Italy's horse of a different color

  Italy: the listing ship We have had the new Prime Minister for about a week now, albeit still waiting for the confidence vote, and I realized talking and interacting with “them forringers” that Italy is still quite misunderstood. Really, it's one of the reasons for this blog, closely linked with my passive-aggressive rage at thinking that down the road, the same people destroying my country would absolve themselves publicly saying “Who could have seen that coming?”. So, while I hope that our new government proves to be able to redress our trouble and set Italy on a path of recovery, It is useful to give what my frame of reference is to interpret Italy's story so far. Imagine, if you will, a tall ship, similar to the Cutty Sark currently displayed at Greenwich. 1 At some point, going towards the Cape of Good Hope en route to the UK, you spring a leak. You start listing to port, but as long as the ship is underway briskly and not too much water has entered the bilge,

                                        ITALY: The Ghost of Mario Monti Everyone is watching Draghi these days. As anticipated, Italy called its rainmaker, and now everyone is waiting with bated breath, no one with more trepidation than that peculiar political race italians graciously call “Tecnici di area”, meaning reliably , “politically grounded” experts. Yet finally the coy bride to be has shown at least a scrap of her dress, in the guise of..... a new ministry. There's no beating back the Italian bloodline, you have to admit that. It has been confirmed, or better “been allowed to be confirmed” from the very voice of WWF no less, that a “Ministry for ecological transition” will be established, at the behest of Movimento 5 stelle leader, Beppe Grillo, and in order for his party bigwigs to survive an internal referendum on their “Rousseau” platform. Bear in mind that the tormented rapport between Italians and ministries goes way back: the “Radicali”, the only true libertari