Monthly Archives: October 2010

Bossi, il cav, the italian left, the italian right

Berlusca tonight

Leave a comment
Why he's really mad at Naples

Second: Berlusconi spoke in Parco Sempione tonight.  I’ve been jogging past the set-up (or rather, altering my route so I can manage to have a run through the set-up) for the past week, and I’ve been noting the contrast of the massive police buildup — not only your standard Guardia di Finanza, Carabinieri, Polizia dello Stato, but also the Corpo Forestale (as if the foliage is that dense) — to the lack of people other than joggers in the park nightly, so it’s not like I didn’t know about it.  But a deadline clashed and I wasn’t able to make it at 4 pm tonight, regrettably.  Corriere has a video up; I can say that I’m glad I wasn’t on hand to hear yet more complaining about the judiciary, but watching his histrionics as he excitedly pinned the blame for every problem the South has on the left and the Naples garbage crisis on that city’s leftist mayor might’ve been worth the trip out. “I said it and I’ll repeat it, loud and clear — the Naples trash crisis has a name and it’s name is Rosa Russo Iervolino!”

His comments on his absolution of Bossi on worth it, too.  (-1.33).  I’ll leave you with the video and a pledge to make my deadlines better.

america, jack conway, kentucky, rand paul, tea party

Rand Paul

Leave a comment
Tempest.

A quick weekend roundup: in my home state, Rand Paul debated Jack Conway, and some coverage — inasmuch as Kentucky has become a major political battleground, is worth reading.  I wonder how the legions of Tea Party supporters riding around on scooters will like being told that they have to work longer before drawing some of those socialist benefits they like to carp about.  But Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone tells you why that doesn’t really matter, in a long, thoughtful, righteous analysis of how Rand Paul ended up doing Mitch and Rove’s bidding and why the tea party is more of a tempest in a tea pot, or destined to end up as one.

UPDATE: read the New York Times‘ coverage here.

eu, human rights, immigration, lega nord, romania, the right in europe

Swiss Intolerance

1 Comment

If you thought Lega Nord images stereotyping Southern Italians and immigrants were bad, check out this new poster against the opening of Swiss borders to Italian (and other European – presumably Romanian) workers. Given that hordes of Milanese commute to Ticino and vice versa and that, uh, Italian is one of Switzerland’s official languages, this point to paint the Italian as ‘other’ seems particularly desperate. Corriere has good coverage in English, although the article suffers a bit from some self-pity. One wonders if anti-immigration proponents reading this — particularly the bit at the end about American perceptions of Italians a century ago — will note the parallels.

But is the ship really sinking?
eu, france, germany, SMEs

Chermany

Leave a comment

Bloomberg has a couple of excellent pieces out this week on what’s going on with the French and German economies. The story of how Germany lately managed to rally its growth and drive down its unemployment rate is of particular interest to the Italian observer, in that a lot of the success seems to have to do with Germany’s Mittelstand — small- and medium-size businesses similar to Italy’s — and the long-term financing that underwrites their successes. (Check out Konrad Adenauer’s grandson taking a nice swipe at those profligate Anglo-Saxons.)

Want to borrow some money?

Germany’s response to unemployment — to have workers work less hours with no reduction in pay — is redolent of how Italian managers of SMEs deal with their problems as well, but obviously more to the story than that, since Italian unemployment keeps climbing and is now nationally at 8.5%, compared to Germany’s 7%. Of course Italy has undertaken labor reform — most famously the Marco Biagi reforms in 2002 — but has not managed to introduce the level of flexibility that Germany has.

The end of the article reminds us that Germany’s export-driven growth and wage depression at home recall China. This is true, but hardly news: Martin Wolf, warning of global deflation, told his listeners this back in March.

eu

European Stereotypes Maps

Leave a comment

European stereotypes have been entrenched since at least the time of the first Grand Tour. But as organizational tools, maps have the power to change the way one perceives the world.  Personally, I’ve found alternate maps fascinated by maps ever since getting a Gall-Peters world map sometime in the eighties.  So for a little Saturday morning fun, let me point you in the direction of Bulgarian artist Yanko Tsvetkov’s Mapping Stereotypes website.

But... mummies are in Egypt

It’s an improvement over the ages-old “French courteous. Spanish lordly. Italian amorous. German clownish” saw or the old “in hell everything is organized by the Italians” joke.  In fact, Tsvetkov gives Italy special attention,  subtly highlighting that Italy’s North-South problem and the attendant political use of it is not something confined only to Italy.

Speaking of divided states, don’t miss the visually-funny Cyprus map at the bottom.