An offer you can't refuse!

Once again the Italians have broken the balls of the Americans and Brits: it appears that in the kidnapping and subsequent release the other day from Afghanistan of the Italian journalist Mastrogiacomo (of the left-leaning national daily, La Repubblica), he had been traded for 5 somewhat dangerous Taleban terrorists, terrorists who once freed may possibly attack NATO forces, which include countries such as the US, Britain, Canada and Germany.

This has apparently sent the Yanks and Brits a wee bit ballistic (including the Germans) as their approach is that “we don’t deal with terrorists” (under former Prime Minister Berlusconi it was believed that more than one Italian hostage was released upon payment of a LOT of Italian euros!)!

History repeats itself as in the case of the terrorist Abu Abbas who had masterminded the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the 1980s (with the subsequent death of the American tourist Leon Klinghoffer). This shouldn’t be all too surprising how Italy manages to eventually get shafted, by above-all the Americans, in diplomatic affairs. And the Brits aren’t that lenient either with the Italians: in the March 10th edition of The Economist the “Science and Technology” section of the magazine discusses the interesting(?) behaviour of cowbirds and the way that they protect their chicks, a sort of protection racket according to the magazine. In two sections of the article the cowbirds are compared to the Italian mafia (“…is that the host bird’s real chicks are pawns in a protection racket of a sort the Sicilian Mafia would be proud to have invented”…”Even the Mafia never thought of that one”)!

No respect, as usual, for Italy…

Way to go Canada!

Nice title in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune in the editorial section: “Canada restores rights”.

It talks about the Canadian government’s use of detaining foreign-born terrorists and how the Supreme Court has struck down that law. In particular, the article also talks about the government formally apologizing to Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen of Syrian extraction who was a victim of Bush’s decision to approve open-ended detentions, summary deportations and even torture after September 11. Arar was detained in the U.S. and deported to Syria, where he was held for nearly a year and tortured. Arar will also receive financial compensation from the Canadian government for his ordeal (some 9 million bucks or so according to a recent Economist article).

While this may not be all that great news (it is compared to what Bush has done with detaining terrorists in places such as Guantanamo), it comes at an interesting time: we have in Italy our own version of Arar when the imam Abu Omar was kidnapped by 26 Cia agents in Milan (the boss of that commando, a woman, was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Rome). He was thrown in a van, whisked off to the Aviano airbase near Udine, flown on a secret flight to Ramstein in Germany and then to Egypt where he was tortured. He’s finally been released and wants to now sue the Berlusconi government (he was the Prime Minister at the time of his abduction). He has said that he would like to return to Italy but the Egyptians have vetoed that decision (presumably under pressure from the Bush administration).

Just today the Italian papers have said that the Americans have said “nyet” to the 26 Cia agents appearing in Italy for kidnapping charges. Fat chance too that Omar will see any money. All this isn’t too surprising as Italy always gets shafted in one way or the other by the Americans. Unlike the Canucks and the nice editorial that an (American) paper wrote yesterday on how things should be (properly) done when it comes to detaining terrorists indefinitely (as the IHT itself concludes: “Lawmakers have only to look to the Canadian court for easy-to-follow directions back to the high ground on basic human rights and civil liberties”), the Italians have to always “bend over” to the whims of the Americans.

And naturally today’s Italian papers make NO mention whatsoever of the IHT article on Canada’s initiative…

Bring out your dead (but watch out for the jewellery)!

Heinrich Himmler would be most proud: another undercover reportage in Italy, after the one on the appalling health conditions of many hospitals, has unmasked what goes on in funeral parlours and morgues, especially in southern Italy.

So what pray tell does the former head of the dreaded SS have to do with funeral parlours? The bodies of the dearly beloved in Italy have been known to be completely stripped, including gold chains and even gold teeth, by less-than honest funeral parlour and morgue employees. Morbid as the whole thing sounds but it’s reminiscent of what I once saw in the morgue in Mauthausen, one of the most dreaded concentration camps under the Nazis, located in Linz, Austria (Simon Weisenthal came out alive from that camp, the last of the 11 he had been to. Adolf Eichmann had also visited Mauthausen during his “illustrious” career as head of the Gestapo). Before being thrown into the ovens the bodies would also have their tattoos removed (!!).

The Italian reporter pretended to be a funeral parlour employee. Kick-backs are the norm, even amongst ambulance drivers who tip off, for a nice “coffee” (the code word for the kick-back one receives) the news of a freshly deceased person, as a result say of a car accident. If the poor bloke has on gold chains or rings, voom, they immediately disappear!

Everyone seems to be in on the game, including very-well paid doctors (who already earn between 4 and 5,000 euros a month for their professions) as well as nurses. And it’s not terribly surprising that some funeral parlours are also controlled by the local mafia. The relatives of the dearly departed have little choice but to pay big bucks in order to bury their beloved, otherwise they may fall prey to the “pressure” from local mobsters.

And to think that Italy is a predominantly Catholic country home also to the Vatican!

And now for something completely different, the Vatican Museums!

Just a few days ago I decided with the missus to again check out the Vatican Museums in Rome. We got there and there was a line-up which moved rather rapidly. I had been to the museum many years ago, perhaps 10, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the ticket booths had been modernised. In this age of terrorism, there are also airport-like x-ray machines that one has to pass through. The ticket is a whopping 13 euros but you do get your money’s worth in perhaps THE world’s finest museum.

I was flabbergasted by the “human wave” of people that were in the halls of the museum, and it wasn’t yet Easter or the summer period! The works of art? Simply astounding. I said to myself that if they could sell all of the artwork in the Vatican Museums one would probably be able to feed half of Africa (I hope to not sound too blasphemous but there is a slight bit of hypocrisy when the Vatican tells me that we should combat world hunger!).

Towards the end of the visit I admit that my head was spinning a wee bit, what with the heat, the large crowds, the art and the fact that I didn’t bring a bottle of water with me. By the time we got to the Sistine Chapel, what else was there to see that could possibly top off a museum visit such as this one? Absolutely nothing (all pics by M. Rimati)!

Hulk Hogan, where are ya?

No siree, never a dull moment in Italian politics, that’s for sure! Because of a variety of reasons tied to the war in Afghanistan (and Italy’s participation in that conflict), the expansion of the U.S. airbase in Vicenza and gay marriages (a definite no-no for the Vatican), Romano Prodi’s government fell on February 21st. Prodi, the prime minister, had to immediately hand in his resignation to the Italian president, Napolitano.

Nothing new in that one might say as Italy has had so far over 50 governments since the end of WW II. But what happened in the Italian senate is not only ludicrous, it’s also offensive and typically Italian. But before describing what exactly happened, let us back-track a wee bit to what the Romans gave us, mainly the senate and the famous four letters which are also the symbol of the city of Rome: S.P.Q.R. (in Latin, “Senatus PopulusQue Romanus”, in Italian, "Il Senato e il Popolo Romano", in plain English it means, “The Senate and the Roman People”). One would think that senators in general are not only paid rather well but also command respect, are well-educated, well-versed and also polite (not to mention civilised too). Well, not in Italy: the scenes on tv and in the papers the other day of the “glorious” Italian senate were simply appalling: senators who threw newspapers in the air in a sign of jubilation, senators who yelled, who pushed other senators (some even prevented others from voting) and who even insulted fellow senators with words such as “ass…”! and “You’re a piece of sh..”!

Not too surprising that the rest of the world doesn’t often take Italy terribly seriously. The only thing missing in the senate was Hulk Hogan to body-slam a few senators, including 7-time Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti (who is pushing close to 90 soon)!

All this shouldn’t be all too surprising. Many years ago, when Ronaldo was playing for Inter, there was an all-important match between Inter and Juventus in Milan’s San Siro stadium. Ronaldo was clearly taken down in the Juve penalty area but the ref didn’t award Inter the pk. The game was played on Sunday. The debate surrounding that missed pk went on until the following Thursday. Massimo Mauro, a former Naples, Udinese and Juve player (he had played respectively with the likes of Maradona, Zico and Platini!), at the time was an honourable member of parliament. A fellow by the name of Grammazio, of the neo-fascist "National Alliance" party, was SO incensed (an Inter fan perhaps?) that he had it out with Mauro, even launching his microphone at the former soccer player-turned-politician! Indeed NEVER a dull moment in Italian politics…

Some things just never change...

After the death two weeks ago of the cop during the Catania-Palermo derby, the men’s Serie A championship (and all other games, including women’s soccer), kicked-off again last Sunday, but not without the usual idiots (some games, such as Fiorentina-Udinese, were played behind closed doors amid the protests of local fans). At Rome’s Olympic stadium a minute of silence was observed for the death of the police officer and of a manager who was kicked to death during an amateur match a few weeks ago. The minute of silence was observed at all games.

So what did some Roma fans do? They turned their backs on the pitch in a sign of protest (why I ask?). The gesture was seen by the thousands of other more “serious” fans in the stadium and were eventually booed and clapped in a sign of their own protest at the rather stupid gesture. This wasn’t the only stupid gesture: in an amateur match a manager flung a steel barrier at another team manager and hit him with a cane. Nothing terribly unusual together with the odd fireworks thrown on soccer pitches. Oddly and luckily enough, these kinds of zany things DON’T happen at women’s matches (thus confirming the fact that women are quite often MORE intelligent and not as violent as men!).

Udinese in the meantime risks in two weeks’ time to also play behind close doors as the automatic turnstiles which have been demanded by the soccer authorities are still not in place (AC Milan and Inter over at San Siro had them in place on the weekend). There’s now a push-and-pull with the club and the city of Udine (which owns the stadium) as no one wants to dish out the money. Giuliano Amato, the Home Minister, said a few days ago that “NASA went on the moon, so installing these turnstiles isn’t the most expensive or difficult thing to do”.

Go say that though to Pozzo, Udinese’s president (or the mayor of Udine)!

The usual “verbal diarrhoea”?

There’s naturally been an incredible amount of “verbal diarrhoea” surrounding the Catania-Palermo derby and the death of the police officer there. I say verbal diarrhoea simply because we’ve already gone through this a zillion times. Italian sociologists, anthropologists, shrinks, priests, homemakers, kids, journalists, you name it, have jumped on the “anti-stadium” violence with their theories on what to do about the appalling violence in Italy’s stadia.

Many think that by having secure stadia there won’t be violence outside the stadia (many aren’t yet up to par in Italy so this Sunday when the championship will kick off again, many games, such as Fiorentina-Udinese, will be played behind closed doors with no spectators). That’s like saying that if a curfew is imposed in Baghdad that the massive violence there will cease overnight! The main problem are the lax laws in Italy and the poor reinforcement of them, not so much what goes on in a soccer stadium.

A case comes to mind just yesterday: three elderly Chilean men (one even 80 years old!) were caught on a Genoa bus. Pinching the women’s bums? No, they were pick-pocketing the passengers. Nothing new with that as in Italy, especially in Rome and its (in)famous bus No. 64 (the one that goes from the main train station, Termini, to St. Peter’s), there are usually hordes of pick-pockets (on the No. 64 once undercover cops found—all at the same time—10 pick-pockets all working together! They must have probably been going to a pick-pocket convention in town. The Rome subway is also often full of gypsy pick-pockets).

These three coy Chilean pensioners weren’t at it for the first time. No siree, they had already done the same thing in Parma, Trieste and in other Italian cities (the cops have a long file on them). And yet, there they were again, out on the streets doing what they do best, pick-pocketing. Ditto many years ago in Rome on a tram which goes by “Porta Portese”, the Sunday flea market. At one point, the driver warned passengers that pick-pockets had just gotten on board. Some foreign tourists (Americans), in a usually-logical way of thinking, said to themselves, “Well, if you KNOW that there are pick-pockets on board, why doesn’t anyone do something to arrest them”? No, in true Italian “humane” style, the driver was just being nice by “advising” passengers to be careful. It didn’t even cross his mind to call the cops.

If Italian authorities can’t throw away in the slammer for awhile a bunch of harmless old pick-pockets, are they possibly going to stop kids from hurling bricks at cops or launching Katyusha-style missiles at opposing fans? Then there’s the ever-reigning presence of the mafia in Italy (some suspect that the Mob is also behind hooligans receiving drugs and weapons in southern Italy). That’s something that’s going to be incredibly difficult to change in Italy. As the late, great Giovanni Falcone once said (the anti-mafia judge blown up by Cosa Nostra in 1993 near Palermo), a Sicilian himself: “ALL Sicilians are Mafiosi, just a small percentage are criminals”! It’s a way of life, a way of thinking for many Italians.

I really doubt things will change much, especially when in certain parts of Italy efficiency and honesty are NOT on the tips of everyone’s tongues (it is said that the custodian of the Catania stadium had hidden bats and what not inside the stadium. He was also overheard yelling at the cops, “Bastards”!). And I really doubt that the British model of combating hooliganism will help much when many Italians don’t respect the simplest of laws (such as driving and talking on the cell phone or observing the speed limit on highways!).

“La solita minestra”!

A good friend of mine lived 20 years in Italy. He moved back to the States some 10 years. In Rome he left an (ex) wife and two kids. He comes back about twice-a-year to see his family. He usually arrives at Rome’s Fiumicino airport. If I can, I gladly go to pick him up. If he arrives ahead of schedule I’ll find him sitting on a bench reading an Italian paper. After the hugs and hellos he’ll look at me and he’ll say, “Hey Mario, is this today’s paper”? And I shall naturally look at him and I shall say, “Yeah Walt, why, do you usually read yesterday’s paper”? He’ll then add, “But Mario, it’s the same news as last year”?

That in a nutshell is Italy: “la solita minestra” (the same old soup), the same old song, the usual blah-blah-blah. I’m naturally talking about the umpteenth death on February 2nd of a police officer at the Catania-Palermo soccer derby (won 2-1 by Palermo). The absolutely INCREDIBLE irony of this match is that prior to the kick-off a minute of silence was observed in Catania’s stadium because on January 27th, a day put aside by the Italian government to remember the Holocaust, the manager of a boys’ amateur soccer team was (literally) kicked in the head in the dressing room. To death.

The Catania-Palermo match saw over 150 people injured, including 26 police officers and 4 Carabinieri officers. Another police officer is in serious condition. Catania’s hospitals apparently went into overdrive due to the incredible number of injured people that were arriving. In a sign of protest and disgust, the Italian FA has decided to suspend all matches of the Serie A scheduled for February 4th. Again, the same old soup: twelve years ago when Don Antonio Matarrese was the president of the Italian FA (he’s currently the president of the Italian League and was also a former FIFA Vice-President, one by the way despised by Trinidad’s Jack Warner!), a young fellow by the name of Vincenzo Spagnolo was knifed to death at the Marassi stadium in Genoa by AC Milan fans. Matarrese then chose the iron fist and suspended, for the first time in the history of Italian soccer, the championship on the following weekend. Twelve years later and with innumerable acts of violence in Italy’s stadia (Molotov cocktails too!), the scene has once again been repeated. The usual blah-blah-blah on what should be done will certainly now follow.

Looking at the scenes on tv you’d think that there was a mini “Intifada” which took place in Catania the other night: tear gas canisters launched by the hooligans and by the police, mini paper bombs exploding left and right (one apparently killed the officer as it was thrown into his police van), rocks being thrown, you name it, it was there. About the only thing that was missing was yet again another missile, like the one which had killed the Lazio fan Vincenzo Paparelli in 1979 during the Lazio-Roma derby in Rome. The missile was fired from the Roma supporters’ area, it crossed the entire LENGTH of the Olympic stadium and landed in poor Paparelli’s eye socket, killing him instantly (no doubt Al-Qaeda would have been proud of the Roma fan who fired it off!). This was how many years ago now, only 28? Have things changed much in 2007? Not really.

A few years ago in San Siro, one of the 10 “temples” of international soccer, thugs rolled up the stadium ramps a scooter. Once it was gutted they threw the thing from one tier down to the other one! Miraculously, no one was killed. The whole thing was caught on film and no doubt the scene was sent around the world (how on earth security staff DIDN’T notice a scooter being brought into the stadium during a soccer match is beyond me!). On another occasion I took in a Roma-Juventus fan in Rome. I went with the bro-in-law, a die-hard Juve fan. Our seats were next to the Juve hooligans (taken collectively they were pretty dangerous. Taken individually they were harmless). At half-time the rubbish started raining down on us. We were separated by the “praetorians”, the cops. As my bro-in-law stood up to see where the crap was coming from, bang!, he got nailed right in the sunglasses by a coin. I ended up having to drive him to 5 emergency wards (ever had an emergency in the summer on a Sunday in Rome?) in order to get the glass shrapnel pulled out of his eye (he didn’t lose the eye luckily). And naturally we missed the 2nd half of the match.

Now every politician, Tom, Dick and Luigi is going to jump on the “morality” band-wagon and is going to say—as they’ve said countless times in the past—that “we have to do something to stop this ludicrous violence”! Hard to do I’d say when it has to do with a nation, as Vladimir Putin said awhile ago, which has the mafia. Why? Because the extreme fringes of hooligans have been known to black-mail club presidents into giving them (for free) tickets, otherwise they’ll either abandon the matches or will destroy the stadia (in the Catania match, bathroom parts were ripped away from the walls and used as weaponry!).

A solution? Yes, give Maggie Thatcher some uppers and/or vitamins, get her out of retirement and make her learn Italian so that she can become Italy’s prime minister! Italy needs someone with balls, not the soccer kind mind you and not the usual clowns who govern Italians (and to think that Silvio Berlusconi’s other great hobby after politics just happens to be soccer as he’s the president of AC Milan! You’d think that violence at matches would hit him on a personal note). Under her (and later Tony Blair) the Conservative government said “basta”!, and basically cleaned up the problem of hooliganism in England (but not when the British fans travel abroad though, especially in countries like Italy where they no damn well that the laws are lax) so much so that protective barriers surrounding soccer pitches have been taken down. The same thing at the moment would be totally unthinkable in Italy.

Politics in Italy vis-à-vis soccer-related problems mirrors very much what goes on in Italy on a daily basis: Italy is quite often a “Banana Republic” when it comes to dealing with even more serious problems, such as the appalling conditions of many of its hospitals, especially in southern Italy (see below for my posting on that problem) or the incredibly rigid labour laws, especially when it comes to hiring people over the age of 35. Back in the 1980s the Craxi government had basically stopped dead in his tracks the terrorist Abu Abbas. He had been the master-mind behind the Achille Lauro ship high jacking. Some may recall that episode in which a Jewish-American invalid by the name of Leon Klinghoffer was shot by terrorists and thrown overboard in his wheelchair. Abbas was on a flight to Belgrade. His plane was intercepted and escorted to the military base of Sigonella in southern Italy. The Reagan government at the time wanted the Craxi government to stop him and hand him over to the American authorities. Craxi instead allowed the plane to fly on to Belgrade. Italian and American military personnel nearly came to fists over that incident, right on the airport’s tarmac. This naturally sent Reagan ballistic. I was in Canada following the situation at the time. I will never forget when two U.S. congressmen, watching appalled as the Italians let Abbas go freely, referred to Italy as a “Banana Republic”! Can one really blame them?

Ditto six years ago during the Genoa G8 Summit (I worked during that disastrous event). A Black Bloc protester by the name of Carlo Giuliani, a young punk, had a fire extinguisher held over his head. He was ready to smash it into a police van with inside another young Carabiniere officer. Obviously his intent was that of smashing the poor officer’s skull and not to put out his cigarette! The officer, simply terrified as his van was surrounded by these political hooligans, fired off a shot. Giuliani not only lay there dead but by Italy’s political left he was turned into a modern-day martyr and saint. The Carabiniere who fired the shot? Oh, he basically had his career ruined and was forced to leave his job. Protesters had not been too far away either from the “red zone” that day, the same zone which hosted the G8 leaders. Had they managed to enter that area all hell would have broken loose and the Berlusconi would have had on its hands a one MAJOR diplomatic problem. Again, Italy gave to the entire world one of the worst images of itself, not to mention a classical example of how “we-don’t-know-how-to-organize-a-major-event-without-making-a-complete-mess-out-of-things-even-if-our-very-own-lives-depended-on-it”!

Too harsh of an analysis? Just witness what goes on practically every weekend during soccer matches (and you’d think that the Italian government and soccer authorities were somewhat new to violence in stadia!!!). That’s just one of the reasons why I’ve stopped going for years now to see soccer matches live. The violence, the swearing and what not has simply become nauseating. I much prefer rugby matches were both the players and fans are more civilized! And I’m not the only one because with the advent of digital tv many soccer aficionados now watch soccer matches in the comfort and safety of their own homes, thus causing stadium attendance to dwindle dangerously low.

Do I personally have a solution as one who also studied the phenomenon of hooliganism for my master’s degree in the sociology of sports (the folks at the University of Leicester in England where I studied have quite often acted as consultants to the British government on resolving the problem of hooliganism in that country. They are experts on the subject)? Well, we can adopt the American law of “three strikes and you’re out” and throw the culprits in jail for 10 years or so, or we can hope and wait for the wisdom of someone who has known Italian soccer first-hand: UEFA’s new president, Michel Platini (who played for Juventus). Why Platini? Because Italy will be a candidate in 2012 for the European championship. What Platini should do with the other candidate countries (Croatia-Hungary and the Ukraine-Poland are also candidate cities) is the following: the countries which have so far done something against the problem of violence in stadia and have a lower rate of violence will be assigned the 2012 games. That’ll hit the Italian government, the FA and fans alike (the 2012 championship will also mean more funding in order to upgrade many of Italy’s stadia which are in terribly appalling conditions, even after having been upgraded 17 years ago for the 1990 World Cup!) right where it hurts them the most: in their pocketbooks as well as in their soccer pride!

With the police officer’s death at the Catania stadium, history once (sadly) repeats itself as litres and litres of (crocodile?) tears will again be shed over this umpteenth tragedy. And if all this doesn’t work seeing that everything has be tried so far (the president of the Italian players’ association has also suggested closing down the championship for an entire year), then we dig up both Stalin and Himmler and get them to head the Italian FA. I’m sure that you wouldn’t even hear a pin drop during the matches!

But Silvio, do you really love me?

Apparently, some 180 news web sites around the world the other day ran the news that Veronica Lario, who also goes by the last name of Berlusconi, wrote an open letter to the “La Repubblica” national newspaper (front page too!) demanding an apology from her husband and former (twice) Italian prime minister Silvio. The reason? Well, because the old and spryly 70 year-old businessman (Italy’s richest by the way) turn-politician was a wee bit too chummy with some luscious and beautiful Italian showgirls at an awards ceremony. It seems that our former “Fearless Leader” (the North Koreans have their “Dear Leader”, we’ve got instead Berlusconi!) turned to one of the voluptuous ladies and said, “If I weren’t already married, I would marry you right now”! while to another one he said, “With you I’d go anywhere”!

“Basta”!, said Veronica (she’s been with Silvio for 27 years now and has given him three kids, his second marriage too), and so she proceeded to send the newspaper a letter demanding his apology. The letter was printed on the first page. Silvio though isn’t new to these amorous advances. At one political debate he commented on the beautiful legs of the women seated in the front row. To a fellow female “Forza Italia” candidate (the name of his political party) he yelled, “Let’em have it”!, in clear reference to her reproductive organ (luckily for Silvio the candidate didn’t hear his umpteenth gaffe!). During an international meeting, he said to the Finnish prime minister instead, a woman, that he was going to pull from his sleeve all his tricks from his days as a playboy (he was trying to woo her into letting Italy, instead of Finland, have an important international institute on food located in Parma). First of all, this went down VERY badly with the Finns who are probably as politically correct as the average North American and second, have you ever seen the Finnish prime minister? Let us just say that Hulk Hogan is cuter!

On another occasion during a trip to the U.S., he faced American businessmen/women and in order to increase American investments in Italy (they’re rather low because of all the red-tape bureaucracy in Italy), he justified things by also saying that “we have not only beautiful businesswomen in Italy but also secretaries”! No doubt for a country who has so far given the world Madeleine Albright (she was once defined as a “serpent” by the Iranian ambassador to the UN. The following day she came to the UN wearing a brooch in the form of a snake. Not only, but when Castro’s air force shot down a plane carrying dissident leaflets, she accused the Cubans of not having “cojones”, balls!), Jean Kirkpatrick (the former U.S. ambassador to the UN), Meg Whitman, the CEO of Ebay (and considered to be currently the most powerful woman in the world of international business. That title was once held by the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina), Condi Rice and perhaps one day even Hillary Clinton over at the White House, well, this didn’t go down too well with many people present that day, especially NOT in the land of politically correctness “par excellence”.

Berlusconi, as “gallant” as ever, decided to apologise to Veronica through the same means. That news “only” covered a whopping six pages in the Italian dailies yesterday! Italian analysts stated that the whole world had gone “crazy” with the news of Veronica’s letter to her husband (apparently, he wasn’t informed about what she was going to do and was somewhat p.offed too!). Few though have been able to read properly between the lines: it’s another example of just how “seriously” the rest of the world, in particular the U.S., takes Italy. Another example? In 2003 I was in the south of Portugal for an important women’s soccer event. On the nearby Azores islands Portugal’s then prime minister Barroso was about to meet with Bush, Blair and Spain’s Aznar to discuss the imminent attack against Iraq. I was watching the entire event live on BBC. Not once, and I mean not once, did the Brits ever mention the word “Italy” or “Berlusconi”. In fact, he wasn’t even invited to the meeting even though Italy was part of the coalition force that went into Iraq.

To paraphrase the great Rodney Dangerfield and Italy’s great “admiration” by the rest of the world, “I don’t get any respect”!

Ain’t love REALLY blind?

How many times have we heard the saying that love at times can be blind? It looks like it’s true for a poor 53 year-old labourer in the centre of Italy, not too far away from Rome. Without knowing it, his somewhat “horny” wife, feeling rather neglected by her hard-working hubbie, slipped two Viagra pills in his glass of fine red wine. Thinking that the “Rodolfo Valentino” of workers would no doubt rip apart her bra and underwear on the dinner table (or under it, take your choice) once he downed the secret potion, the poor fellow instead began feeling severe pain in his chest rather than a surprising “rise” between his legs. The pain then basically transformed into a heart attack! The man was immediately rushed to hospital and saved just in a nick of time by the emergency staff.

The woman in the meantime justified her desperate action by saying that she had felt rather neglected lately by her husband (hmm, seems like a common lament among women!). He instead admitted that he had been for quite some time under undue stress and that he felt guilty for having ignored the sexual needs of his loving companion. Doctors treating the worker said that the hear attack was caused by the man’s poor physical shape TOGETHER with the fact that his favourite drink had been spiked by not one but by two of the world’s most famous tiny blue pills. After having practically seen death laugh in his face, the man vowed that he’d get in better shape and would pay more attention to his better half.

The wife, perhaps naively, was hoping that through the hidden use of the Viagra pills good’ol memories of wild sex during the first few years of their marriage would once again enflame their somewhat boring lives. It looks instead like about the only thing that was enflamed was the poor fellow’s chest!

Baby Marlon Brando’s in the making

Hard to believe but true: in the south-eastern Italian town of Bari (known also for its rather high-density crime rate and the birthplace of Cassano, former Roma and now Real Madrid player), an 11 year-old student was withheld by the police for having beaten a fellow schoolmate in the classroom. Now, there’s nothing perhaps new in this you might say except that the 11 year-old “boss” demanded from the other kid not his lunch or his cell phone, but in true “mafioso” style, a kiss on the hand, just like in the old mafia movies with Marlon Brando!

The event happened while the teacher had momentarily stepped out of the classroom. The victim, who also ended up in hospital for a week due to the tough whacking, was beaten up simply because he didn’t kiss the “boss’s” hand in a sign of respect (or better, disrespect seeing that he didn’t kiss his hand). Has the baby boss been influenced by all the “shoot-em-up-bang-bang” movies on tv? Au contraire! By his very own father, who happens to belong to the local crime organisation in Bari.

My question is the following: What does the tiny boss do at home if his sweet and dear mamma’ doesn’t give him a second serving of spaghetti, shoot her?

For your eyes only!

Part II of the Umberto I hospital scandal. It now appears from a second “Espresso” magazine investigation that the bodies of the deceased who are transported along the tunnels of Rome’s Umberto I hospital to the morgue have had their corneas (illegally) removed! Yes indeed, there’s also a very flourishing business in the world of eyeballs (and not only in eyeballs in Italy!). In order to prevent corneas from being illegally removed, some cadavers of the dearly departed have also been escorted with private security guards.

The Italian association governing the donation of corneas naturally denies such horrific practices whereas the director of the Umberto I has confirmed the illegal use of removing corneas. The problem also arises from the fact that few out there would necessarily open the eyes of their beloved mother or grandfather prior to burial in order to confirm if their corneas are indeed in place, but the latest scandal coming out of Italy’s largest hospital does make you wonder a wee bit if old gramps has his pupils in place or not!

My name is Craig. Daniel Craig!

My thoughts on the latest James Bond movie, “Casino Royale”? Well, the initial impact was that Daniel Craig looks like a sort of “Russian, Greco-Roman wrestler” (he’s got blue eyes) and somewhat less emotionless than Brosnan (who wasn’t all that bad as 007). He certainly though comes across as quite the tough guy. The theme song isn’t bad either (sung by Chris Cornell) as are the images with the opening credits. Very colourful, indeed.

This is one Bond that takes a LOT of hits, including several to the gonads. No “Q” or Miss Moneypenny (the original one was from Toronto) this time and very little Bond theme music throughout the movie. “M” is again Judy Dench, her 5th appearance in that role (I saw M’s home—the real one—in London a few years ago. The front window is bomb-proof! I also saw the home of the Hungarian architect Bloefeld, just one of the many “meanies” in the Bond series) and is always hard on Bond as she thinks of him as simply a macho pig (but deep down has a soft spot for him anyway and hates to see harm come his way). At one point I was very disappointed as I was anxiously awaiting THE world’s most famous phrase: “My name is Bond. James Bond”! Luckily, right at the end of the movie Craig says it after shooting a poor bloke in the leg on the shores of Lake Como (where George Clooney has his villa), leading many to believe that there will indeed be another Bond movie with him in 2008 or so.

And what does this Bond have to do with Italy? I think this Bond movie also holds a small record of Italian actors in a Bond movie, three of them to be exact: Giancarlo Giannini who plays Mathis (and who usually dubs Al Pacino), the VERY sexy Caterina Murino who plays Solange and who has a rather ill-fated love affair with Bond and Roman-born Claudio Santamaria who is one of the meanies who tries to destroy the new Airbus plane and has the misfortune of also tangling with Bond (and who says absolutely nothing during his short part in the movie). Santamaria says the following during a fight scene with Craig: he gave the 38 year-old English actor a head-butt but came out the loser. Craig looked at him and said, “Welcome to my world”! He also says that taking part in that fight scene was like living in a “video game”.

Nice also to see Venice in the movie (we went there the very day before to see the Picasso exhibit). I personally have been going there for the last 41 years and it remains my all-time favourite city, in the entire world. One small faux pas: you see Bond on a private sail boat on the Grand Canal. Private boats are off-limits there. Nevertheless, we had been walking around St. Mark’s square on Thursday. We saw the movie on Friday. It was nice to see the same square in the movie (history repeats itself: I recall that for “Moonraker” with Roger Moore I was in Winnipeg. It was August. Shortly after while I was on vacation in Italy I also went to Venice. There I stood in front of the glass shop, located right on the side of St. Mark’s Basilica, the very same shop which Moore had entered in the movie!). There’s also an airport scene in Miami of people going through the metal detector. One fellow turns to the cameras and smiles: it’s Sir Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin airlines (and records and a lot of other things).

As with fine wines, it’ll take me a few times to see this one to truly appreciate Craig. The next time will probably be in English and through a DVD. Amazon has on sale a special silver suitcase with the previous 20 Bond movies. I may ask for that one for my 50th birthday (if I’ll make it by then). This one is the longest of them all and clocks in at 2 hrs and 22 minutes (or so). The opening scene shows Bond on a New Holland tractor. Fiat should be happy as I believe they bought New Holland years ago (for the Italian premier of the movie a few weeks ago in Rome, they had a New Holland tractor there with the entire cast).

And how times have changed: when he’s asked if he wants his Martini shaken or stirred he answers that he couldn’t care less (in Italian at least)! But Bond is Bond and still drinks Bollinger champagne (not to mention driving a stupendous Aston Martin)!

The very latest reports say that “Casino Royale” has now become THE most popular Bond film of all time. It seems that Craig has hit the spot with Bond fans worldwide. After now having seen him twice—and with all my utmost respect for the great Sean Connery (in the picture the original Bond in Rome a few years ago for his wife’s art exhibit. Ursula Andress was also there, perhaps the most famous of all Bond girls, at least the one that knocked everyone’s socks off back in 1962 when she came out of the water with that skimpy bikini!)—I’m convinced that had Craig, albeit much too young, taken over from Connery’s role, he would have become perhaps THE most popular Bond of all time.

I’m proud to say that the other day I tried guessing the titles of the 21 Bond films made so far. I “only” managed 19 of them! I’ve seen every other Bond movie at least 62 times to the point of actually memorising the lines while in the process driving others around me crazy as I can always anticipate what the actors are about to say!

Check out “Casino Royale”, it’s well worth the price (all pics by M. Rimati).

Dr. House (and George Clooney) where are you?

Italy is one of the 7 most industrialised countries in the world. With very few natural resources (unlike say Canada), it’s the 5th-6th economy in the world. It’s also famous for exquisite wines and Ferraris, not to mention some of the greatest fashion designers in the world (Valentino, Armani, D&G, just to name a few). Yet its (public) hospitals are still—in 2007—in shambles.

The latest comes to us from an “Espresso” (no, not the coffee but a weekly newsmagazine) report: a journalist pretended for 1 month to be part of the cleaning staff at the Umberto I university hospital in Rome, Italy’s largest (and dating back to 1904). What he uncovered is awfully depressing: cigarette butts in the tunnels (smoking in public buildings in Italy has been banned since 2005), dog excrement (or is it human?), doctors who between visiting one patient and another don’t wash their hands (thus also causing up to 7,000 deaths in 1 year’s time!) and patients who are wheeled after surgery (and still under anaesthesia!) through rooms and tunnels which are awash with litter.

This shouldn’t be too surprising as many years ago the same hospital had been blamed for housing in its tunnels (the hospital is HUGE!) illegal hawkers as well as hookers! The situation in Naples and in other Italian hospitals isn’t any better. In Naples one hospital was used as a deposit for the Camorra’s weapons while one hospital in Calabria, which was only built in 1955, has never even been opened! The south is traditionally backwards but the more “civilised” north isn’t any better: in Turin at the Molinette hospital there are signs saying that the water from sinks isn’t potable. That would also explain why patients bring alone tons and tons of bottled water when they end up in hospitals.

I myself have undergone minor surgery in three different cities in Italy: Rome, Milan and Udine. The most professional without a doubt is Udine. But the thing that surprises me the most when I go to an Italian public hospital (the private ones are much better, but you have to pay big bucks in order to get better service), is that many hospital washrooms are missing soap, toilet paper and even towels (even the paper ones are usually missing)! This shouldn’t be too surprising to readers as in Italy one of the national pastimes is stealing, and toilet paper can also be a HOT commodity (!!!).

All this would also explain why just before Christmas, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister, got a pace-maker inserted. But NOT in Italy. Where you may ask? Where else, in the U.S. (hey, he ain’t stupid)!

Radar traps on Italian ski slopes?

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone on what currently happens on Canadian and/or American ski slopes. Here’s what happens instead in Italy.

This recent Christmas holiday period has seen more than one death on the Italian ski slopes due to ultra-fast skiers and kids without protective helmets (skiers under 14 in Italy must wear helmets). One Israeli 12 year-old on holiday with his parents died as he hit a pylon while another 9 year-old who lost control of her skis hit a tree and is now in coma, even though she was wearing a helmet. Speed was the cause of that accident. A 50 year-old in the meantime went off course and died as he was probably trying to imitate James Bond on the slopes (more for that below).

Each year about 40 people die on the ski slopes in Italy with a “mere” 30,000 injured. Many accidents apparently are also caused by new and more sophisticated artificial snow-making machines, not to mention high-tech skis and snowboards (much adored by the younger generation).

If driving on Italian highways is any indication, unless something drastic is done, I quite personally (who only learned to cross-country ski on the Prairies back in Canada) foresee weekend “disasters” similar to the death and destruction which we regularly see on Italian highways (and where the speed limit of 130 km/hour is still NOT observed). Generally speaking, Italians not only DON’T know how to drive if their lives depended on it, they don’t know how to keep the distance from one car to another and they also drive at the same speed in pouring rain—with the excuse that their cars have ABS brakes—and in fog. The result is quite often cars that are so mangled around trees that you can’t even make out the carmaker!

Another example of poor driving habits? When it rains in Rome (but not necessarily a Monsoon) you’ll read the following day in the papers of “70 accidents with 3 deaths”! I say to myself, “For a few drops of rain there are actually deaths”? I don’t recall the same in Winnipeg (and there I also went through Siberian-style snow blizzards). Add to all this also cellular phone use which is not only illegal while driving but which is still used by many, many “law-abiding” Italians. No doubt there’s probably more than one idiot skier out there who is travelling down the slopes while talking on his cellular phone (Italians adore the darn things. There are close to 40 million devices out there out of a population of approx. 58 million people!). One odd scene I saw just awhile ago was in Udine: a woman was calmly talking on her cellular phone while riding her bike…and with her kid seated right behind her! She was only using one hand to ride the bike while she was using the other one to talk on the phone. One can only imagine the tragic scenario in an accident.

Velocity is in the DNA of Italians, and their quite often atrocious driving habits are now carried over to the ski tracks (quite comical actually to see Carabinieri officers on skis telling skiers to slow down). Television ads don’t help either. Years ago for the promotion of Fiat’s “Stilo” car it showed Michael Schumacher in a Stilo having it out against Rubens Barrichello on a race track. Just imagine what goes through the mind of an 18 year-old punk who dreams of getting his hands on his first-ever car! Speed is the equivalent in Italy of being “cool”, a macho thing. Add to all this booze—and there is a LOT of mighty fine wine out there in Italy—and one can only imagine the industrial strength number of road accidents (some 8,000 deaths in Italy each year, way below what the Brits have managed to do by bringing down road deaths). As tragic as it may sound, I found it rather comical awhile back when in the Udine area a poor fellow died in his car: it literally flew in the air and landed on the balcony of a 1st-floor apartment! The poor sod was certainly NOT going at 60 km/hour in order to fly in the air. Now, I always grew up knowing that cars usually fly in James Bond movies (one in particular with Roger Moore), but not in real life.

So, my question is: what will we soon see on Italian ski slopes, radar traps, breathalysers and perhaps even points taken off one’s ski pass (as what already happens with one’s driver license)?

‘Tis the season to be gay and merry?

Indeed never a dull moment in Italian politics: the halls of Italy’s parliament, Montecitorio, has had for years the Nativity scene. Nothing terribly wrong with that expect that this year two politicians, in order to be “politically correct”, stuck four extra dolls in the scene when no one was looking. Joseph’s brother? Mary’s cousin? No, two Barbie dolls hugging each other and with a sign around their necks stating: “Gay marriages also in Italy, just like in Zapatero’s Spain”! Next to them were two Ken dolls, also hugging each other and with a similar sign around their necks.

The above shouldn’t be all that surprising: the Neapolitans are (in)famous for their Nativity scene characters. In true soccer spirit, three have been included this year—Zidane head-butting Materazzi and Cannavaro, a home-grown Neapolitan boy himself, who is raising the World Cup!
Buon Natale a tutti!

St. Peter vs. Ronaldinho?

Well, just when you thought you saw just about everything in the wild and crazy world of Italian soccer (years ago at Milan’s San Siro stadium fans actually threw a scooter from one stadium ring down to another!), along comes the Secretary of State of Vatican City, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (no. 2 after Pope Ratzinger in the Vatican’s hierarchy), who has proposed organising a men’s professional soccer team which will one day be able to compete against the likes of Inter, Juventus, Milan and Roma!

Yes, as religiously zany as it may sound, Bertone, an avid (Juventus) soccer fan himself, has seriously contemplated fielding a men’s team with the traditional white and yellow colours of Vatican City, the world’s smallest state (with some 300 employees or so).

Bertone is certainly no novice to the game. When he was archbishop of Genoa he was at the stadium doing television play-by-play commentary for the Genoa and Sampdoria games (the city’s two teams). But the Vatican isn’t completely new to the world of sports. Behind Vatican walls priests not only play volleyball and 5-a-side soccer but former Pope John Paul II had been a fairly good soccer goalkeeper in his youth, not to mention also an avid skier, mountain climber, canoeist and also swimmer (and according to my own personal source—the former spokesman of His Holiness, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls—a Roma fan too!). Portuguese cardinal José Saraiva Martins not only had been an aspiring winger in his youth for club Benfica (Eusebio’s former club) but he’s also been a die-hard Lazio fan for the last 40 years. Before entering the priesthood he apparently had also kicked a ball around with the late, great Brazilian forward Garrincha (who just happened in the 50s and 60s to have played with Pele’ for Brazil). Another avid soccer fan is cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini who quite often does the play-by-play commentary of the Serie A for Radio Vatican.

But where to find these future “holy” players in order to battle it out with the likes of Totti and Buffon? “No problem”, says Bertone,” Just think of all the Brazilian players who are also currently studying in our Pontifical universities. We’d be able to field a magnificent team with these players”! Bertone also recalls that 42 players that had taken part in the 1990 World Cup in Italy had played at one point in their lives in oratories and seminaries.

The idea sounds like a good one and may actually help bring some tranquillity to Italian stadia which are on a weekly basis “infected” by the scourge of hooliganism, but I quite personally would have some serious questions related to the Vatican fielding a soccer team. To begin with, would one start off the match (just prior to the ref’s whistle) with a prayer or a blessing? And what about fouls? If Father Sarducci were to say tackle Totti from behind, instead of being yellow-carded, would he be sent to purgatory? And if Padre Ramirez where to be the last man on defence and he were to viscously foul Paolo Maldini in his own penalty area, would he be sent to hell or would he be excommunicated? And better yet, if the Vatican boys were to win the Champions’ League, would the team captain raise the Holy Grail and would the entire team be sent directly to paradise as a reward? Water bottles along the pitch: would they contain holy water? At the end of the match, would Vatican players give everyone the host and a chalice of wine (after all, games in Italy are usually played on Sundays)? The head coach: a tricky question indeed for sports theologians: would he be a Jesuit, a Capuchin monk, a Franciscan friar or a Benedictine (like Ratzinger’s order)? And what to do about crucifixes which usually hang from the necks of both priests and nuns? Would they be considered dangerous and therefore banned? And if a coach must be named from outside the Vatican walls, can he be an atheistic? An agnostic? What about a Marxist-Leninist? The dressing rooms: will there also be confessionals so that the Vatican Boys can pray for their sins in case they lose (the coach: “Padre Francesco, now why on EARTH did miss that all-important penalty-kick? You made us lose the final! Ten Hail Marys for you”!)? And if a Vatican player would REALLY get upset at being fouled, would he be able to swear say in Latin? Indeed pressing issues for Serie A organisers. One final point, seeing that the world is going more and more towards being politically correct “à-la-americana”, would we for equality purposes also see one day a Vatican women’s soccer team comprised of nuns (they are usually the pope’s personal attendants) competing in say FIFA’s Women’s World Cup?

On a final note, if the Vatican Boys were to face either Roma or Lazio in the “derby of derbies”, would Pope Ratzinger also be present with a scarf around his neck and a horn in his hand, cheering on his team? Would the pope also take part in the “ola”? Could his cardinals quite possibly become fervent religious “hooligans” to the point of actually chanting “Hail Marys” non-stop during the entire match (as Argentine fans usually do by beating their drums non-stop for 90 minutes which drives others crazy)? And at the beginning of each soccer season, would Pope Ratzinger actually give the official kick-off (like the president of the US does with the start of the baseball season)? What would the pope have on underneath his robe, shorts and Nike cleats? Stay tuned for more… (in the picture by ANSA: Cardinal Taricisio Bertone during a match).

PS The latest is that UEFA has actually approved Bertone’s idea!

“To pee or not to pee (part II)”

Soccer aficionados out there who have lived in Italy know that each season fans in some Italian cities get geared up for the “Mother Of All Games”—the city derby. Now, for those non-soccer fans out there who know nothing about the “beautiful game”, the derby takes place between two teams from the same city. The three most important derbies in Italy are: Torino-Juventus, Milan-Inter and the so-called “Derby of Italy”, Roma-Lazio.

The Eternal City derby in particular attracts the “crème-de-la-crème” of the Italian cinema (Rome is also the capital of Italian cinema with the Cinecitta’ film studios, the same where Ben Hur and other films have been shot), music and television world. The derby also attracts the nation’s most important politicians and businesspeople who are either “romanisti” or “laziali” (Rome’s mayor, Walter Veltroni, is an exception as he’s a Juventus fan). It is said that Mussolini was a Roma fan even though deep down he was actually a Lazio fan (while others say that he didn’t even like soccer but preferred tennis).

The Roma-Lazio derby is rather old, going back now close to 90 years (the Lazio sports club was founded in 1900 with the Roma club coming along a few decades after). Unlike what goes on amongst fans in North American stadia, or better, what DOESN’T go on, the Rome derby is usually plagued with violence “à-la-Gaza Strip”: cars gutted (the Sicilian mafia wanted to also trigger off years ago a car bomb to nail Italian police but the remote-control trigger failed), fans of both teams seriously knifed (almost to death), police officers who are maimed, vulgar banners (the Lazio fans traditionally belong to the far right. One banner years ago read the following: “Auschwitz is your nation, the ovens your home”! Rome’s Jewish community instead has traditionally backed Roma whose fans have always belonged to the left) and even live missiles! Yes, missiles (one had crossed the entire length of the stadium decades ago during a Rome derby. It landed straight in the eye of a Lazio fan, killing him instantly). Security is so tight that if the game takes place on Sunday night the Olympic stadium (site also of the 1960 Rome Olympics) will be lit up the ENTIRE evening on Saturday night as a way to prevent rowdy fans from sneaking in and hiding bats, knives, chains, etc. (just think of the electricity bills). You’d actually think that a political debate between Hamas and the Israelis is going to take place at the stadium, and not a mere soccer match!

Last Sunday’s Lazio-Roma derby instead brought an odd truce between opposing fans: no violence, no vulgar banners nor any taunting chants. For once, outside the stadium after the match you could even hear a ball drop, that’s how tranquil the situation really was. Indeed an oddity for such a high-level derby. Lazio won the derby hands down 3-0. Its head coach, Delio Rossi, had promised “Suor Paola”, a die-hard Lazio fan (who is also a nun. Yes, religion is also a intricate part of Italian soccer), that if Lazio won the derby, he’d take a dive after the match into the “Fontanone” (Big Fountain) located on the Gianicolo hill which overlooks all of Rome (the large fountain is located also directly in front of the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See. The temperature these days in Rome hovers around 8 degrees Celsius during the night). Nevertheless, the gentleman that he is, Rossi kept his promise and with only his underwear on, dove straight into the fountain, much to the joy of Sister Paola who watched the event live. The dive was supposed to have been kept a tight secret but apparently Roma fans were tipped off shortly before Rossi’s “aquatic escapade”. About 40 of them showed up prior to Rossi’s arrival, went to the edge of the fountain, unzipped their pants and proceeded to pee directly into the fountain!

Weather it has now become an urban legend or not, the “Romanista” magazine (Roma’s official fanzine) has promised—in order to dispel the hideous crime—that an “anti-doping” test will be performed on the fountain’s water. Head coach Rossi took it in great diplomatic stride and said that the guilty pee is after all “holy water and that it’s natural”. Police authorities were content with the dive as it has been one of the lesser crimes ever committed in Rome during a derby. And weather or not Interpol will also be called into the picture (now also investigating the case of the dead former KGB agent in London) remains to be seen.

One thing is for sure: the return Roma-Lazio derby will be in 2007. God only knows what the Lazio fans will have in store for Luciano Spalletti, (Roma’s head coach) if Roma were to win that derby!

A Greece/Italy tag-team against J. Paul Getty?

After “Il Duce” (Mussolini) and his (in)famous words of how during World War II Italy was going to “break Greece’s back”!, 60 years later the Greeks and Italians join forces in trying to get back what rightfully belongs to them: stolen works of art.

Even though Italy is wracked by the four different mafias and tax evasion is quite often THE national sport (and not soccer!), it is refreshing to know that Italy’s para-military police, the Carabinieri (the closest you can get to Canada’s RCMP) are considered by many, including the Greeks, perhaps THE world’s best when it comes to recovering stolen art. In fact, the Carabinieri for years have had in place s special unit dedicated just for recovering stolen and priceless artefacts. With the so-called 40% (some say even 50%) of the world’s historical art located in Italy, many ancient artefacts are extremely appealing to art thieves. Not too far away from Rome where the Etruscans once lived (in the Cerveteri and Tarquinia areas for example) ancient tombs for decades have been ransacked by real, live tomb raiders. Much of this stolen art has ended up abroad, even in famous museums such as the Getty in Los Angeles and Malibu.

But enough is enough. The Greek culture minister, in New York on an official visit (shortly after the visit of Francesco Rutelli, Italy’s culture minister), has planned to forge a formal alliance with Italy in order to pursue the return of ancient artefacts from museums in the US and also Europe, according to a December 11, 2006 International Herald Tribune article. No doubt Minister George Voulgarakis’s words were sweet music to his Italian counterpart Rutelli: “The Italians are very well organised—very, very well-organised”.

Greek investigations into stolen artefacts are also aiding Italian authorities in their case against Marion True, the former antiquities curator at the Getty, who is standing trial in Rome on Italian charges of having conspired to import looted artefacts. The Greeks would also like to get their hands on True because of two stolen works from Greece, a 4th century B.C. gold funerary wreath and a 6th century B.C. marble kore, or statue of a woman. The US Embassy in Rome in the past has also undertaken “M.O.U.s” (Memoranda Of Understanding”) with the Italian Foreign and Culture Ministries on stolen art as well as Italian art which is lent to US museums, a lucrative business for American museum owners for visitors who flock to see ancient Italian artefacts (one statue of the Venus by the sculptor Giambologna sits in the main hall of the US Embassy. It can even be seen from the street. It’s apparently the only Venus of its kind which was sculpted by Giambologna. Years ago the wife was involved in the temporary transfer of the Venus to the US for an exhibit).

With some positive news vis-à-vis the work that the Italians are doing in getting stolen art work back to Italy, the Greeks now want to do a “full-court press” on the British: the famous Elgin Marbles which were removed from Athens’s Parthenon in the 19th century by the diplomatic emissary Elgin. They have been sitting in the British Museum ever since. The Greeks would like the marbles back as next year Athens will see the inauguration of the new Acropolis Museum which has been specially designed to house the marbles with other Parthenon sculptures.

On international art theft, the Greek culture minister sums it up in the following manner: “The Mona Lisa is cut up into pieces. Imagine if you have the face in Sweden, one hand in the United States, the breasts in Japan, and the other hand in Italy. What kind of Gioconda is that”? The IHT concluded its article by adding the following regarding the Minister’s observation: “He did not mention that the Mona Lisa, fully intact, is in France, not in Italy, where it was originally created”.

Pacentro and the “Madonna”

A weekend drive in the Abruzzo region of Italy and to the town of Sulmona (home of the Latin poet Ovidio). Only 10 kilometres away from Sulmona lies a very small town called Pacentro. As one can see from the pictures, it lies at the foot of the mountains. For me at least, the name didn’t ring a bell (and probably even less for many readers). I did some research and the town is famous for one particular reason: probably at the turn of the 20th century, an Italian couple, tired of a life that was going “nowhere fast”, decided to make the big jump across the Atlantic Ocean to the U.S. together with millions of fellow compatriots. The couple would have a son (a bar owner told us that the son was actually born in Pacentro and went to the U.S. with together his folks) who would end up living and working in Bay City, Michigan. He himself would have a family one day (six children) with a daughter who would become adventurous, just like her grandparents (was it bound to also be in her DNA?). The man? Silvio P. “Tony” Ciccone. The daughter? Madonna Louise Ciccone, better known to the entire world simply as Madonna!

Things haven’t changed terribly since the day that the Ciccone family decided to leave Pacentro. While we were taking a look around the town (practically everyone who goes by you says “hello”!) one fellow, when we asked for directions, complained by saying that “nothing seems to get done in this town”! Evidently, Madonna’s family thought the same thing when they left Pacentro.

It is said that young Madonna one fine day decided to leave her home in the Detroit suburb where she grew up and to try to make it in the Big Apple. The first time on a plane, the first time away from her native Michigan and with only 35 dollars in her pocket, for quite awhile Madonna lived in total squalor and didn’t ask anyone for financial help. She has now sold more than 200 million records and, like her or not, is unquestionably THE world’s most famous female performer (and around the world, who HASN’T heard of her?). An honour for us as we saw her on August 6th, 2006 in Rome’s Olympic stadium (see month of August for write-up). Quite the show indeed and quite the performer.

As we walked around Pacentro (which dates back to around the 8th century, although archaeological ruins have dated further back then that. The three castles are still standing and have been recently renovated. The Santa Maria Maggiore Church was built around the sixteenth century and St. Marcello's church, founded in 1047, was restored in 1166. Also, the famous Dutch graphic artist M.C. Echer lived in Italy from 1922 to 1937. He travelled to the Abruzzo region where he was attracted by the scenery which also became part of his many particular drawings), I was wondering if at one point Madonna’s father, when faced with the fact that his daughter wanted to finally “fly the coop”, didn’t oppose his young daughter’s wish as perhaps many parents do when confronted with the same dilemma, knowing very well that his own folks, probably at the same age as his daughter, gambled their future on moving to America to try to “make it”.

It’s also probably impossible to say it now but had Madonna’s family not made the move, perhaps she wouldn’t have become the international star that she has. With the exception of Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren, many Italian singers aren’t that famous abroad as their American and British counterparts. And has Madonna ever visited Pacentro? “No”, was the somewhat sad response by the bar owner. Looking at the winding road that leads up to the town, it’s perhaps better that she doesn’t show up: thanks to her presence there would probably be major chaos in a radius of at least 30 kilometres (all pics by M. Rimati)!