mbf tod@y

PROOFREAD: "il signor instrangram" (sole 24 ore)

VIDEO: rulers of milan (2011)

 

FILM: diaz, welcome to italy

 

ITALY: key ingredients, according to tim parks

On The New York Reviews of Books, Tim Parks lists the key ingredients of Italy - these are the structural reasons why Italy cannot possibly change:

• "A tradition of regional rather than national loyalties (exacerbated by the fact that government is actually strongly centralized); a high level of organized (but not ordinary) crime;
• the power of the family in every sphere of life, but notably the economy
• the melodramatically assertive tone of the labor force in all professional, commercial, and unionized sectors, whether they be taxi drivers, pharmacists, or steelworkers;
• a flare for making life complicated through bureaucracy and then for overcoming complication through evasion and petty corruption;
• A multitude of political parties with strong ideological or regional leanings; 
• A Church with a propensity to undermine rather than reinforce people’s loyalty to the state; 
• A tendency in general to foment and then thrive on a gap between the official version of events and their actual course, between rules and practice, appearance and reality."

Cul-de-sac.

Read the entire article here

 

ITALY: concrete jungle

"Nei prossimi 20 anni, 600mila ettari di suolo italiano potrebbero essere sommersi da una colata di cemento. A puntare il dito contro l'urbanizzazione sfrenata della Penisola, che procede a un ritmo di 75 ettari al giorno, sono Fai e Wwf con il dossier Terra Rubata - Viaggio nell'Italia che scompare." (WIRED)

 

WIRED

ITALY: has the worst public debt rate in europe (after greece)

 

 

ITALY: has basically zero birth rate

ITALY: has the second highest number of cars per capita in europe [= pollution, traffic, car accidents]

 

It s funny how car ownership used to be an indicator of wealth and status.

It has now become an indicator of a a crisis: a cultural crisis, an environmental crisis, an health crisis, a mobility crisis - among other things.

More than 30 millions of Italian travel every day, 40% by car = disaster.

Fun fact: Italy has both the highest ratio of car ownership ratio per capita and one of the lowest rates for cultural consumption per family in Europe.That says it all.

ITALY: has one of the worst job rates in europe [men and women, ages 20-64] (seriously, it cannot possibly get any worse)

 

 

ITALY: has one of the lowest rates of internet readers in europe (but france is even worse)