Tag Archives: politics

Lelemore Lelemore

If you find recent write-ups on the doings at Arcore too much to bear lately, then get your day started right with this hilarious Grease parody. Warning: not only do you have to follow the news and Italian, you have to know have Italians interpret/hear English. There’s enough code-switching in this for a linguist’s wet dream. You don’t have to know much about Grease.  Hat-tip: Zoomata.

If you want to see the original, it’s here.

Now, while we’re at it, how about a Super Breakout-style bunga-bunga game?

Now: can we get some of that Egyptian and Tunisian action on this side of the Mediterranean, please?

Svezia, inferno e paradiso

One expects political upheaval in Italy. After all, the country has had as many governments as Boliva since World War Two, and my primer on Italian politics had a photo of parliamentarians fist-fighting on the cover.

From the back cover, "Fisticuffs in the Italian Parliament"

But — Sweden? As Stephen Castle wrote in yesterday’s New York Times, Swedish politics are usually “worthy, high-minded and often utterly predictable, Swedish politics has rarely offered much by way of excitement” — pretty much the exact opposite of Italy’s opportunistic and treacherous circus, in other words. It’s certainly new to me — I’d have expected to hear more about the Netherlands, France or, if you want to look at the Scandinavians, Denmark — but inasmuch as it traces all the main themes common to the Italian debate — the future of the welfare state, the decline of industrial society, and rising immigration — I’ll be following it closely.