Articles by: Judith Harris

  • Dining in & out: Articles & Reviews

    Expo 2015: Showcasing Ideas, not Icons

     This Expo also has important architecture, not least architect Marco Balich’s 121-ft. tall Albero della Vita (Tree of Life), which, he hopes, “will leave everyone open mouthed.” Balich is artistic director of the Italian Pavilion, heart of the Milan Expo lasting from May 1 through Oct. 31. Construction of the Tree of Life was by Orgoglio Brescia, a consortium of 19 companies, which, together with Pirelli and Coldiretti, financed its  building.

    Among the world-class architects who helped elaborate the site concept were the Italian urban planner Stefano Boeri; Richard Burdett, who teaches urban studies at the London School of Economics;  Mark Rylander, expert on green environmental studies at the University of Virginia; and Swiss architect Jacques Herzog.

    The difference between today’s Expo and those of the past is that, “Initially, World Fairs brought together to a single place the peoples from all over the globe who otherwise had no contact,” said Piero Galli, General Manager of the Expo Operations Division.

    “But now, with travel all over the globe easier, the theme is what matters, and the debate. And what we want to leave when Expo 2015 ends are ideas.”

    Galli, whose other official Expo title is General Manager for Events, is one of Italy’s busiest men these days, and notoriously hard to track by telephone or even tweet.

    But, racing through Rome, he found time to meet with foreign journalists in late April, and to discuss with us his ideas about Expo, from the difficulties of finding space for it in North Milan to its pavilions, transport system, work force and legacy.

    The Expo 2015 theme of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is quintessential, and among the topics falling into this category are what the world eats; science and conscience; the right to eat well; and the art of food. Future food security is foremost: “Today’s world population of 7 billion is growing, and in just 30 years a way we will have to be found to feed 9 billion,” said Galli.

    Food waste must be reduced, and farm land used as wisely as possible. “Our world is now home to 10 billion animals, but at this rate in three decades we are going to need 15 billion animals.”
     

    For Italy, these questions are all close to heart. “Food is in our chromosomes,” said Galli with a smile. “Our agricultural production is more diverse than almost anywhere else. We grow no less than 4,500 vegetables, thanks to our great diversity of climate and soil. It was our duty to stimulate a debate on this.”

    Echoing his words is Milanese architect-designer Michele De Lucchi. “For me, the Expo as a beautiful film,” says De Lucchi. “It brings together 145 nations, all trying to express an idea – and an inspiration – about what is most important for mankind. On a stage without borders we are reasoning and trying to make decisions about how to nourish the planet.”

    Shortly before Expo ends, the Italian organizers will hand Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, a document synthesizing the conclusions of what amounts to this planetary debate.

    Until the opening, pragmatic issues tended to take center-stage. “To find so much space in a big city like Milan was tough,” said Galli. “But we’ve been able to 110 acres, or the equivalent of 100 soccer fields.” This is small by comparison with the World Fair held at Shanghai in 2010, at the peak of the Chinese economic boom. The largest Expo site in the 164-year history of World Fairs, it covered 5.2 square km., or four times the size of Milan’s. “But we will have 20% more countries and international organizations represented,” Galli specified.

    That physical space occupied by the various national pavilions forms an  oblong new city of sorts, with lakes, ponds and huge outdoor theater. A main boulevard stretching from one end to the other was named for the ancient Roman main street, “Decumano” (Decumanus Maximus in Latin), crossed by a major thoroughfare with another Latin name, the “Cardo.” Half the space is devoted to pavilions, from Italy’s to those of the Vatican, Vietnam and Angola (which features a giant baobab tree). Another 35% is for park areas and ponds, while the remaining 15% forms a green ring surrounding the site, demarked by a circular transport system.
     

    Along with the individual country pavilions, a number of nations are grouped together in nine clusters: coffee, chocolate, rice, cereals and tubers, fruits and legumes, arid zones, the sea and islands, and bio-Mediterranean. The rice cluster, for instance, features a series of rice paddies showing different varieties being grown. In previous Expo’s the smaller countries had been shunted somewhat to the periphery.
     

    Then there is the Future Food District, dedicated to the relationship between food, consumers and technology. Its goal is to explore new levels connecting food to the consumer in order to foster a sustainable alimentary chain through the introduction of innovative technologies.

    Feeding the fair goers is also important, as is their entertainment. Each pavilion has a food station or restaurant, and many, including the Italian Pavilion, incorporate a play area for children.

    The U.S. Pavilion, designed by architect James Biber, pays homage to the rich agricultural history of the United States. Its open design features a huge, dramatically vertical farm whose produce will be harvested daily. Why vertical? One reason is to show what can be done, another is that site space is limited. One of its slogans is that “Forget fast food – we Americans loveslow food.”
     

    In remarks before the opening of Expo, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke about the need to relate the effect of people on climate change, and its consequences for food production. “It’s a cycle, and we are all part of it. Together we have the responsibility to deal with food security and climate,” he said.

    Expo 2015 stays open until 11 pm five nights weekly under floodlights with restaurants, events and performances like those by the Cirque du Soleil, whose 50 dancers and musicians will perform a specially created show called Allavita! – Here’s to life! – from May 13 through August 30 in the Open Air Theatre. (For information and tickets to Expo and events like the Cirque du Soleil performances, see: <<<)
     

    This is a sophisticated Expo, and another portal is dedicated to Gay Expo Milano addressed to the lgbt community. The site offers gay-friendly information on events, hotels and what to do.  (see <<<)
     

    When all is said and done, what is the future of the Expo space, when most pavilions are packed away? One thought is that it be turned over to a university – but so far no final decision has been made.
  • Op-Eds

    Divorce, Italian style





    ROME --  With scarcely a whisper, Italy radically simplified divorce proceedings this week. From a required three years of separation before a fractured couple seeking a divorce could face a judge, the Chamber of Deputies this week dropped the obligatory waiting period for a separation to just six months if consensual and one year if not. Although the bill had been pending for no less than a decade, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor, 398 ayes versus only 28 nays, and just six abstentions.



    For a country with strong religious and family traditions, the change – tucked into the back pages in the media – is radical. At present just one out of 100 marriages fails, making Italy’s divorce rate (albeit the latest available statistics date from 2012) the second lowest in the European Union. Four times as many Swedes divorce, and twice as many in Poland and Spain, like Italy primarily Catholic countries.



    Premier Matteo Renzi, who is battling with the problems of migrants dying in the seas and a stalled new law to govern elections, was crowing because at least one of his promised reforms is actually coming to pass. “Another commitment maintained,” he wrote in a tweet April 24. “Moving forward, this is doing the right thing.” Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) was on the same wave length and social network: “These are the politics of doing, not just talking,” was his tweet. Despite his enthusiasm, among the thin ranks of the opponents, who included the obstreperous young conservative Giorgia Meloni, were a few of his own deputies.



    Italy’s first ever law permitting divorce was passed in 1970 following a secret meeting between Socialist (PSI) leader Francesco De Martino and Communist (PCI) leader Enrico Berlinguer. At that time De Martino was deputy premier in a center-left coalition with the anti-divorce Christian Democrats (DC). With its circa 15% of the vote in Parliament, and with support from their fellow Center-left coalition parties in Parliament (Social Democrats and Republicans) divorce bill would not have passed without the contribution of the opposition PCI with its 25% of the members of Parliament.  



    The new law ratifies what everyone knows, on two levels. The first is that, despite the popularity of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church in Italy and its social teachings command far less authority than in the past, particularly among the young, whose attendance at mass continues to decline, parish priests admit. As the vote shows, almost no attention was paid to the warning by Famiglia Cristiana, the magazine published by the Italian Council of Bishops, that the new law is “an attack on the family and on the children, who are left ever less protected and the victims of irresponsibility.”



    The second is the changing nature of the once mythical Italian family, part of whose remaining strength is that, with almost 44% of young Italians unemployed, most are obliged to live at home with La Mamma and Il Papa. Only Greece and Romania have a higher number of young unemployed. As a result, as new statistics show, 46.6% of Italians between the ages of 25 and 34 still live with their parents – substantially more than in France (11.5%) and Spain (37.2%).



    Residual family ties are being celebrated this week with the opening of actor-director Nani Moretti’s new film, “Mia Madre” (My Mother). Attending its first night, I was initially put off by the rank sentimentality of Moretti’s version of the perfect mother, a tubby retired Latin teacher much beloved of her former students, who called her “the mother of us all.”



    When I asked if this versions of La Mamma italiana corresponds to today’s truth, one older woman replied, “To the extent that we mothers were forced to conform to the stereotype, whether we wanted to or not.” Said another: “In his film Moretti intimates that the special relationship between mother and son comes at the expense of the daughter.” Moretti shows this is by having the daughter smash her mother’s car into a wall. (Honestly, I’d not realized this was the point.)



    Italian family ties remain strong, however. Take a bus, and half the passengers are speaking on mobile phones. To whom? To La Mamma, even if to say only that, “I can’t really talk now, I’ll phone tomorrow.” And to say, “I’m bringing lasagna.”
  • Op-Eds

    Still Political Mid-Winter in Italy

    Spring is bursting out all over Italy, but the political climate remains deep winter. Premier Matteo Renzi, whose popularity had been robust at almost 40% in January, is watching his once firm grip on politics slip slowly but surely to today’s 33%. At the same time the problems facing his government today would challenge any leader anywhere.

    These stormy problems begin with 

    public works, or their shoddiness. In the Italian South, three major highways have developed such huge cracks that they are shut down, obliging long and time-consuming detours. Two are new roads in Sicily, where the breaches are on the main highways between Palermo and Agrigento, and between Palermo and Catania. In one viaduct, the pillars are tipping over, to the point that Graziano Del Rio, the new Minister for Public Works, suggests demolishing it entirely.

    Another viaduct built in the Sixties in quake-risk territory between Salerno and Reggio Calabria is interrupted, while troubles are reported in tunnels still under construction in the area between Umbria and the Marches. Last but not least, at Ostuni in Puglia, 5 sq. m. of ceiling in a newly restored elementary school building crumbled, sending a teacher and two 7-year-old students to hospital.

    The good news is that Del Rio, the new Minister of the Infrastructure, is calling a halt to so-called “emergency” large-scale public works, in favor of more urgent and smaller projects, which include, guess what, maintenance. Del Rio, who has been Renzi’s guardian angel and counselor, is an interesting figure – a practicing Catholic, a medical doctor, former mayor of Reggio Emilia and family man with nine children. Among those hailing his approach is Paolo Buzzetti, president of the Italian association of building contractors. “Today more than ever we require carefully-aimed plans,” Buzzetti told the press, “with priority for maintenance and school buildings – simple, clear projects with transparent funding.”

    A second major issue Renzi faces is migration. The calmer seas mean that the Mediterranean, which some commentators here are calling “the cemetery,” is now being crossed by dozens if not hundreds of small, overloaded rubber boats filled with desperado migrants from Africa and the war-torn Middle East primarily via the Libyan coast. In just four days some 7,000 migrants flooded onto the Italian shores; 846 arrived at Lampedusa alone during the night April 14 (see photo). For passage they pay up to $3,000, and only later learn what sort of boat awaits them. According to Franco Venturini, an authoritative commentator for the daily Corriere della

    Sera, 20,000 Libyans “manage” the camps in which the migrants are awaiting passage.

    It is known that, when the wannabe migrants are told to board unseaworthy craft and try to dodge away, the organizers (scafisti) force them to board at gunpoint. In 2014 the figure of those arriving had been around 170,000. Today’s predictions are that between 250,000 and 500,000 are likely to arrive from Syria, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, Irak, Nigeria and elsewhere. How are they to be fed, housed and given health care? No one knows. Nor does anyone know how many ships sank, leaving no survivors, when rescue ships were unable to arrive in time.

    Is this a political issue? Indeed it is, with anti-migrant sentiment fueling Matteo Salvini’s Northern League. In a tweet today Salvini wrote, “If someone wants to welcome them, let him open the doors to his own house!” Salvini had already proposed leaving the migrants aboard their boats on grounds they are responsible for Italy’s economic woes, which include around 40% youth unemployment.

    On the political front, tensions within the Partito Democratico (PD) between Renzi and his party’s left factions, particularly over the election reform bill known as “Italicum,” show no sign of diminishing. This weekend former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano rapped the knuckles of the left, pointing out that, after months of debate and discussion, it is wasteful to continue to sabotage the Italicum.

    But the left factions, including Roberto Speranza’s “Area Riformista,” give no sign of caving in, for they believe that the proposed reform will concentrate too much power in the hands of the government at the expense of the Parliament. As written now, the Italicum curbs the authority of the Senate in order to avoid the time-consuming shuttling of legislation between the two houses of Parliament, with no conclusion, even as its European partners press Italy toward application of the many reform bills in the wings.

    The Italicum had originally been supported by Silvio Berlusconi, former premier, who however has withdrawn his backing. Debate on the bill is slated to begin in the Chamber of Deputies April 27, and some fear that the stalemate may force Renzi into calling a vote of confidence, which, should it fail, lead the country into early elections.
  • Op-Eds

    L’Aquila Quake, Six Years Later

    ROME – On April 6, for most Italians the Easter Monday national holiday of picnicking and country excursions, 10,000 braved the cold in L’Aquila to record the sixth anniversary of the earthquake that struck the beautiful medieval city in the Abruzzo, killing 309, leaving more than 50,000 homeless (some say over 70,000) and destroying or damaging tens of thousands of historic buildings. Church bells tolled as the torchlight procession led to the cathedral, where the names of all the victims were read. 

    This was not the only march of solidarity organized to commemorate that brutal 6.3
    magnitude earthquake. Coming in early summer is a nine-day hike which begins June 27 in Rome and ends in L’Aquila nine days later.

    The organizers of “Lunga Marcia per l’Aquila 2015” (the Long March for L’Aquila 2015) say that the goal of that trek, now in its fourth year, “is to build awareness of the reconstruction situation, and to familiarize both the participants and the communities through which they walk with the themes of anti-seismic prevention and knowledge of the territory.”

    Reconstruction has been slow and controversial, to put it mildly. Premier Matteo Renzi Monday via Facebook that, “After too many promises, we are finally passing to action.” In his government’s 2015 budget $5.54 billion has been earmarked for medium- and long-term funding of projects there, he said. 

    A year ago, Renzi said, private construction projects amounting to $1.22 billion were approved “and are being accelerated” while another $86 million for rebuilding public facilities was “set aside.” Added Renzi, quoted in ANSA news service: “We have the money. We must spend it well as a duty in memory of those who died and out of respect for the survivors.” 

    This respect has been slow in coming. Resettlement in new housing for the seven hundred families left homeless by the quake of 2009 was the first reconstruction goal, as this reporter recalls from an early post-quake visit there. The homeless were, in fact, shuttled into thirteen brand new towns on the outskirts of the city. The new town construction costs have been estimated at a startling $2,900 a square meter, said to be triple the normal cost of construction. That construction, moreover, is reportedly inadequate: balconies were so shoddily built that some are unsafe, and in some cases families have been warned they must stay indoors or out on the street, but never on the balcony. Other complaints are of leaky roofs, open sewers and lack of maintenance of the towns.

    Restoration of historic buildings meantime was placed on hold. By one estimate the 485 mostly historic buildings and sites requiring restoration will cost at least $600 million, and will not be completed unto 2021. 

    The casting of blame has been a giant problem. For months tremors had been felt, but a “Major Risks Commission” composed of seven scientists had met on March 31, only days before the quake struck, and announced that there was no serious risk. Their reassurances meant that at least 29 individuals did not leave their homes after feeling the first tremor. Hauled into court in 2012 on accusations of superficiality, all seven were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. 

    But in February 2014 a three-judge court reversed their sentences, and six were acquitted while the seventh was given a reduced sentence, largely on technical questions such as the exact nature of the commission: was it a real commission or just a friendly meeting? And some argued too that the scientists’ reasoning – that a series of small tremors (a swarm, it is called) actually reduces the risk of a major quake – was accepted scientifically at that time, if less today after L’Aquila (!)

    Last month the city’s Chief Prosecutor Romolo Como filed a formal appeal to the supreme Cassations court against these acquittals. The high court will address two issues: whether or not the commission was formally meeting so that its words were to be heeded, as the appeals court had decided; and if they ought to have shown more prudence even if it were not a regularly constituted “commission.” 

    General Prosecutor Como has also just filed a request to proceed against the then head of the Italian civilian protection agency, Guido Bertolaso, on charges that he failed to urge the proper precautions, such as to leave the house in case of a strong tremor. No decision has yet been made over whether the high court will deliberate on the suit against Bertolaso, however. 

    As for Renzi’s new reassurances, the respected journalist Gian Antonio Stella of the daily Corriere della Sera comments that the citizens of L’Aquila are reacting with “insults and sarcasm – they can’t quite forget that in more than a year the premier, in his whirlwind of trips abroad and important meetings (including to a Scout meeting at San Rossore), has not found the time to come to the city destroyed by the quake, to see for himself the historic city’s agony.”

    The reassurances had begun with the then Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who predicted that everyone would be made happy in the near future. Subsequently Premier Mario Monti issued a 139-page decree of what was to be done. What all these promises amount to, says Stella, is merely a rickety bureaucratic box, “more anguishing than any building scaffolding.”
  • Op-Eds

    Reading Italy: The Book and the Look


    ROME – Reading is tending to wane in Italy as elsewhere, and the number of those saying they had read at least one book in the past year dropped from 43% in 2013 to 41.4% in the year 2014, according to the national statistics-gathering agency ISTAT. But  at the same time those reading at least one book a month stands at a healthy 14.3%; women and city folk read more (48% and 51% respectively).

    So what do they read? A fascinating website collects contributions from train, tram and bus passengers all over Italy describing what fellow commuters are reading, with details like “stunningly beautiful, wears pony tail, carries a strap handbag, elegantly dressed, cell phone in hand.” (See >>> )



    But before we pry into Italian commuters’ choices of book and look, please take a moment to honor the Golden Oldie of Italian letters, the Treccani Encyclopedia, this year celebrating its ninetieth birthday with production of a commemorative medal and an exhibition in Rome called “Treccani 1925-2015: La Cultura degli Italiani,” open through May 24 in Rome in the Vittoriano, off Piazza Venezia. The encyclopedia was founded by textile magnate and philanthropist Giovanni Treccani degli Alfieri (1777-1961) of Vicenza on Feb. 18, 1925.



    Born into a farming family, at age seventeen Treccani migrated to Germany, where he learned textile production at Krefeld, the famous “city of silk and velvet” which is still the center of the German textile trade. Returning to Italy in 1898, Treccani worked his way up from technical designer for Lanificio Rossi to ownership in 1922 of a failing textile  company he revived and expanded, Cotonificio Valle Ticino before returning to Lanificio Rossi as president. He was then elected to the Italian Senate where he met the famous philosopher Giovanni Gentile, and in 1915 began projecting creation of a great national encyclopedia that would cost him the gigantic sum of 54 million lire. Under the direction of Gentile, the first volume appeared in 1929.



    By 1937 thirty-five volumes had been issued, for a total of 35,000 pages with 800 color illustrations and 60,000 in black and white. These were the years of Fascism, and Mussolini used the Treccani to promote Italian culture, but among the 3,200 Italian and foreign scholars who contributed the texts were many anti-Fascists, according to journalist and author Luca Valente, writing in the “Giornale di Vicenza,” June 23, 2007. (See: >>>)



    In the encyclopedia was an entry – the first in Europe – dedicated to  “Cinematografia” (cinematography). Seventy years later Treccani issued an entire volume on the topic, “Enciclopedia del cinema” (2003), with entries by famous writers and director like Enzo Siciliano, Luigi Squarzina, Luca Ronconi and Morando Morandini. Another prestigious volume was the “Enciclopedia del Novecento,” a panorama of the 20th century published in 1975 with entries by noted intellectuals like  scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, art historian Giulio Carlo Argan, economist Paolo Sylos Labini, French theologian Jean Danielou and Israeli politician David Ben Gurion.



    This morning’s subway reader at 7 am in Milan – the gorgeous girl with the pony tail – was reading “Expo 58” by Jonathan Coe. “She’s leaning against the back wall, crosses her legs and is totally engaged in reading. Tries not to lose her balance, she is serious, never raises her gaze from her book,” writes contributor Riccardo Tommasini.



    In his March 30 entry on the site, the thirty-something author Paolo Di Paolo of Rome confesses that, “I have the sickness of looking at the books of people reading, in the bus, train, plane, subway, on all sorts of transportation and on benches…. What surprises me are the eccentric books that aren’t on best-seller lists, not out of snobbishness but because they make me ferociously curious.” That day’s book catching his fancy was “Aden Arabia,” by Paul Nizan with a prologue by Jean Paul Sartre. “I’d like to ask her questions. And like to question the boy on the subway in Rome reading Stefan Zweig: was it because of the movie made by Wes Anderson?” His conclusion: “This story is the voyage that changes us.”



    Did it also change the Neapolitan man on the subway carrying under arm a copy of the “Decameron”? “He does not seem distracted, rather a human being who is pausing, though we can’t know from what…. If I had a simultaneous translator I’d perhaps be able to guess have of those thoughts locked between slowdown and actions.” He wears green trousers and eight little earrings, adds the anonymous author.



    From a crowded train, here’s an entry signed by Christian Caldato: “He has a rolling suitcase beside him, with the outside flap left open. Where he’d put the book there’s now space waiting to take it back. He has short hair, casually unkempt but in a way that evokes order. Wears a green sweater.” He’d just begun to read Philip Roth’s “Pastorale Americana,” and “never lifts his chestnut eyes from the pages.” The book looked as if he’d bought it on sale, adds Caldato.



    And now, from another subway in Rome, another translation from English, in this contribution from an unidentified commuter: “There’s this guy leaning against a post, he seems a devoted youth, judging by his tidy clothes and the little book he’s holding. First I try to see if he has a clerical collar; he does not… but he has nostalgic velvet trousers and the sort of cap old people wear.” What’s he reading? A volume of Emily Dickinson’s letters entitled “Un vulcano silenzioso, la vita” (A Very Silent Volcano - Life,” written in the mid-19th century and translated by Marco Federici Solari (Orma Editori, 2013). Fascinated, the commuter admits he’d love to speak with this person whose existence appears out of space and time, but, alas, “I have no choice save to get off the train.”
  • Facts & Stories

    The World at EXPO 2015 in Milan

    ROME – After six years of work and planning, EXPO 2015 opens in Milan in little more than one month’s time, and you can almost hear the organizers’ sighs of relief as work on the pavilions is being completed, and the goal of selling 10 million tickets before its official opening May 1 looms within sight. 

    Organizers of this ambitious world’s fair on the theme “Nourish the Planet, Energy for Life” 
    report with obvious delight that 8.5 million tickets have already been sold to distributors, travel agencies worldwide and on-line agencies such as TicketOne. Of these sales, 5 million were outside Italy. EXPO commissioner Giuseppe Sala predicts that before the event ends Oct. 31 some 20 million tickets will have been sold.

    Most visitors are expected to be Europeans, with at least one million from France and another million from Germany. Not least, Italian school children are expected to utilize at least 500,000 tickets. Chinese are expected in abundance: already a half million tickets have been sold in China, and twice that number are expected during the coming six months. 

    Officially known as the Esposizione Universale (Universal Exposition), the goals and achievements of the Milan EXPO have been overshadowed by graft scandals that surfaced a year ago. That seems to be in the past, and the good news is that the 145 countries participating represent 94% of the world population. Fifty-three countries have built their own pavilions, some by famous architects. And displays by the United Nations, the European Union and the European nuclear research organization CERN will be on view. 

    The world’s fairs are now in their 163rd year. The most recent, which took place in Shanghai in 2010, attracted a stunningly large number of visitors, 73 million; all but 4 million were Chinese. In a novelty, this year, for the first time, a Chinese firm, Vanke, has its own pavilion, whose avantgarde design by the world-famous Daniel Libeskind is made of self-cleaning, air-purifying metalized tiles. Founded in 1984, Vanke is described as China’s leading multinational real estate company with a turnover of $2.3 billion last year.

    Given the fascinating and universal theme of nourishing mankind, one of the pavilions, Padiglione Zero, has an archaeological theme, and will illustrate the earliest foods and how they were procured. A cluster of pavilions will introduce the world of rice by displaying and explaining various types of rice. Centerpiece of the cluster is a simulated rice paddy, while a related photo exhibition in the pavilion is by the noted Gianni Berengo Gardin, whose works are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Library in Paris; in 1994 his photos of Italy were exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

    Another of the various food clusters is devoted to coffee. The architecture of the cluster is intended to refer to the branches of trees under which coffee plants grow. In the pavilion, sponsored by Italian coffee maker Illy, “The idea is to relate the product, the art and the culture linked to coffee and future innovations in the sector,” EXPO organizers explain. A related exhibition shows photographs by the celebrated Sebastiao Salgado, recently the subject of a documentary film directed by Wim Wenders. 

    The huge EXPO site is in the northeast of Milan. Although this is the capital city of the region which produces one-fifth of Italy’s GNP, two events rocked the city this past week. One was the pending sale for $7.7 billion of the Italian rubber-tire manufacturer Pirelli, based in Milan, to the state-owned China National Chemical. The 143-year-old Pirelli is the world’s fifth largest manufacturer of tires, and the takeover is described as one of the biggest Chinese acquisitions ever made in Europe. The loss of this important manufacturer, if the sale goes through, inevitably weakens the Milanese economy. (Read more at <<<)

    Like the Pirelli sale, the second event behind the Milanese scenes has no bearing on the EXPO, but is distressing many progressive Italians. Giuliano Pisapia, mayor of Milan since 2011, announced this week that he will resign at the end of this year. The guessing game for his successor is on, but he will be a hard act to follow. Pisapia, widely admired for his honesty in public administration, has an interesting background as a courageous attorney who entered Parliament running as an independent backed by the far-left Rifondazione Comunista. There he served as president of the Justice Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.  “He knew how to speak to the young people on the left as well as to the Milanese managerial class,” said the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore. (See <<<).

    Both will be missed, but in the meantime, there is EXPO to be enjoyed. 
  • Op-Eds

    Court Sentences Take Center Stage


    ROME – The banner headlines this week in Italy focus upon the successful passage in the lower house (and so far only there) of a constitutional reform bill that would drastically curb the powers of the Senate. But other key decisions, including on Silvio Berlusconi, gay marriage and assisted reproductive technology, have propelled the courts, even more than the parliament itself, onto center stage.
     
    The decision generating the most heat is a Milan Cassations high court ruling March 10 that ratifies the suffered decision by an Appeals court last July to acquit former Premier Silvio Berlusconi of involvement in prostitution with a minor, the notorious Kharima el Mahroug, better known in the Anglo press as Ruby Heartstealer. Prosecutor Edoardo Scardaccione had challenged that lower court’s decision. The Cassations ruling, issued at midnight after ten hours of discussion, puts a definitive end to the accusations that, back in May 2010, Berlusconi knew Ruby’s real identity, knew that she was underage and had pressured Milan police to release her. The new ruling also overturns his earliest conviction to a seven-year prison sentence. Berlusconi is hardly off the hook despite this; he still faces other and newer  judiciary investigations into the company he kept at parties he hosted.
     
    Curiously, if the Berlusconi case is the one generating the most heat, other decisions seem likely to have more far-reaching consequences. The first is that the Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR) of Lazio has just annulled a ruling made Oct. 31, 2014, by Rome Prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro to cancel transcriptions onto Italian civic records of marriages celebrated outside of Italy by gay couples. Pecoraro’s decision had been justified by a note sent by Interior Minister Angelino Alfano Oct. 7 asking the nation’s police prefects to “formally invite the mayors to withdraw” registrations of gay marriages in city records offices, and to “annul the illegitimate acts that had been perpetrated.” These registrations had been honored selectively by diverse city administrations, beginning with Rome.
     
    In this week’s decision, the Lazio Region administrative tribunal judges seemed to be seeking a way out of the Italian legal prohibition against same-sex marriages. They declared that the present laws in Italy do not consent gay marriage, which means that same-sex marriages cannot be transcribed onto civil records. However, only the “ordinary judiciary authority” and not a cabinet minister or police prefect can order annulled the transcription of overseas same-sex marriages. In short, same sex registrations can still slip through the cracks.
     
    The TAR ruling implicitly reflects a decision by the Cassations high court Feb. 9 that gay marriage “within our judicial system…is not foreseen among the legislative hypotheses of conjugal unions.” However, “an urgent intervention by the legislature” is necessary in recognition of the constitution Article 2 which protects the rights of individuals, including as it concerns the rights and duties within ”affective relations of the couple.” And this week the government reportedly agreed to present a document later this month to the United Nations in which it agrees to recognize same-sex unions.
     
    The LGBT associations are skeptical. “If the Italian government is really about to make promises to the UN on egalitarian marriage, they ought to tell this to the country formally,” says Aurelio Mancuso, president of Equality Italia, quoted in ANSA news agency March 9. Last October Premier Matteo Renzi was already calling Germany’s same sex law “a good point for meditation.” “We’ll wait for the facts,” was the comment this week from Flavio Romani, Arcigay president. Will such a drastic change, which many Catholics here will resent, happen soon? Probably not, but change is in the winds, and doors are being pushed open a crack.
     
    The second court ruling with far-reaching consequences actually was delivered last April 9, when a sentence decreed that assisted fertilization was legitimate. Passage of the hotly contested law, revised 33 times, was one of Italy’s most difficult in history. But as a result, this March 9 – almost one year after the bill was passed – a 47-year-old woman who had been trying for a baby for 15 years successfully delivered twins, a boy and a girl, after artificial insemination with the donation of ovuli. The slightly premature births took place in the Alma Res Fertility Clinic in Rome. Mother and babies – and father too – are reportedly in excellent condition.  Further parliamentary hearings are due next month to extend the possibilities to other situations.
     
    If these are two steps forward, some will view the decision of a court in Livorno (Leghorn to the old-fashioned) as a step backward. During a hard-fought soccer game Dec. 3, 2011, between Verona, one of the centers of rightist Northern League populism, and Livorno, with its solidly leftist tradition, fans from the rival teams began yelling at each other. Banners waved, insults flew (“Fascists” was one), as the Che Guevara T-shirts faced off against the greens of the Lega. Feeling insulted, the Veronesi hoisted their arms in the Fascist salute, which happens to be a crime under Italian law. This week, however, a Livorno court ruled that no crime had been committed because the Verona fans were simply making an “affirmation of their identity.” The Fascist salute is now legal, if only in the Leghorn stadium.
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    Coming Down to Rome, Salvini Goes Up in the Polls


    ROME –Matteo Salvini, 41, has outfoxed both Umberto Bossi and Roberto Maroni as head of the Lega Nord which they invented, and is determined to propel support for that party of supposedly Northern pride and separatism onto the national stage. At least in the intentions of voters, he is succeeding, as the most recent opinion polls show.


    In EMG Acqua poll results announced March 2, Salvini’s party showed the most dynamism of any, surging upward in one week by 0.8%, to almost 16%. In Italy’s fragmented political picture, the Lega Nord now stands as the third most popular party in Italy. It is still well behind Premier Matteo Renzi’s Partito Democratico (PD), with 37.1%, and Beppe Grillo’s Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S), with 19.6%, but both of these showed small but telling losses of respectively 0.1% and 0.5%. The encouraging note: almost 40% abstained, or at least refused to say for whom they would vote.
     
    At the same time Salvini is an extremely popular political leader, behind President Sergio Mattarella (who is the most popular single political figure in Italy) and Renzi, but well ahead of both Beppe Grillo and Berlusconi. The Salvini version of an enlarged Lega Nord thoroughly bested former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), which slumped from 12.4% to 12% in just one week; last November polls gave FI over 16%. The sense is that Berlusconi’s splintering party is in deep trouble. Berlusconi had had two possibilities to remain in the picture: his notorious alliance with Renzi for reforms (the so-called Nazareno Pact) and his much discussed mending of the breach with his former partner Angelino Alfano, who is in the government coalition with Renzi. Neither has worked out, and Alfano is making it clear that he and his right-leaning party Nuovo Centrodestra (NCD) intend to stay the course with Renzi. This leaves Berlusconi – still in trouble with the law over the Ruby Heart-stealer case of sex with minors – enough out on a limb that he is reportedly leaning toward making some form of a deal with, guess who, Salvini.
     
    This is an interesting concept, for the two have a great deal in common. As the prestigious commentator Corrado Augias has pointed out, Salvini’s gift, akin to that of Berlusconi (he is now 79 or so), is a TV presence. Like Berlusconi, says Augias, the TV Salvini gets rid of complex issues by ignoring them, tucking them instead into an easily digestible, “elementary and unreal” formula. As an example, Augias cites a debate back in 1994 between left leader Achille Ochetto and Berlusconi, when the former tried to analyze a complex situation which Berlusconi brushed off with a few clever if not particularly pertinent words. However, Augias goes on to say, a speech in public is quite another thing from a sound bite, and in his opinion Salvini more or less blew it on Saturday, when he spoke at a huge rally in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, which attracted up to 50,000 cheering supporters. He is as wily as TV hip, incidentally; back in June of 2012 he said that he disliked going on TV, “I don’t care about it, I go only because the Lega of Umberto Bossi is worth it. He will go down in history as a genius, thanks to him for bringing us here. Long live free Padania.”
     
    On the eve of the rally Feb. 28 an anti-Salvini crowd fought a pitched battle with police, but the rally itself went off without incident unless you count a few eccentric banners, like the one with a photo of Mussolini, saying, “Salvini, ti aspettavo“ (Salvini, I’ve been waiting for you). In his speech Salvini asked for more gun rights for householders: “We’ll change the law [limiting] legitimate defense: you set foot in my house, you better know you exit flat on the ground.” (He carefully did not say “dead.”) Salvini has a liking for the rough-tough language of populism: “Why is that every time I say the name ‘Renzi’ you shout go screw yourself? Then people get offended and invent the vaffanculo tax: 3% plus VAT.” Salvini used that same phrase to insult former Minister Elsa Fornero, author of a controversial labor reform law in 2012.  (See: http://ricciutilaw.com/an-introduction-to-the-fornero-labour-reform)
     
    After down with Renzi, his key slogans are down the European Union (“Renzi is a servant of the EU”) and down with immigrants. This is a favorite theme, but not his only one, and there was something for everyone: “The foremost thief in Italy is called the State,” he told the cheering crowd in Rome. Back in Pontida in Northern Italy on June 13, 2009 – more than three years before he would take charge of the Northern League –he had come down hard on Neapolitans: “Can’t you smell them coming, even the dogs are running away: the Neapolitans are arriving! O bearers of cholera, quake victims, you’ve never washed yourselves with soap.” Now that Salvini is trying to boost himself into an alternative to Renzi, he does not go quite so far. Addressing the Coast Guard commanders whose boats are helping to rescue migrants, Salvini said, “Send the immigrants back home, we’ve had enough of their arriving.” You did not sign up to the Navy to help out the guys running the illegal boats, he concluded. A for the Roma (Gypsies), “You want a house, go buy yourself one – quit living off the Italians.”
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    Coming Down to Rome, Salvini Goes Up in the Polls


    ROME –Matteo Salvini, 41, has outfoxed both Umberto Bossi and Roberto Maroni as head of the Lega Nord which they invented, and is determined to propel support for that party of supposedly Northern pride and separatism onto the national stage. At least in the intentions of voters, he is succeeding, as the most recent opinion polls show.


    In EMG Acqua poll results announced March 2, Salvini’s party showed the most dynamism of any, surging upward in one week by 0.8%, to almost 16%. In Italy’s fragmented political picture, the Lega Nord now stands as the third most popular party in Italy. It is still well behind Premier Matteo Renzi’s Partito Democratico (PD), with 37.1%, and Beppe Grillo’s Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S), with 19.6%, but both of these showed small but telling losses of respectively 0.1% and 0.5%. The encouraging note: almost 40% abstained, or at least refused to say for whom they would vote.
     
    At the same time Salvini is an extremely popular political leader, behind President Sergio Mattarella (who is the most popular single political figure in Italy) and Renzi, but well ahead of both Beppe Grillo and Berlusconi. The Salvini version of an enlarged Lega Nord thoroughly bested former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), which slumped from 12.4% to 12% in just one week; last November polls gave FI over 16%. The sense is that Berlusconi’s splintering party is in deep trouble. Berlusconi had had two possibilities to remain in the picture: his notorious alliance with Renzi for reforms (the so-called Nazareno Pact) and his much discussed mending of the breach with his former partner Angelino Alfano, who is in the government coalition with Renzi. Neither has worked out, and Alfano is making it clear that he and his right-leaning party Nuovo Centrodestra (NCD) intend to stay the course with Renzi. This leaves Berlusconi – still in trouble with the law over the Ruby Heart-stealer case of sex with minors – enough out on a limb that he is reportedly leaning toward making some form of a deal with, guess who, Salvini.
     
    This is an interesting concept, for the two have a great deal in common. As the prestigious commentator Corrado Augias has pointed out, Salvini’s gift, akin to that of Berlusconi (he is now 79 or so), is a TV presence. Like Berlusconi, says Augias, the TV Salvini gets rid of complex issues by ignoring them, tucking them instead into an easily digestible, “elementary and unreal” formula. As an example, Augias cites a debate back in 1994 between left leader Achille Ochetto and Berlusconi, when the former tried to analyze a complex situation which Berlusconi brushed off with a few clever if not particularly pertinent words. However, Augias goes on to say, a speech in public is quite another thing from a sound bite, and in his opinion Salvini more or less blew it on Saturday, when he spoke at a huge rally in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, which attracted up to 50,000 cheering supporters. He is as wily as TV hip, incidentally; back in June of 2012 he said that he disliked going on TV, “I don’t care about it, I go only because the Lega of Umberto Bossi is worth it. He will go down in history as a genius, thanks to him for bringing us here. Long live free Padania.”
     
    On the eve of the rally Feb. 28 an anti-Salvini crowd fought a pitched battle with police, but the rally itself went off without incident unless you count a few eccentric banners, like the one with a photo of Mussolini, saying, “Salvini, ti aspettavo“ (Salvini, I’ve been waiting for you). In his speech Salvini asked for more gun rights for householders: “We’ll change the law [limiting] legitimate defense: you set foot in my house, you better know you exit flat on the ground.” (He carefully did not say “dead.”) Salvini has a liking for the rough-tough language of populism: “Why is that every time I say the name ‘Renzi’ you shout go screw yourself? Then people get offended and invent the vaffanculo tax: 3% plus VAT.” Salvini used that same phrase to insult former Minister Elsa Fornero, author of a controversial labor reform law in 2012.  (See: http://ricciutilaw.com/an-introduction-to-the-fornero-labour-reform)
     
    After down with Renzi, his key slogans are down the European Union (“Renzi is a servant of the EU”) and down with immigrants. This is a favorite theme, but not his only one, and there was something for everyone: “The foremost thief in Italy is called the State,” he told the cheering crowd in Rome. Back in Pontida in Northern Italy on June 13, 2009 – more than three years before he would take charge of the Northern League –he had come down hard on Neapolitans: “Can’t you smell them coming, even the dogs are running away: the Neapolitans are arriving! O bearers of cholera, quake victims, you’ve never washed yourselves with soap.” Now that Salvini is trying to boost himself into an alternative to Renzi, he does not go quite so far. Addressing the Coast Guard commanders whose boats are helping to rescue migrants, Salvini said, “Send the immigrants back home, we’ve had enough of their arriving.” You did not sign up to the Navy to help out the guys running the illegal boats, he concluded. A for the Roma (Gypsies), “You want a house, go buy yourself one – quit living off the Italians.”
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    Battling Corruption and its Costs


    ROME – Forty-one years ago Indro Montanelli, that late lamented grand guru of Italian journalism, opined sardonically that what Italy needed was a “Ministry of Scandals” to regulate the “atavic” Italian sin of corruption. Atavic or otherwise, the situation has been addressed seriously in the past by the judges of “Operation Clean Hands.”


    But during the past six years of a severely weakened economy, corruption has risen its ugly head once more, while also bringing the problem into the open as rarely before. As of year end Italy was ranked 69th down on the list compiled by Transparency International, at the same level as Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. On a scale of 100 points Italy reached only 43, below South Africa, Kuwait and Montenegro while Germany was given 12th place, and the U.S., l7th.

     
    Italians are the first to cry “shame.” Speaking at the inauguration of the 2015 judicial year on Feb. 10, Raffaele Squitieri, president of the Court of Auditors (Corte dei Conti), said that the prolonged period of economic stagnation has paved the way for bad management and corruption, “in a vicious circle, whereby one is the cause of the other.” Only a few days before this the governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco, called the level of corruption in Italy today “intolerable.” And in his inaugural speech as president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella agreed, saying that the level of corruption in the country is “inacceptable -- it devours resources that should be destined to its citizens, it stops the market from functioning correctly, and it favors crime bands while penalizing the honest and capable.”
     
    Although critics like the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano say that improvements are unlikely, during the past two years three gigantic corruption scandals have been amply reported, but also dealt with in ongoing investigations that have already sent scores into prison. The three major scandals are kickbacks on construction of the Mose water barrier in Venice; kickbacks on work on the forthcoming Milan Expo; and the admixture of organized crime and corrupt politicians which has brought shame upon the City of Rome. All three have brought cases before the courts and literally scores of arrests already.
     
    The coalition government headed by Matteo Renzi does not seem to be ignoring the problem. Indeed, agreement may finally be in sight for passage of a desperately needed anti-corruption bill which has been pending for the past two years. In a promising step forward, on Feb. 25 the Justice Commission of the Senate approved an amendment that upped the prison terms for public officials convicted of corruption from 4 to 8 years in prison to 6 to 10 years. The Commission also agreed that the falsification of financial reports is a criminal offense, thus reducing the hotly disputed list of non-punishable offenses that would let business leaders slip off the hook.
     
    Still on the agenda is extension of the statute of limitations on corruption offenses – that is, the time period before a crime is considered null and void before the law. At present corruption charges automatically lapse between four and 10 years, depending upon the offense. The government’s new plan would up that period from a minimum of six to a maximum of 12 and, in some cases, 20 years. Plea bargaining would depend upon a plaintiff’s admission of guilt, total restitution of the money, and seizure of any and all his property shown to be of illicit origin.
     
    The pending reform bill has been fought against by Forza Italia since the breach between its leader, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, and Renzi with the collapse of the Nazareno Pact, which promised cooperation on reforms. The agreement fell apart over Renzi’s PD support for the election of President Mattarella, in defiance of Berlusconi’s choice of Giuliano Amato. Speaking for Forza Italia, Renato Brunetta, head of the parliamentary FI group, warned that, “We will do everything to slow down the reforms.” Beppe Grillo, in turn speaking for the Movimento Cinque Stelle, scoffed at Renzi that, “The government is too weak to make any reform.”
     
    Still, there is movement. This week Rossella Orlandi, who heads the state tax collecting agency, Agenzia delle Entrate, offered absolute anonymity to whistle blowers. Tax offices are vulnerable to illegal deals made between tax payer and collector so, in a circular Feb. 27, Orlandi wrote that, “We must, all together, take responsibility for denouncing not only crimes, but also illicit behavior and any of those actions that do not reflect our common goal of a healthy administration of correct behavior and transparency.” Public employees fearful of retaliation for denouncing colleagues or their own bosses will have complete anonymity, Orlandi promises, and cannot be discriminated against or dismissed from their jobs for having spoken up.
     
     
     
     

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