There are chilling moments in the life of any straniero when they realise that, with all the reflection, study, and will that certain ways of thinking, produced by local culture, tradition, and a very different history, will always be beyond them.
These are moments, more often than not, conjured up out of hot-air when politicos [...]
Responding to some ill-defined public outrage (in part manafactured by newspapers owned or close to the Berlusconi family), both Prime Minister Berlusconi and the speaker of the house of deputies, Gianfranco Fini, called for swift and decisive action - not against builders responsible, in Abruzzo, for using shoddy materials and cutting costs, nor against civil [...]
You know you’re getting spammed in the comments when you receive a gushing tribute, to a post you wrote about Walter Veltroni, saying that the topic is ‘quite trendy on the net at the moment’. You can say many things about Walter Veltroni - and many do - but to the best of this blog’s [...]
Economists at LaVoce have issued a proposal for the Government to easily raise 172 million euro that can be set aside for reconstruction work. In belt-tightening times you’d imagine the government would be all ears, but I’ve the suspicion that this is a proposal that will be deftly ignored.
In June the country is set to [...]
A state of emergency has been declared, funds are being allocated, and politics has been set aside momentarily in order to respond to the devestating earthquake which hit Abruzzo yesterday. It’s not a time for reflection, as Silvio Berlusconi pointed out in his press conference yesterday brushing aside the suggestions that this earthquake had already [...]