Saturday, April 24, 2010

What the hell is going on?

I tell you it’s never a dull moment in Europe or Italy. We have volcanoes ricking havoc in the skies. We have Greece falling further into an economic ruin and here in Italy we have no elections for 3 years, or do we? The other 2 problems are getting plenty of western press so I’ll dive into the Italy problem for you, the reader. We just had an election where the right leaning party won (the PDL of Silvio Berlusconi). Now of course both sides SAY they won but let’s be blunt. Silvio Berlusconi’s side picked up a couple of regions thanks to the left (Partito Democratico) being a bunch of idiots. Now Silvio’s “Party of Love” (I’m not making that up) is having a big old family feud. The PDL is made up of 3 groups one lead by Fini, one by Berlusconi, and one by Umberto Bossi. The problem is not everyone in party agrees on the direction. Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini have been at odds for a while and it’s finally coming to head. Today the real nut-job of the party Umberto Bossi has chimed in and it seems a split is now inevitable. I say Umberto Bossi is a nut job because he honestly believes that Italy should be split in two so the wealthy North can live without being bothered by those dirty southerners (and I can’t write what he thinks of foreigners). Bossi’s son recently went so far as to say he has, and will never, visit Italy south of Rome. If that wasn’t enough he also said he’s not a fan of the Italian National Soccer Team in the upcoming World Cup. Now that’s just crazy talk... you see why I call them nut jobs?...

So the next step is will this rift lead to Italians voting again. You see every time a party loses a majority in the houses of parliament the Italians have to vote again because you HAVE to have a majority to get anything passed. So if Fini is kicked out or leaves the PDL and he takes his support with him then it could mean that Berlusconi no longer has the votes in Parliament needed to pass new laws. I find it hard to believe that all this would not be part of Berli’s plan, so I’m thinking he’s been buying up Fini supporters in the background this whole time so that if Fini leaves he goes by himself. Then again Berli did spend most of his time in power working on laws that would benefit him so maybe he knew this split was coming and he wanted to make sure his ass was covered before getting into new laws that Bossi wants…. Silvio did a good job of covering his ass… So the politics leading up to the election was all left verses right with scandals and controversies. Now it’s plain political infighting among the people that should have it made for the next 3 years. It’s almost as if they are afraid of not being the center of attention.

All this political mess and I now just noticed that two BIG Italian banks had their credit rating downgraded, Intesa San Paolo (my bank!!!) and Mediobanca (the bank run by Berlusconi!!!!!)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

photo from Ostia Antica Easter weekend

Slowly getting back to blogging.



More to come.... soon.....

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Dis is it...

So I need to get back to the grassroots here at Blogspot where everything is free. The JeffinItaly site is no more. Why, because I’m cheap and blogging is not the IN thang…Ah well just having this simple blog is something. They’re falling out of favor you know. It was hip and now it’s boring. It’s way to easy to write something quick and funny on Facebook. I know because I’m one of the funniest on Facebook. Anyway what’s going on around here.

The weather has been dam good this week. I feel the heat has been turned off and I don’t think I’ll need it again until October or November.

This weekend I’m heading up to Rome. This whole trip was planned around getting tickets to the Caravaggio exhibit and so we have to be there on Sunday at noon. I hope Easter Mass doesn’t make it crazy. Actually everyone should already be there by then.

In May I’ll be heading back to the States for a week R and R. Maybe I’ll pick up an Ipad if I’m a true Apple fan. That reminds me; I noticed that next week I will celebrate 1 year with the Iphone. I really love it like I’ve said before. It has continued to entertain me and proved useful. I’ve also said before that I don’t like talking on the phone which is why the Iphone is so good. It seems you HAVE to carry a cellphone around so why not have it do other things.