very simple

Remember how I said earlier that people in Italy don’t talk about politics? That it’s considered rude? Well it’s certainly true. The Italian government basically collapsed yesterday, and the only reason I even found out about it was that I read about it in the NY Times.

Could you even imagine something of this level happening in the US and no one in your office discussing it? Granted, this sort of thing is a bit more common here in a fairly fragile coalition-based parliamentary system than in our country, but I’m pretty sure that if this happened at home, I wouldn’t be getting much work done because everyone in my office would be discussing this nonstop. Heck, we’d probably either take over a conference room to watch the proceedings on TV or head out to a bar somewhere to keep up. Regardless of what “side” we were on.

The closest that I’ve gotten to having a political conversation in the office in the past two months was when Berlusconi’s wife published a letter detailing his neglect and infidelities on the front page of one of the major newspapers. And it was about a five-minute conversation. Our country spent several years and something on the order of sixty million dollars going after Clinton for trying to hide an affair. Here? well, here Berlusconi is probably going to get his job back.

Tags: milan, politics and law