THE NEWS TODAY FROM ITALY
Today, thanks to the efficient folks at our Chautauqua county (Dunkirk) polling office, we were both able to cast our absentee ballots for the November election (as I wrote the word “November,” I wrote it in the Italian form, proving my assimilation is really taking hold). Anyway, we follow the latest US political news with newsmagazines and internet articles, but we are also keeping up with the news from our adopted country, Italy. So we thought we would share some news that is not related to Congressman Foley in this trio of Italian news items.
1. The mega-bridge to Reggio Calabria from Messina, connecting the Italian mainland with Sicily, has just lost its national funding. With Berlusconi’s defeat, the forces of the left do not see this project as a political priority and so it has been put off for awhile. Sicilian politics being what they are, this may just be a negotiating point to keep some politico in line (like Salvatore Cuffaro, the Berlusconi supporter who is our regional president, who is GUNG HO for the bridge). Expect to see it back in the money when the political right again makes its way back into power, or when a deal has been cut between the mafia and any left wing financial guys who can persuade lawmakers it is an indispensable political need.
2. A satirical comedy show, Le Iene (“The Hyenas”), has always been a favorite of mine, but especially after their latest show premiering the fall season. These young wise guys always make the established politicians look like fools, like when they interview an important person and start talking to them about people and places in the news and half of the politicians do not know even know common names that anyone knows (even me!), like Nelson Mandela or where Darfur is.
So for their season premier, somehow these guys got access to a make-up person who worked on about half of the members of the national Parliament (50 of them), and to the Q-tip like cotton swabs that were used to wipe the sweat off of their faces. A standard drug test was done on these 50 random samples (no names were attached to any of them), and a full one third were found to have been under the influence of either cocaine or marijuana in the last 36 hours (12 marijuana, 4 cocaine). When the TV network got wind of the program, they cut the part about the drug testing, but the full news story had already been leaked. So the hyenas Luca and Paolo went ahead and reported on the story they were not allowed to report on, quite humorously, and then editorialized that these same lawmakers who are using drugs are making laws against other people using them. The last few night’s news have been full of the various political leaders calling for a full investigation of the invasion of their privacy, and finally, of leaders calling for national drug testing of all political leaders.
3. Periodically we have to renew our “permisso di soggiorno” (permission to stay) in order to live here legally. We have to go through a process that is time consuming and annoying, and in order to circumvent it, we have thought of obtaining dual citizenship by becoming Italian citizens. But our big question is whether Italy would tax our pensions even though the US is already taxing them. It seems like a simple question, and we have had a few answers that involved a process where we would pay the difference between what the US taxed and what Italy taxed if our pensions originated here. Well recently we got news that a friend’s mother is a dual citizen of both countries and son-of-a-gun, she is paying taxes to both countries. Boo! I don’t like paying even once! Guess we will have to put up with our renewals of our permissos as a cost saving measure.
1. The mega-bridge to Reggio Calabria from Messina, connecting the Italian mainland with Sicily, has just lost its national funding. With Berlusconi’s defeat, the forces of the left do not see this project as a political priority and so it has been put off for awhile. Sicilian politics being what they are, this may just be a negotiating point to keep some politico in line (like Salvatore Cuffaro, the Berlusconi supporter who is our regional president, who is GUNG HO for the bridge). Expect to see it back in the money when the political right again makes its way back into power, or when a deal has been cut between the mafia and any left wing financial guys who can persuade lawmakers it is an indispensable political need.
2. A satirical comedy show, Le Iene (“The Hyenas”), has always been a favorite of mine, but especially after their latest show premiering the fall season. These young wise guys always make the established politicians look like fools, like when they interview an important person and start talking to them about people and places in the news and half of the politicians do not know even know common names that anyone knows (even me!), like Nelson Mandela or where Darfur is.
So for their season premier, somehow these guys got access to a make-up person who worked on about half of the members of the national Parliament (50 of them), and to the Q-tip like cotton swabs that were used to wipe the sweat off of their faces. A standard drug test was done on these 50 random samples (no names were attached to any of them), and a full one third were found to have been under the influence of either cocaine or marijuana in the last 36 hours (12 marijuana, 4 cocaine). When the TV network got wind of the program, they cut the part about the drug testing, but the full news story had already been leaked. So the hyenas Luca and Paolo went ahead and reported on the story they were not allowed to report on, quite humorously, and then editorialized that these same lawmakers who are using drugs are making laws against other people using them. The last few night’s news have been full of the various political leaders calling for a full investigation of the invasion of their privacy, and finally, of leaders calling for national drug testing of all political leaders.
3. Periodically we have to renew our “permisso di soggiorno” (permission to stay) in order to live here legally. We have to go through a process that is time consuming and annoying, and in order to circumvent it, we have thought of obtaining dual citizenship by becoming Italian citizens. But our big question is whether Italy would tax our pensions even though the US is already taxing them. It seems like a simple question, and we have had a few answers that involved a process where we would pay the difference between what the US taxed and what Italy taxed if our pensions originated here. Well recently we got news that a friend’s mother is a dual citizen of both countries and son-of-a-gun, she is paying taxes to both countries. Boo! I don’t like paying even once! Guess we will have to put up with our renewals of our permissos as a cost saving measure.
posted by Sicilian Mama at 4:37 PM
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