Italian times

There’s just as much news everyday here as there is where the towers of Wall Street of New York and The City of London are tumbling on top of innocent and guilty passersby alike. Even with no election, there’s a lot of interest in the US one. Italians really seem to like Colin Powell, so they are particularly perked up over his emergence with an endorsement for Obama. Not that most weren’t already taken by Obama, if only because he wasn’t Bush and clearly had nothing to do with him.

Inflation is a worry here based on the higher costs of fuel and grains. Some essential food products in Italy experienced raises in price as high as 40%. Now that primary costs are down, will the end prices go down? Nothing of the kind is showing yet, but the futures markets will probably show us better what is to come. The thing is, many Italian families were barely making it or not really making it 3 years ago or more, so inflation in things like flour, bread and pasta hit hard. If they don’t have the money to eat and heat, what can they do? It appears to be a very large group, too. There are elderly living on as little as euro 400. How? I cannot even guess. The bargain priced plain white flour I used for a lot of basic purposes went from 24 centesimi to 38 centesimi in one year. That is more than 50%.

Schools and their failure to educate kids are in the news. There are demonstrators everyday with signs expressing passion against single teachers, single as in they are the only teacher, not that they aren’t married or engaged. At least I am pretty sure of that! If you look harder at the problem, however, you will see that schools are only part of the problem, with inactive and uninterested parents making up another large part– does that sound familiar to anyone? A third part is endemic cheating often not only allowed by but also encouraged by and paid for by parents. Dierdre Straughan wrote extensively about this problem on her excellent website when her daughter was still in school. The first thing you will see is that she has moved recently, but the last two year’s writing are still at that address. She has many interesting insights to Italian culture, but she has the most convincing experience of parenting here, having married and lived and reared her child entirely in Italy until her child took her last year of high school in India.

On the other hand, I saw something pretty cool yesterday. There is an ancient Sunday afternoon program called “Domenica In.” It goes back to the Seventies and airs for hours every Sunday after lunch when presumably most Italians are watching football/soccer/calcio. They play around with the show from year to year, and this year the center portion of the show is a quiz for high school students or recent high school graduates. It’s called 100 e lode and comes on at 14:38. The subjects range widely and the answers required are specific. It might be history of any era and even of other countries. It can be gastronomy. It is often science, cinema, theater and literature. These kids have to have an encyclopedic packet of facts in their heads. And then the finish is that the top two have to explain their opinions of some issues as varied as prostitution, religion or plastic surgery. This is Italy, so they are pretty good looking kids and fairly cool, too. They have cheering sections that come along to support them. The single winner among the four wins euro 10,000.00.

I remember competitive academic quizzes in the US. They were broadcast Saturday morning or some other time no one watched TV. They were team efforts and at most they might win something for their school. Although they certainly were better at encouraging study than high school sports broadcasts, they weren’t cool, they weren’t well-distributed nor promoted. The idea that being smart and well-read might pay did not ever come into it as it does in this show. These kids come on and rip off answers about Verdi, about space travel, medical advances and things that were in last week’s newspapers. Then the one who does it the best gets 10,000 euro. And then she comes back the next week and can win 10,000 more. The current champ has won 20,000 euro and says her aim is to win enough so that when she graduates from college she will be able to buy a house.

Lest you think this is Italian TV at its highest, I rush to admit that there are two intervening dances done by 7 half-naked girls and 3 clothed men. The dances were distinctly sensual in nature. I don’t understand that, either. The hostess wears one unflattering but very sexy outfit after another… does she not have a stylist? The people posing the questions are not intellectuals of the highest order, but one presumes the questions and answers have been vetted by researchers. I haven’t caught them in an error yet, which I have several times on “L’eredità”. (Tabasco is not a Mexican sauce, Rai!) It would have to be a glaring error in a field I know, so they can make hash of astronomy and get away with it.

I do think it is a respectable effort to reward kids for being studious. In a world where some of the really big earners are 15 year old models wearing tarty clothes, I appreciate that. Sure, learning may be its own reward, but in an age when there are so many contestants for the time and attention of teenagers and the eventuality of reward seems eons away, 10,000 euro just might inspire someone to stay awake and stay in school.