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Gift Gugu Mona

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“Until the beginning of 2003, Italians smoked everywhere and considered it quite normal; they lit up inside stores, including those which sell fabric or paper goods, in the airport, ignoring repeated loudspeaker announcements that no smoking was allowed, at the greengrocers where cigarette ash dangled perilously over the zucchini and the cherry tomatoes, and even in hospitals, although from time to time crack Italian Carabinieri units called the NAS, set up to enforce health standards, would appear, unannounced, and hand out hefty fines to all the doctors and nurses they found in flagrante. Once I even had blood taken by two white-coated doctors who took my vital fluid with cigarettes dangling from their lips, an open window their only concession to my passive smoke concerns.”

SmokingItalySmokersItalian CultureItalians
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“Indeed, don’t be surprised to find yourself in a taxi in which the right-side window doesn’t work or is missing its wind-down handle. The driver has done this deliberately to keep himself from getting a draft on his neck that will give him problems al cervicale, the cervical spine. He is also likely to eschew air conditioning on the grounds that it will give him pneumonia.”

DriversItalyTaxiItalian CultureItaliansTaxi DriverUnprofessionalism
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“According to a study done in 2011 by the welfare department of the CISL trade union, in the three-year period from 2006 to 2008 it could take as long as 540 days to have a mammogram scheduled (Puglia), 90 days to get a bone-density scan done (Veneto) and 74 days to see a geriatrics specialist in the generally well-organized Tuscany region. I myself know someone who had to wait seven months to get a heart bypass, and one of my next-door neighbors here in Rome waited almost a year for a hip replacement. Of course, this is not unusual for a country with national health; all the Brits I know decry their own system violently and even in Sweden, once a model for such things, there is considerable disorganization. The fact remains that the Italian national health system is often more virtual than real, forcing people who can afford it to look for an alternative solution.”

SocialismHealthcareItalyItaliansLong WaitNational Health ServiceHealth SystemsWealfare
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“And there may be some connection, too, with the Roman Catholic Church’s somewhat flexible attitude towards sin and thus, in general, towards wrongdoing. Otherwise, how to explain that 137 years after Italy became a modern nation-state, so many people still choose simply to ignore laws they don’t like. Maybe other nationalities would be the same if in their countries, too, law enforcement were considered an optional, even by the people charged with that task.”

ItalyDisobedienceItalian CultureItaliansRoman CatholicismNo LawIgnoring The Rules
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“La sera di lunedì 27 maggio, il Salvini Day, lo spread si appresta a scollinare i 280 punti. E più il differenziale sale, più il leader leghista deride i mercati e lancia criptici riferimenti a non meglio identificati speculatori «a cui conviene tenere sotto scacco l’Italia». Lancia una serie di accuse degne delle farneticazioni notturne di un teorico del complotto più che di un ministro dell’Interno. E la mattina successiva ricomincia fresco come una rosa, ridimensionando la portata dei problemi della precaria situazione finanziaria del Belpaese.”

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Book:Questa non è l'Italia
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“Il leader leghista portava lo scompiglio, aizzava lo spread e pareva contento. Come se si stesse divertendo. Le sue dichiarazioni sempre più agguerrite e la sua banda di colonnelli antieuro hanno conti “nuato a causare danni alla reputazione italiana, già traballante, nei giorni successivi alla vittoria delle elezioni. E chi lo aiutava ad alzare la posta in palio, a rilanciare ancora? Naturalmente il suo fedele compare antieuro, Claudio Borghi, l’ex funzionario della Deutsche Bank di Milano che ormai si dava arie da profeta economico. Un membro della prima ora di quel gruppo di militanti antieuro che includeva Paolo Savona, Alberto Bagnai e in seconda battuta Francesca Donato e Antonio Maria Rinaldi.”

PoliticsItaly
Book:Questa non è l'Italia
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“Certe volte Salvini, Borghi e la loro corte dei miracoli sembrano dei veri teorici del complotto. Quando invece la “realtà è che Salvini è il politico più furbo d’Italia, il più abile protagonista dei palazzi del potere nostrani: quando lui e Borghi si presentano in televisione o sui social a proporre soluzioni irrealizzabili, se non addirittura assurde tipo i minibot, o l’espansione del debito pari a decine di miliardi all’anno per il prossimo triennio, lo fanno perché sono convinti che la maggioranza del loro elettorato sia troppo ignorante per comprendere le conseguenze dei provvedimenti proposti. O è così, o ci credono davvero, il che sarebbe ancora più preoccupante.”

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Book:Questa non è l'Italia
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