The Vatican is Anti-Berlusconi!

March 12, 2008 · Filed Under Funny · 4 Comments 

Yep, it’s official, well almost. There have been quite a number of news stories about the new 21st century sins that the dear old Vatican has come up with. And here they are, the sins, that is, in no particular order, at least I don’t believe so:

  1. Environmental pollution - Change you car - or burn in Hell.
  2. Genetic manipulation - Create Chimera and be damned.
  3. Accumulating excessive wealth - Go bankrupt and head for paradise.
  4. Inflicting poverty - Make people poor and end up beneath the floor.
  5. Drug trafficking and consumption - Doing and dealing drugs is bad for your soul.
  6. Morally debatable experiments - Experiment morally, or face the heat.
  7. Violation of fundamental rights of human nature - Act like a devil and meet the Devil personally.

As you can see, sin number three, accumulating excessive wealth, appears to indicate that the Holy See does not see eye to eye with wealth accumulating Mr Berlusconi.

The question is, what with the Italian general elections just round the corner, will the Italian people decide to vote in an excessively rich sinner in the country that is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church?

I can see the new election posters that will surely appear: ‘Don’t Vote for a Sinner’, ‘Do You Want a Sinner as a Leader?’, ‘Sin is Bad - don’t vote for Sinners’. or ‘A Sin A Day, Makes the Voters Go Away.’ ‘Rich People are Sinners, not Leaders.’ et al.

Oddly enough, the Italian media appears to have remained quite quiet about this. I wonder why….

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The Thread Finally Snaps

January 21, 2008 · Filed Under Life in Italy · Comment 

It’s a laugh a minute in this politically challenged country which is Italy. Clemente Mastella, the former justice minister who is now facing allegations of corruption, is not at all happy. It looks as though the man he was probably trying to protect, one Romano Prodi, has not returned the favour, thus leaving Mastella with one major magistrate-inspired headache. So in his death throes, Clemente is doing his level best to bring down Prodi’s fragile house of cards government.

It looks as though Mastella will succeed too, seeing as Prodi has a thinner than wafer majority. This means that the traditional revolving door style of Italian politics will continue its revolving tradition. Italians, of whom only around 14 percent actually have any faith in the current bunch of politicians, according to an article in today’s Financial Times, must be getting a little worried (or, more likely, very bored), seeing as there is no viable alternative to Prodi at present. That is not to say that Prodi was a viable alternative, more accurately, he was the only alternative - viable or not.

Thus, while the poor Italians attempt to decide who the best alternative may be, the elections will be rather half hearted. As usual here, a new fragile coalition will emerge, full of old faces, and attempt to (one hesitates to use the word ‘govern’, so we’ll go for,) hold onto power until the next scandal besets one or more of the groups that are in power at the time. Berlusco, who could see this coming , is jumping up and down in glee, and probably thinks he stands a sporting chance of entering government once again, even if the right wing groups who may form the next government are, possibly, a wee bit tired of the tanned one.

Interesting Times here in Italy (And no, the capital ‘T’ is not a typo… think New York, Financial and the other one…).

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A poll

October 5, 2007 · Filed Under Thoughts · 2 Comments 

My father thinks that donating money to charity is generally a waste of time, and he believes that many others feel the same way. What do you think? Let me know by voting in the poll under the search box. Thanks.

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