My impression is that, despite every news media outlet on earth coming out and saying that that Italy really had nothing to celebrate, most non-leghisti Italians actually did feel like celebrating, and Turin’s packed squares, riverbank, and streets were a testament to this last week. On via Po, someone hang the above banner, addressing leading …
Author Archives: hnbjr
Human Rights Watch Condemns Italy
Human Rights Watch released a report on the state of racism and xenophobia in Italy yesterday. The results are not cheerful reading. I wrote about this two years ago for the American, and it’s not heartening to see that things have been in a continued downward spiral. As usual, the Italian press reacts with typical …
Body Language and symbolism, part 2
In the era of the image, media and spin presentation is ever-important. Avid followers of Premesso will recall a post offering interpretations of an old photo of Berlusconi with a sidearm a few weeks back. This time we turn our attention to Obama’s announcement of American support in the current war in Libya. What’s interesting …
150 Years of Unity?
Italy’s political situation, overshadowed lately by events in Middle East, is grim. Berlusconi’s coalition totters. Fini’s breakaway group seems waiting for the right moment. Indeed this fall March was bandied about as the right time for a vote. More power has flowed to Lega Nord’s Bossi, whose ministers voted again making the 17th a holiday, …
Foot on Qaddafi’s Footie
John Foot, a professor at University College in London and sometimes-Milanese, has a good piece up in today’s New York Times exploring the links between Qaddafi, Italian football (notably Juventus) and investments. Worth your time.
Vlastimir Đorđević at the Hague
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw7gNPJI7BY] (Video primarily in Serbian although the judge speaks in English.) Readers of yesterday’s post, which quoted Rory Stewart questioning the ability of the UN and similar organizations to do much of anything, might’ve detected a hint of disappointment. This view was informed in some measure by the inability of the UN to prevent …
Song for the New Breed
Rory Stewart‘s The Places in Between, an account of his walk through Afghanistan in 2002, is every bit as good as critics say it is. (I can’t remember the last time when I read a book that proudly announced that it was a “New York Times Bestseller” on the cover, but publishing is a tough …
Friday AM briefs
There’s way too much news this week, from the Libya to the milleproroghe, from Macedonia’s electoral crisis to the role of social media in the events that have shaken the Arab world. Fini’s proclamation that the PM was not ‘anointed by the lord’ may hint at the beginning of the end on this side of …
Getting Clowned
This week’s l’Espresso features Berlusconi getting ‘clowned’ (as old school hip hop might have it) by the US, via the leaked Embassy cables. Coverage is running in English as well, and the magazine promises to publish more than 4,000 cables this week. It’s interesting to see this perspective, and to read it in English, but …
I thought it was the USA…
…or just another country? I’m not sure what’s more depressing — the amount of ‘worst’ categories that my adopted country is in, or the amount of ‘worst of the worst’ categories that my native country is in. But something about the data seems off to me — was this chart assembled by the paper of …