Straight from the Headlines

A wise, messy Swiss man once gave me a great piece of advice: Wherever you go, even if you don't know the language, you should read the local newspaper.

If you want to get a feel for what's on the mind of Italians, here you go, "straight from the headlines," from Bologna to the USA, here's a summary of what's in the Bologna newspaper these days:

- Walter Veltroni vs. Silvio Berlusconi. Elections coming up in April. Did you guys know that the Italian government "collapsed" recently? Yep. If you didn't know, you should go to the internet and try to follow this story. Man, is it ever complicated. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. It goes something like this: There's a (one of many) scandal with some politican being connected to the Mafia. That guy (Mastella) withdraws from the majority alliance. (He's forced to step down to avoid further controversy). That makes the majority alliance (and Prime Minister Prodi) lose the majority. That makes the government collapse. That leads to a big controversy about what to do now: Elections? Appoint a temporary government? Change the electoral law and then have elections? Anyway, they're having elections in April, and Veltroni and Berlusconi are on the campaign trail. In fact, Veltroni is coming to Bologna on Thursday night, and, just for kicks, I'm going to go see him.

- The bodies of two disappeared boys are discovered in a well. We, the curious public, get to follow every moment of police investigation and family agony.

- The "carovita" - literally, the expensive life. The high cost of living. Prices are constantly on the rise, and everyone's favorite hobby is complaining about it. One on hand, they are entirely justified. When they introduced the euro about a decade ago, the euro was worth about two thousand lire. So, the number part of everyone's salary was halved: If you made 40,000,000 lire before, you made 20,000 euro after. But! In a marketing trick that wasn't so tricky but stuck nonetheless, all the prices remained the same: A loaf of bread that cost two thousand lire before cost . . . two euro after! So for all practical purposes, everything doubled in price instantaneously and people lost half their buy buying power. And it continues to get more expensive. (And, I will add, for an American abroad, it continues to get even more expensive.) On the other hand, they don't seem to be dealing with the problem particularly effectively on an individual level. For example, another "I am not making this up" observation, this is actually a headline I read recently: "High Prices Change the Buying Habits of Italian Consumers: Less Pasta and Vegetables, More Chicken and Eggs." I thought it was just a misleading headline - maybe they were substituting, say, beans for pasta, and they were substituting chicken for, say, beef. Or something like that. But no: They actually interviewed people who substantiated that they are actually making these types of decisions. That is: Because pasta got lots more expensive than it was yesterday, people aren't eating so much of it; but because chicken isn't so much more expensive than it was yesterday, they're eating more chicken instead of the pasta. Let's review: One serving of pasta for one person: about 15 cents (instead of what, ten cents yesterday?). One serving of chicken for one person: 1 euro (instead of 95 cents yesterday?) That reminds me of a saying I heard once about the lottery: "The lotto? It's really just a tax for people who are bad at math."

- The San Remo Italian Music Festival ("Volare" . . . oh oh) is a bust this year!

- The debate over abortion. Law 192, which legalized and regulates abortion, and Ru486, the pharmocologic abortion, are hot topics, expecially given the election. It's an interesting climate: The Pope, the Church, and "the Catholics" (that is, the politicians allied with the Church) are obviously against abortion and talk a lot about it. On the other hand, I haven't heard anyone in the "general public" who's against abortion, they're all against "those crazy religious folks," and their favorite hobby is bashing the Pope. It's noticeably strange: The Pope gets a lot of play here, but no one (in the general public) seems to have much respect for him.

- Immigrant-bashing in the "Text Messages (forget letters!) to the Editor." If there were a way to measure racism and xenofobia, South Buffalo and Italy would both be in the playoffs. They both have some features that make them strong contenders for the title: Aging populations. Lack of good employment opportunities "on the homefront." Generally homogenous communities historically. I'm not sure who else would be in the playoffs, so I'm not putting any money down on the eventual champion. But should South Buffalo and Italy face each other, Italy would definitely win.