http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/News,views and reviews from Italy. PHOTO LINK http://www.siciliano.it/citta.cfm?citta=Palermo hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/532157Well, such is the situation that has come to be here. In the last few weeks there have been awful stories in the news which derive from borderline poverty and criminal acts. Last week there was a story on the news about a woman who was arrested for stealing a box of pasta from the supermarket....http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/530459For all the political shenanigans that are going on in Italy (there seems to be an election or a resigned PM every year), inflation which is skyrocketing beyond control (a 1-liter carton of milk that went for 50 cents in July 2007 now costs 70 cents), the lowest salaries yet the highest taxes in...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/516473Last week, thousands of people all over Sicily were called to meet in churches to pray for someone in trouble. Said person in trouble was Salvatore Cuffaro (also known Toto' vasa-vasa for his infamous habit of kissing everyone he meets), the governor of the Sicilian region who was being tried for...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/515667Considering that Popes have travelled all over the world in the last 50 years and have juggled, and sometimes overcome,the stickiest of diplomatic situations, it came as a real shocker when certain student groups of the La Sapienza university of Rome, a public university which is the largest in...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/513550It's a situation that's been building up for years now, leading to the current situation that has gone completely out of control. In Naples, garbage is thrown just about everywhere - on the streets, in front of shops, along the lovely coastline, you name it, at times piled as high as a few...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/492587I kid you not! Last week in the Apulia region, in a cloistered convent on the Ionic coast, two 70-year-old nuns were transferred to a nearby convent after beating up their 80-year-old superior and sending her to the hospital on the grounds that they couldn't take her constant berating and...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/465465During election time, candidates can be so desperate to get votes that they will promise "friends" and potential voters anything they wish in order to get elected. What most voters want in exchange of votes is a job. So once the candidate won ( and wouldn't you know he was elected as the city...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/439425In the Venosta valley nestled in the Dolomites a girl filed a paternity suit, since she bore a child out of wedlock and wants the father to take on his responsibilities. In this day and age, it's commonplace - there are far worse things that are considered shocking and immoral. But what happens...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/438702In a town near Frosinone a woman felt neglected lately by her husband. She sought to liven things up a bit by preparing a romantic dinner and by making sure that, ehm, dessert would last a long time after that. So she went about this by pouring her husband one glass of red wine after the...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/NewYorker_in_Sicily/322059Don't know what prompted this train of thought, but I got such a laugh out of it when I remembered it. I wasn't laughing then, though.... About 20 or so years ago my family and I were here on vacation. One morning my brother and I - both teenagers then - were sent to do some shopping at the...