The View from Bologna is a blog written by 3monkeys, an Irish man in his 30s, which takes a look at Italian politics, culture and society Facebook gets more free publicity as the debate rages around the company’s decision to enforce strict guidlines regarding what can and can’t be shown in breastfeeding photos posted by users to their personal pages. A storm in a prurient teacup, according to many given the other issues cropping up with the popular social network platform, [...]
Matteo Salvini, the outspoken Lega Nord MP and activist (is there any other sort of Lega Nord MP?), has thundered indignantly about censorship to the national press. The reason? His facebook account has been suspended, without explanation.
Salvini has vowed to take up the case with the minister for telecommunications, claiming that he’s received notice of [...]
In the same week that Berlusconi’s much contested minister for education, Mariastella Gelmini, took a leaf out of Obama’s book and created a youtube channel to address students directly*, Silvio Berlusconi announced to the world that he would be seeking to sort out the internet at next year’s G8 summit which will be held (disgracefully [...]
Every December one of the most important car shows in Italy - and perhaps Europe - takes place in Bologna. For two weeks the city’s transport system is put under ever-more pressure as car-crazy enthusiasts flock to the city to see the latest glitzy models (in the traditional and automobile sense) on display.
Walking back from [...]
Last week, seemingly against the odds, Vladimir Luxuria won the Italian reality-tv game show L’Isola dei Famosi (a type of ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here’). What makes her victory worth discussing - outside of the tv pundity columns - is that she is a) transgender, and b) a former member of parliament [...]
It’s not everyday that this monkey, or indeed the various journalists and commentators who are also writing about this case, finds it in his heart or logic to defend Rupert Murdoch or his business interests. He’s a big boy who can look after his own extensive interests - interests that are not necessarily conducive to [...]
This blog has already spent some time dealing with the paternalistic Italian laws that govern what you can, and can’t say. We’ll remind readers that, in a political context, one is entitled to call Silvio Berlusconi a buffoon but to suggest it in general may be another kettle of slanderous fish (although, one has to [...]
Fannulloni is a word much in vogue in Italy at the moment, in part because of a headline-grabbing crusade by the Minister for the Public Sector, Renato Brunetta, against this seemingly large and well-deployed group. Fanulloni put simply means a layabout - and there’s plenty of evidence that the public sector is full of them. [...]
What was Silvio Berlusconi thinking, when he described the newly-elected Barack Obama as ‘young, handsome, and suntanned’, during a press conference in the Kremlin on Thursday? If Russian President Dmitry Medvedev knew, his face was giving nothing away, sitting impassively beside the grinning Italian.
There are two different perspectives, in Italy, regarding the Prime Minister’s [...]
Has Barack Obama had it too easy from foreign correspondents jaundiced by 8 years of George W. Bush? Perhaps, but ready to put things to right is Corriere della Sera journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi, who puts Obama’s foreign policy credentials under renewed scrutiny in today’s newspaper.
His main question is, what would Obama have done had he [...]