affectionately called the “Beaubourg of Rome” (what an INSULT to the real one in Paris!). Rome officials, under then mayor Franco Carraro (I think he got caught up in the 2006 soccer scandal in Italy), had estimated some 1 million passengers would have gone through that Air Terminal during and after that World Cup event. Well, that didn’t materialize, and after just 1 year, the place was shut down (it got eventually turned into a disco and then a “haven” for the homeless. I think the place is now frequented by Afghan refugees!).

Some also believe that the current economic woes in Greece can be traced back to the 2004 Athens Olympics. While the Games themselves were rather successful, many stadia are now simply “White Elephants”: just totally abandoned and with incredible costs to Greek taxpayers (a good example of mismanagement is also what happened in the case of the 1976 Montréal Olympics. Poor Québec taxpayers ended up paying for those Games for years through a special cigarette tax. The Olympic stadium there, affectionately known as the “Big O”, finally had its retractable roof (back then the VERY first in the world!) working only some 12-13 years AFTER the event took place)!

Given the current and rather drastic economic situation in Italy and the rest of Europe (if Greece does exit the Euro, what’s going to happen to the rest of us?), do we REALLY need to spend a kazillion Euros on something that by 2020 we don’t even know if a) we really need and b) if any of us in the “Old Europe” will still be alive and kicking (n.b. some U.S. Embassies in Europe a few weeks ago had already warned their citizens to brace themselves for social unrest in some European countries. After all, if folks can’t afford to eat and to feed their loved ones, where on earth are they going to get the money in order to survive, except perhaps engaging in an armed conflict in order to overthrow the powers-that-be who can’t seem to change things, as in Greece’s case)?

Other than the two events I mentioned at the start of this post, I STILL have to work at a large major event in Italy that has gone off WITHOUT a major hitch!

The sites of Rome at Christmas time!

2012-01-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

Sites and colors of Rome during Christmas, 2011!

Are North Americans becoming more like Italians?

2011-11-17T03:34:00.000-08:00

Is the U.S. (and also Canada) becoming a wee bit more like Italy? From a November 14^th, 2011 article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times, “Generation Boomerang”:

“Silvio Berlusconi recently waved away Italy’s financial crisis as a big fuss about nothing.

“Restaurants are full”, he said, and, “it’s difficult to reserve a seat on the plane”, and holiday resorts are “fully booked”.

The Italian prime minister, who has pledged to resign as the nation’s financial crisis deepened, squeezes in his governing between dalliances and has earned a deserved reputation as one of the world’s least serious leaders. But having been in Italy in the past few weeks, I can confirm he has a point. Perhaps nobody wants Italy’s bonds, but they sure want its beaches and bella figura. There’s no mistaking a rich country when you see one.

Italy’s oldest and surest insurance policy is, of course, the family. Jobs may be scarce and times tough, but Mamma is always there. Italian children leave home at an average age of 28 (my note: and even older too!!!!). The Supreme Court ruled a few years back that a father could not cut off financial support to his college-educated daughter of 26 because young people were having a hard time finding jobs.

Americans used to laugh at this Italian penchant for staying home, which extends to some degree across all of Mediterranean Europe…. Nobody’s laughing any longer. The boomerang trend in the U.S.—young people who leave home only to return—is growing as jobs prove harder to find. The share of men aged 25 to 34 living with their parents has jumped to 18.6%, the highest level since at least 1960, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. America is going the Italian route….

Whatever Italy’s faults, it is a nation of hidden solidarities. The weave in the Italian tapestry is dense; the American tapestry is frayed. Perhaps we will now get a generation of Americans who, forced to stay at home until they are 30, are also thereby obliged to learn something of trade-offs, respect, communication and sharing—and with them a country of a little less “I” and a little more “We”....

I don’t think jobs are coming back in a hurry and I don’t think the power shift in the world—away from the U.S. and toward emergent powers—is going to slow down. Family can be a dampener of hardship and frustration. It certainly is in Italy, a nation that adapted a long time ago to the loss of its imperium. In the place of its legions it found fellowship. America could do worse.

An old joke asks why it’s obvious that Jesus Christ was Italian. Answer: Because he lived at home until he was 30, always hung out with the same 12 dudes, believed his mother was a virgin. And his mother thought he was God. Now that Americans are living at home until they are 30, expect the miracles to commence”.

Ciao Silvio, and may you finally "rest in peace"!

2011-11-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

Ciao, ciao caro Silvio! May you (and ALL of us!) finally rest in peace!!!!

"Should I Stay Or Should I Go"?

2011-11-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

Poor Silvio, one of the more recent depictions of him in "The Economist", dressed like a clown and with a topless woman on his tie!

I wonder if he's thinking of The Clash's other famous song (after "London Calling") right now, "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"? The small fellow in the bottom right and who's dressed like a fireman is instead Mario Draghi who is trying to save the Euro while Silvio is trying to sink it with his economic policies!

The other pic, at least for Italian readers, needs no translation!

Poor us....

2011-09-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

When Obama won the presidential elections, Berlusconi referred to him as “that tanned fellow”!

From a recent La Repubblica article (my translation):
“The last example came out of Washington the other day when Obama was thanking those countries which helped liberate Libya from Ghedaffi. Heading the list were naturally the French and the British but he managed to name all of them, including Norway, Denmark and the Arab League. The only country he didn’t mention was ours, even though Italy has supplied the airbases, military commands and the navy to the mission in Libya. But it’s been quite some time now that Italy has been confined to a “leper’s hospital”. And we all know who we can blame for that”.

Italy’s own version of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”!

2011-09-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Italian version of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, that is “Conquest”, “War”, “Famine” and “Death”.

That good’ol Berlusconi, ALL rolled into one!

Great advertisement!

2011-09-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Ecomomist comes out once per week. That (should) mean that in one year there are 52 issues, right? So you'd think that in order to advertise their fine magazine on the iPad, iPhone and what-not (on the 2nd last page), they'd use a variety of covers, even say those dedicated to climate change problems or the world economic crisis, right?

Instead which cover have they used for their August 6th-12th, 2011 edition? The one with poor Silvio! Not THE greatest way to pay respect to a country's leader, right?

It was 22 years ago today….

2011-09-12T03:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, 22 years ago today on September 12, 1989 I landed in Rome to go work at the U.S. Embassy. After those 30 years spent in Canada I decided to make the big jump over the big Atlantic Ocean.

My analysis of these 22 years so far? Well, as I’ve been saying now for several years: I’m MORE than happy to be living in Europe, a wee bit less than living in the so-called Bel Paese, especially with the current leader, Berlusconi.

THE great thing about living in the “Old Europe” (as Donald Rumsfeld once called us here) is that I can in one hour’s time drive up to Austria, then I can be in 30 minutes in Slovenia and then with a mere two-hour flight I can be on a beautiful island in Greece, such as Samos where we recently went for our holidays. In Canada, where did I go in the same amount of time from Winnipeg? To the border with North Dakota! Oh boy, in terms of “culture”, what fun, eh?

Oh Silvio!

2011-07-31T08:25:00.000-07:00

Never a dull moment in Italy with Silvio!

Yes, the zany art of Venice's Biennale, 2011 edition!

2011-06-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, they've got it all in Venice: gondola traffic jams, fiberglass beached whales, naked (and live!) Venetian porn actresses, upside-down 52 ton American tanks that are used as a training device (outside of the U.S. pavilion) and some of the word’s zaniest art for the 54th international Biennale art exhibit which kicked off the other day in the magnificent and always magical city of Venice (your correspondent has been going there for only the last 45 years and still remains completely stunned and captivated by its unique beauty)!

Nearly 100 different countries exhibited some of their finest works of art (!!!). This year's Golden Lion award went to the German pavillion. To paraphrase the great John Cleese in Monty Python’s epic “Live At The Hollywood Bowl” movie: “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like”!

The usual buffoon?

2011-05-13T12:55:00.001-07:00

From The April 2nd, 2011 edition of The Economist. The final comment relates to the "buffoon", Silvio Berlusconi. Not terribly surprising the analysis...

Mandi Dolfo! Udine June 9th, 1921-Udine March 19th, 2011

2011-03-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, admittedly, the house is not only very empty but also very, very quiet without Pops now that he’s left us (as I called him for more than four decades).

Thank God Dani was here and my cousin who is also a doctor when he left this crazy world on Saturday, March 19^th at 9:05 pm at Udine’s hospital. Like Noah and his ark, it was indeed 40 very difficult days of going back and forth to see him twice per day in the hospital. I don’t know who was more zonked, me or him. He would have been 90 on June 9^th (and just one day before Prince Philip’s 90^th b.day too).

Yes, he had some faults and wasn’t perfect (and who is?) but deep down he was a good father. A very generous man who rarely complained of having to open up his wallet for yours truly. Many years ago while living in Winnipeg he had told my mother that I was his best friend. Pretty touching words I must say. His days in Italy hadn’t been the rosiest, what with personal family tragedies (a few suicides, including his own mother, and a kid brother who died in a POW camp in Germany. His name? Mario…), but all-in-all I think he had afterwards in Canada with my mother and I and our two dogs a nice and decent life for some 34 years. Canada had been very, very good to my folks.

I’ll certainly miss discussing soccer with him (he had been a former goalkeeper in his youth in Italy and once in Canada made me play the “Beautiful Game” when I was about 9. How ironic that I’m now coaching 9 year-olds myself right here in Udine!), especially World Cup competitions, international politics and facts related to WWII (he fought in that bloody war), Ancient Rome and Latin, Dante (he used to quote from the “Divine Comedy” off of the top of his head, even shortly before dying) and also operas as he had been very knowledgeable on the subject as well as being an aficionado of that type of music. The absence of his great cultural background in my life will no doubt leave me rather “ignorant”.

His greatest gifts to me? Sports, in particular soccer, literature (to him and my mother my eternal thanks for having instilled in me the love of reading books. They both literally devoured books. As the Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa recently said: “The best thing in my life is when I began to read at age 5”!. I TOTALLY agree with that comment), a sound education which I got with two university degrees in Canada (he was about to become a chartered accountant at Venice’s university but Benito and Adolf ruined his plans. He was two years into his studies. He couldn’t get a degree so I think he felt that his own son should do his best to get one. I ended up not with one but with three degrees, and a lot of this I owe to my folks) and perhaps most importantly his constant “preaching” when he’d drive around with me sitting in the passenger’s seat when I was a kid. He’d point out the dos and donts of driving and thanks to him in 36+ years of driving in both Canada and Italy, well, I’ve never (thank God) had an accident (and NO easy thing to do while driving for more than 15 years in Rome with its 600,000+ motorcycles and scooters coming at you from every direction!).

My mother died back in 2006 on August 19^th. My father instead died on Father’s day, March 19^th! Guess mom was calling him to finally come and join her. Not one to ever complain (the doctors in Udine said that he was THE best patient they had because in 40 days he never complained) but knowing him for nearly 52 years I just think that heading after the hospital into an old folks’ home was just NOT his cup of tea. As he always done for most of his life, not giving me bad news as though to protect my from the “evils” of life, he never told me what his eventual plans were as he had refused to eat during the last week of his life. I think deep down he probably said: “I’m either going back home where I’m happy and where I’m happy with my son or I’m going to die because there’s NO way I’m going to go into one of those places” (n.b. he had worked for 30 years as a physiotherapist in Winnipeg. He saw polio victims, amputees, handicapped people, etc. for 8 hours a day. It wasn’t THE happiest environment in which to work. Nor are many old folks’ homes the greatest places in which to end your life)!

Finally, not because he was my father but quite honestly I can’t think of many people who didn’t like him. Guess I could pick up a pointer or two from him on how to be a wee bit more diplomatic with people...

As they say in the local language here in Friuli, “Mandi Dolfo” (as Adolfo was affectionately called by all of his friends)! I’ll miss you and I’m sure all your friends who loved you will miss you too…

Mario

PS After more than 20 years together not once did my dad look at me and say, “So, like when are you going to marry Dani”? He was also like that with my girlfriends in Canada: not once did he speak badly of them, nor did he tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my girlfriends. For that I think he was also loved and respected by them.

Again, poor 'ol Silvio...

2011-01-27T03:43:00.000-08:00

Poor Silvio, once again he’s been pummelled to death by “The Economist”! This time in the January, 22^nd, 2011 edition. There's almost something in every issue on Silvio’s sexual escapades. Quite the picture that also goes with the article on how in 2 years’ time little has been accomplished under his “reign”.

Has anyone thought that perhaps all that Viagra has finally gone to the poor man’s head? Indeed a nice way to govern a country, eh?

Poor tired Silvio, all those young women tiring him out !

2011-01-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

A rather beleaguered Silvio Berlusconi t Rome’s splendid Villa Madama as he’s waiting to greet Slovenia’s president. The image made the front-page and centre news of the January 19^th, 2011 “International Herald Tribune”!

Are Italian university students really that well-prepared, and are Canadian ones perhaps a notch higher?

2011-01-17T04:02:00.000-08:00

From the January 8^th, 2011 edition of The Economist on a book called: “Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone”, by Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray:

“A university degree has never been more essential for securing good employment. Graduates earn 54% more on average than those who have never graduated, yet only a quarter of Americans between 25 and 34 have a bachelor’s degree. Nearly half of the 3 million people who enrol in university in America drop out within six years (among wealthy countries, only Italy has a worse rate)”.

I do recall a few years ago reading that Canada had one of the world’s highest rates of students who begin their university studies and actually complete them: approximately 33% compared to America’s 32%. Looking around at the current situation in Italy (there are students who are well into their 30s, and they STILL haven’t completed their first degree!), the comment by The Economist isn’t terribly surprising…

Italy’s (in)famous brain drain!

2011-01-12T08:29:00.001-08:00

A (sad) article in the January 8^th edition of The Economist on Italy’s ongoing brain drain (or as one less-than brilliant Italian journalist called it awhile ago, “brain train”!) of brilliant Italian students and researchers who have said “basta” with Italy and its national sports (no, NOT soccer): nepotism, corruption and recommendations!

So narrow-minded the Italians, especially those university profs who wield incredible power over these same students, as these young minds do nothing but further strengthen the economies of other countries such as England, Canada and the U.S. where they go study (and in many cases, never return to Italy). With the current political and economic climate in Italy, can one really blame them?

Poor Silvio (and poor us)...

2011-01-06T02:36:00.000-08:00

From the December 18th, 2010 issue of The Economist. No comment...

Ah, poor Silvio!

2010-12-26T08:51:00.000-08:00

From the December 18^th edition of The Economist. As usual, poor Silvio never gets enough respect…

Ridi pagliacci!

2010-12-02T14:04:00.001-08:00

From the November 6^th, 2010 edition of The Economist and the “high” esteem it has for our “Great Leader”, Silvio Berlusconi!

Interesting the conclusion to the article, “A comedy that has gone on too long”:

“At the end of Leoncavallo’s opera, “Pagliacci”, Canio the clown steps forward, after stabbing Silvio, to tell the audience “La commedia e’ finita”. The curtain should now fall on the tragicomic reign of today’s Silvio, too”.

Indeed how true!

Sore losers the Americans?

2010-11-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

The Italian editor of “Wired” awhile ago proposed the Nobel Peace Prize for Internet. With the so-called “9/11” of international diplomacy (the definition is by Signor Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister) and the WikiLeaks international scandal, I’d say that Internet has caused MORE problems to modern-day society (and especially to the youths of the world) than anything else (I’m having to a certain degree a big laugh as the Americans are all in a huff over Julian Assange and his web site. More on this shortly).

Take for example the increasing cases of bullying in Italy. Ever since (American) wrestling appeared on Italian tv a few years ago (it’s been now taken off public tv) and with the advent of Internet, YouTube and what-not, there has been a noticeable increase in cases related to bullying among kids in Italian schools. The region where I currently live in Italy will be allotting some 340,000 euros to schools and communities in trying to resolve this social problem which is causing a few problems to kids and their parents. To all this we have to now add iPads, mobile phones that also include easy Internet access, etc. It’s not too surprising as you can now film whatever you want with even your mobile phone and post it immediately on YouTube. By doing this, many kids out there now fulfil Andy Warhol’s famous prophecy (that sooner or later in life EVERYONE will have their “15 minutes of fame”!).

Just one example? Months ago in Milan two 15 yr-olds were trying to derail a train. The cops caught them just in time. They asked why they wanted to derail the train? Because they wanted to post the derailment on YouTube! Now, whoever is “old” and reading this, well, we can presume that we don’t go around trying to derail trains, unless we have a VERY serious mental problem. But try putting yourself in the mind of a teeny-bopper (ditto for the rise now in Italy in teenage alcoholism. Not much use when Campari and the other major distilleries show us during their tv ads a bunch of young and beautiful people having a great time and drinking alcohol on a beach during the summer, and with then a very tiny message that appears on the bottom of the tv screen which says: “Drink responsibly”! Ah yes, I’m a 15 yr-old healthy male whose hormones have gone TOTALLY out of whack, and I’m going to obey that message? But of course… (n.b. I recently coached a 16 yr-old goalkeeper in Udine. He showed up one day and looked as though he was in a very, very bad mood. I asked him, “Girl problems”? (which he had had with a pretty 15 yr-old at school). “No, that’s not the problem, coach”, was his answer. The problem was that he had stayed at home from school that day because he had downed “only” 3 bottles of Jagermeister liquor, and basically showed up with a MASSIVE hang-over!). What teenager out there DOESN’T want to become famous with a 5 minute film footage, especially when that film footage can also mean big bucks to him/her?

The other problem, and the entirely new can of worms that Internet has opened up, deals with on-line child pornography. Few out there know that this has now also become a topic at all G8 Summits: how to combat it (I know because I covered it when I worked during that DISASTROUS Summit in Genova in 2001). In fact, many around the world are staunchly against G8 Summits as they think that they’re just a big waste of money, and world leaders only end up doing a lot of useless blah-blah-blah (so the world thinks). Au contraire! Recent arrests, even of Canadian paedophiles in countries like Thailand, have been also thanks to highly sophisticated and VERY expensive software programs which have been used by Interpol authorities in trying to arrest these same paedophiles who lure kids on Internet (by the way: if you’re a parent out there, raise your hand if you want your young kids to end up on an on-line paedophile web site?). It’s the RICH countries of the G8, G10, G20 etc. that can afford this type of software, and not countries like Malawi, Togo, Haiti…

Before the advent of Internet, it wasn’t as though you could just go down to your local newsstand and ask: “Excuse me, but do you have this month’s copy of “Paedophile Fun”? But now with Internet, all the world is literally at your feet (or at your desk). Without a doubt a wonderful candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, right?

On the Americans being somewhat “sore losers” as their highly sensitive documents are exposed on WikiLeaks, I recall a year ago that the Danes, evidently trying to copy the Americans and their sense of “Freedom of Expression”, had published a few cartoons with the image of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban with, of all things, a bomb inside it. I do believe that in the world of Islam, the Prophet’s image cannot be shown, and even less with a bloody bomb in a turban!

I do recall the uproar of many Muslims around the world—and rightly so—at the sight of these “blasphemous” cartoons. I also recall a dear friend of mine in the States who said that as always, the Muslims were overreacting, as though to say: “So what’s wrong with depicting the Prophet in this manner” (he may recall though that Sinead O’Connor’s gesture in the 1990s on the tv program “Saturday Night Live” wasn’t greatly appreciated by many Catholics around the world, nor by the Vatican: she had ripped to pieces a picture of the old Polish pope, John Paul II. For that gesture, O’Connor had disappeared for quite some time from the radar screens of the music world. So much for “Freedom of Expression”!)? When it comes to the WikiLeaks now, no doubt Americans are saying that this is a very serious breach of “national security “(n.b. almost EVERYTHING that regards the Americans in some way or the other is ALWAYS a question of THEIR national security!). What to say though about having, as a result of those Danish cartoons, up to 1 billion Muslims who are mad as hell? Isn’t that a major worry vis-à-vis EVERYONE’S national security? Or does it just apply to the so-called “civilised world” out there, such as America (n.b. in 1994 1 million Tutsi were slaughtered in 10 days’ time by the Hutu in Rwanda. Canada’s General Dallaire, who head the U.N.’s Peacekeeping forces, forces who had been during the Suez Crisis created by the same Canadians under Lester B. Pearson—a former Canadian Prime Minister, who at the time of the crisis was Canada’s foreign minister—basically had his hands tied behind his back by the U.N. hqs in New York, which in turn had its hands tied by its “boss”, that is, the folks in Washington, DC, who didn’t think it was worth it to lose not even one single American soldier for those poor Tutsi. And the French? Oh, well, they were MORE worried in getting out of their own Embassy in Kigali the dogs which belonged to their own diplomats than the locally-hired staff. Many were subsequently caught up in that horrific genocide). That I recall, not one single minute of silence was ever observed by this modern-day “Holocaust”, and yet when I was in Rome on 10/11, 2001, not one, not two but a whopping three minutes of silence were observed by the Italians for the victims of 9/11, as though Americans in some way or the other were more “special” than 1 million (black and poor) Rwandans! Go figure…

So we now, thanks to Internet, have leaks of highly-sensitive documents. But this kind of so-called “cloak and dagger” of international diplomacy has been going on since practically the dawn of diplomacy, ever since the Italians “invented” diplomacy as we now know it (n.b. diplomacy as a communications process between political entities has actually existed for literally thousands of years. The very first diplomatic document in our possession is a letter inscribed on a tablet which has been dated some time around 2,500 BC. It was sent from a kingdom called Ebla near the Mediterranean coast in what we would call the Middle East to the kingdom of Hamazi in what is now Northern Iraq. It was carried by a messenger who made a round trip of almost 2,000 kms. The modern day global diplomatic system has its origins in 15^th century Italy where permanent embassies were first established, and the representative of kings and what-not were in fact ambassadors to those foreign countries). And naturally, the U.S. Embassy in Rome has not been in any way immune to Assange’s web site as it’s had its fair share of “hot” diplomatic cables sent to and from Rome-Washington where the Americans have blasted our “Great Leader”, Silvio Berlusconi, and his “wild parties” with lovely young hookers and what-not (the former no. 2 of the same Embassy, Elizabeth Dibble, has called him “inefficient” and “worn out because of all his partying with young and under-aged girls”!).

According to M.I.T.’s Professor Noam Chomsky, in one of the many books that I’ve read so far, as the Italian Communists were poised to govern Italy right after the Second World War, Washington wouldn’t have hesitated in 1948 to bring Italians to “starvation" had the dreaded Commies come to power (as though a devastating World War wasn't already enough to leave people starving)! In all these years the U.S. government in Italy has always stuck its nose into the affairs of Italians (n.b. in 1993 circa as I left work at 5.30 pm from the U.S. Embassy in Rome, there were several limos in the parking lot. I asked one of the guards who showed up. “Umberto Bossi”! Bossi was and still is the leader of the Northern League, and back then he had just come to power. So the U.S. Ambassador back then, Peter Secchia, called him in to see what this Northern League was “all about” (would they perhaps nationalise American companies in Italy, as Allende did in Chile in the 1970s?). On yet another occasion as I left work, again the Embassy parking lot was full of limos and police cars. Again my same question. This time the answer from the guards was: “The head of the CIA”! And I doubt very much that the big boss of the CIA had only come to Rome to have a gelato at Piazza Navona…).

Behind the scenes back-stabbing such as the secret documents released on WikiLeaks has always gone on between the U.S. and Italy (and not only these two countries obviously): one week before the assassination attempt on the old Polish pope’s life, a U.S. diplomat (his name is being withheld to protect the guilty), the wife’s former boss actually, came to work and blurted out: “So, did you hear, they shot the pope”! Now, it wasn’t quite customary back then to go around shooting popes, so his staff members were quite surprised to hear that rather unusual comment. Well, sure enough, about a week later, JPII was indeed shot. And who really was that U.S. diplomat in question, a political science professor at Yale? None other than the Embassy’s CIA station chief (and to this day, no clear culprit has been named in that failed assassination attempt. Some even suspect Vatican officials while others point the fingers directly at the Americans)!

Vacation time in Sardinia!

2010-09-08T03:43:00.001-07:00

Ahh, plenty of sunshine and incredible turquoise-coloured water on the magnificent island of Sardinia and in the resort town of Villasimius, located just 50 kms from the capital, Cagliari (n.b. NOT to be confused with “Calgary” in Canada)!

And all this thanks to our Sardinian friend Franco S. and his gracious companion Annalisa who hosted us for a wonderfully relaxing week (including some mighty fine cooking by Franco of outstanding Sardinian food all washed down with some good Sardinian wines and liquors)! All pics by M. Rimati.

Loverboy Silvio!

2010-08-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

As usual, The Economist has a very high “esteem” for our Great Leader, Silvio Berlusconi (as you can see from the sarcastic cartoon from the July 31^st edition depicting poor Silvio as the usual Latin Lover!). Here Italy’s less-than brilliant track-record of foreign relations, or better, LACK of foreign relations, is analysed by the British magazine.

A quick summary of the article says the following:

“In the 1990s a study by Federiga Bindi, an international-relations analyst, identified other barriers to an effective European policy in Italy: a high turnover of governments; coalition partners with conflicting aims; the failure of bureaucrats to learn from other member states; and politicians’ lack of interest in Europe….In Italy, politics never stops, and so policy is sidelined. In an atmosphere of continual warfare (!!!) between and within parties, in which every politician from the humblest deputy to the prime minister is looking out for opportunities to best rivals, EU strategy can seem marginal. Senior positions in European institutions hold little attraction for Italian politicians…Ms. Bindi writes that the so-called Lamassoure report, which three years ago confirmed a cut in Italy’s representation in the European Parliament, was approved at a council meting while the Italian delegates were out of the room dealing with their latest political crisis at home. Her recent study ends on an exasperated note: “Italy appears to be stuck in the age of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, in which the victory of one faction over another is what counts, and the fact that this may be damaging to the country matters little”.

I would go an inch further by quoting what the Italian diplomat Giandomenico Picco once said regarding foreign affairs in Italy (he hails from the Friuli region of Italy and was Perez de Cuellar’s former right-hand man at the U.N. when the Peruvian diplomat had been the U.N.’s Secretary-General. He also worked behind the curtains during the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon and was rewarded for his efforts by the U.S. President): “For many Italian politicians, foreign affairs is nothing more than just a ‘hobby’”! And doesn’t THAT say it all about Italy….

Weissensee, Austria

2010-08-01T09:35:00.001-07:00

A pleasant and recent weekend in nearby Weissensee, Austria (160 kms from Udine).

Interesting: in 15 years of driving a car in Rome, not ONCE was I ever stopped. In close to 21 years of driving in the entire country, I’ve only been stopped twice. I think Weissensee’s entire population must be around 1,000 people (or less). Well, Saturday night we went out for dinner. We then went to get the car and go for a short drive in town. As I came around the corner, there was the “Polizei” car which stopped me for a spot-check! Organized those Austrians… (all pics by M. Rimati).

What an insult to the Three Stooges!

2010-06-07T03:16:00.000-07:00

In nearly 20 years that I’ve been reading The Economist, I can’t recall once that the fine British magazine has made fun of and/or insulted Canadian leaders as much as they’ve so far done with their Italian counterparts.

An article from the May 8^th, 2010 edition on Canada’s economy: “The least-bad-rich-world economy. The charms of Canada. Good policies, good behaviour and good fortune: if only others could be as lucky”. VERY rarely do they say the same thing of one of the world’s most corrupt countries, Italy that is!

Now take a look at the picture in the May 15^th, 2010 edition of the same magazine. It shows, from left to right, the following Italian politicians: Gianfranco Fini, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Northern League leader Umberto Bossi. Nice caption underneath, eh (and what an insult to the famous Three Stooges too)!

Funky Berlin!

2010-04-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

What a simply great and funky town Berlin is! We went there for about 4 days and really enjoyed it.

This was my 3^rd time to Germany actually (I’ll be going for a 4^th in June to again see AC/DC!). I always enjoy going there and perhaps after Greece, it’s my favourite country I Europe (okay, England isn’t all that bad either). And why pray tell? Well, as The Economist said many years ago, German tourists like going to Canada because it’s a CLEAN country! When you go to Germany (and for someone who also lived for 30 years in Canada), well, you kind of understand why Germans indeed like going to Canada (perhaps a little bit less Italy as it can be quite often FAR from being a clean country). Oh, and when it comes to Italy, local administrators who run Rome’s subway system can learn a LOT from the Germans: together with Munich’s subway, Berlin’s is spotlessly clean (including its trains)! On the one hand, hardly ANY graffiti can be seen, and I mean anywhere too. Rome’s on the other hand can quite often be simply disgusting, especially the Termini main subway line (dark, dingy, dirty, smelly and with rubber floor carpets that are usually torn-up!). Really odd for a country that has given the world the likes of Ferrari, Armani and the Sistine Chapel! Travelling you see the progress and importance that a capital/city gives to its country by (also) its transportation system! Not only that, but twice in the restaurant where we ate near the hotel not ONCE were we bothered by foreign hawkers, unlike what happened a few weeks ago in a pizzeria in the San Lorenzo area of Rome: we had about 10 different hawkers who came to our table trying to sell us the silliest products you’ve ever seen! Immigrant laws in Italy are evidently WAY more lax than in Germany…

Our neighbourhood, not terribly far away from the Reichstag, was pretty cool I must say: there was a Jewish synagogue not too far away from our hotel which had been a victim in 1938 of the infamous “Night of the Crystals” when Hitler’s men had gutted in Berlin alone some 100 synagogues (I think some 260 in the entire country). There were also other Jewish stores and what not in the same neighbourhood. Then not too far away was some odd music-art centre which no doubt also contained a rather high quantity of drugs. Add to all this the young “ladies” which frequented the area in the evenings (hookers), whom I had affectionately nicknamed “The Sisters” as they all seemed to have come out of the same wardrobe: same short skirts, same very high-heeled boots and even same hair colour! There was a small army of them lurking in our neighbourhood, waiting for business to come knocking at their doors. The neighbourhood definitely had the makings of one cool area of Berlin (it’s also not terribly far from Alexanderplatz either, another rather cool area of Berlin as you can see from the punkers who gave me the finger).

Getting around Berlin is rather easy and great as it has a terrific subway system, so great that you can go all the way to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (my 8^th so far) some 35 kms away from Berlin. This camp once held up to 200,000 prisoners and was built under orders by Himmler, right about the same time as the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was the first of its kind built in Prussia and, together with Dachau, served as a model for all other concentration camps. And like Dachau and Auschwitz, it too has the famous sign over its entrance: “Arbeit Macht Frei”.

And speaking of that period, as we walked back one day from the Reichstag, we came across a rather dark and ominous-looking building. I walked around it twice but couldn’t see any signs nor opening hours (it had several doors). I took pics of it but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. I then had an idea, but I wasn’t 100% sure, so we asked someone in a nearby store who asked us: “Do you know what a bunker is”? At which point we answered: “Hitler’s”? Sure enough, it was the old Fuhrer’s bunker, or whatever remained of it. They say that his Bergoff (his old alpine residence, otherwise known as the “Eagles’ Nest”) is watched by German secret service as they don’t obviously want the place to become some type of shrine for neo-Nazi groups who are still lurking out there. I presume the same applies to his bunker as I had the impression we were later followed for a short distance by German undercover police. I mean, someone who walks around the building and also takes pics, isn’t he a wee bit suspicious-looking? They even put down a large stone slab in front of one of the bunker’s doors, signifying perhaps that “Let’s finally put a lid on this thing called Nazism”?

The old Reichstag and the new Bundestag are without a doubt well worth the 1-2 hour line-up as you get to go to the top of Sir Norman Foster’s glass dome. You also get a very good panoramic view of the entire city (good idea to get the audio-guide too as you may otherwise miss out on certain interesting things).

And yes, we did also check out Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate (and the adjoining U.S. Embassy), what’s left of the Berlin Wall, Potsdam Platz and the truly magnificent Pergamonmuseum with an absolutely incredible Pergmanon altar. You can see from the pics some of the incredible statues there, including a beautiful exhibit on Islamic art.

Dining was also rather good as we went in a small bistro-like restaurant near our hotel (www.boetzow-privat.de).

The U.S. Embassy by the way is also right in front of the French one, which is around the corner from the British one, which isn’t too far away from the Russian one. I got the impression that during the Cold War period there was probably NO other city on the face of the planet like Berlin, perhaps not even Moscow under its old Soviet leaders, that had such an incredible amount of spies all in one town! You also get an idea from old film footages from movies and what not just how much the city had been destroyed during the final days of WWII and the immense suffering by the poor Berliners. Not too far away from the Reichstag is also a monument to some 2,000 Soviet soldiers who died fighting in the battle of Berlin.

And thanks to the Reichstag visit we also managed to catch the very interesting and very sad Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, which is right next to the U.S. Embassy. I had heard of this memorial as it was built between 2003 and 2005 by the architect Peter Eisenman. It is rather unique and also odd as it consists of 2,711 concrete slabs which can be walked through from all sides, leaving visitors to find their own way out. Underground the memorial is the museum which also has information on several Jewish families who had been deported to the concentration camps. According to the museum, if they were to read out the names and speak about the lives of the 6 million Jewish victims, it would take some 6 years, 7 months and 27 days

After Munich, Nuremburg, Cologne, Bonn (the former capital), Weimar, Baden-Baden, Heidelberg and Freiburg, Berlin is another great German city. The only negative note is that Germans unfortunately, at least those in bars and restaurants, DON’T know how to make a good cup of coffee, in the sense that they serve it to you at a kazillion degrees (like in North America)! For that I must admit that there’s probably NO country in the world that knows how to make a great cup of coffee as they do in Italy (all pics by M. Rimati)!

Oh Saint Silvio, where would we be without you?

2010-03-25T09:13:00.001-07:00

On March 20^th, Rome once (again) saw another so-called massive demonstration at the historical Piazza San Giovanni, only about 400 metres from where I live in Rome, in favour of our “Great” Leader, Silvio Berlusconi, and his Freedom Party.

Seeing that it was a nice day, we decided to go for a walk as we had to also see an art exhibit in the heart of Rome on Via del Corso. As we went by the square, around 3.30 pm, we found it rather odd that there weren’t a lot of people. As we began heading towards the Colosseum, a human “wave” of his faithful followers—including many ministers of his current cabinet—began literally flocking towards the square! They had met at the Circus Maximus and with another large group that met on the other side of San Giovanni, eventually joined forces at 5:00 pm for the arrival of the “Great” Leader himself (who also stated rather arrogantly that his government intends to find a cure for cancer “within 3 years”!). People said that about 1 million people showed up when there were probably not more than 300,000 people. Rome was though quite chaotic as there was Silvio's demonstration, another pro-water demonstrantion the very same day, the Rome-Udinese soccer match that night and Rome's marathon on Sunday!

And yes, as one can see by the pics (all by M. Rimati), they came in all shapes and sizes and with a multitude of colourful signs as well. All that was pretty-well missing that day was a with long hair and a long white robe and carrying a cross in Silvio’s honour!