Monthly Archives: July 2004

Miss Chubby Contest: Outweighing Italy’s Beauty Myth

Posted on by
Reply

zoomata staff
posted July 26 @ 14:43

Giovanna Guidoni, who tipped the scales at 416 pounds to win Italy’s national Miss Chubby Contest, confirms that fat is beautiful.

Guidoni, who fuels her passion for food as part owner of a restaurant, says she wouldn’t lose an ounce and hopes to change the stereotype of obese people as social outcasts. “I’m not ashamed to be seen at the beach,” Guidoni says.

The 16th annual edition of Miss Cicciona (Chubby) held in Tuscany had a total of 40 women over 220 pounds competing for the title. Participants engage in a hefty group dinner before weighing in for the contest. (Guidoni on the scales here) Fabio Teseo, 449 pounds, won the title of Mr. Ciccione. His wife Mirella — the two met in a medical clinic for the obese — also competed but did not come home with a sash.

Contest creator Gianfranco Lazzereschi, who formerly worked in the fashion industry, says the biggest obstacle was convincing the public it wasn’t meant to insult the obese. A naturally slim Lazzereschi, in one photo dwarfed by the winners, does seem to be making a fat profit from the publicity, however.

Contestants presented themselves in front of an estimated crowd of 5,000 in clothes of their choice, ranging from elegant evening wear to bathing suits; the talent portion of the evening included singing, dancing and strip tease. This year’s bountiful beauty contest was hosted by Platinette, Italy’s popular and generously upholstered drag queen, recently in the spotlight for a controversial TV show, “Scalpel!” specialized in extreme makeovers via plastic surgery.

Though the contest gains media attention with each passing year, most Italians would rather undergo surgery than be obese – spending some $22 million USD yearly for surgery to shave off extra pounds. At around 15% of men and 21% of women, Italians are half as obese as U.S. counterparts. ?1999-2004 zoomata.com
This is an original news story. Play nice. Please use contact form for reprint/reuse info.

Noisy sex? Only in certain hours, Italian court rules

Posted on by
1

feet

An Italian couple has been ordered to have sex only in the daytime after the man’s wails of ecstasy provoked complaints from neighbors. Retirees next door, who claimed the grunts equaled decibel levels of a jackhammer, will now be able to sleep soundly after a Rome judge imposed a sex ban from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. on a married couple.

This is the third case of roof-raising sex to hit Italian courts in a year; all three judges have imposed a blackout on sonorous love making at night.

What’s all the ruckus about?

Italy has the fifth-highest population density in Europe and most of those circa 60 million people live in apartment buildings.
Regulations on noise, however, are stuck in a post-war time warp. The fine for too many decibels in an apartment building is 100 lire, about 5 cents in euro (as set out in 1942, during Fascist rule) and unhappy neighbors must go through an already overloaded court system to get justice.
Politicians have proposed bills to update fines and develop mediation centers for out-of-court settlements, but have not reached an agreement.

In the meantime there are 4.7 million pending cases of apartment-building spats, most of them about noise, frequently sex noise — especially during the hot summer months when Italians sleep — or try to — with the windows open.

Identified only as ‘Signora Carmen,’ the woman in the Rome case told Italian media, “This is absurd, you can’t limit passion. I think the neighbors are just jealous. I guess we’ll go back to having sex in the car and hope we don’t get arrested for obscene acts in public.”

Image used with a CC-license, thanks Emily’s mind.

Unchain us: Italian fishermen protest restrictions

Posted on by
Reply

by zoomata staff
posted July 14 14:55

Fed up with increasing restrictions, 800 fishermen on the island of Lipari chained themselves to the docks in protest. The fishermen, 35% of the local population, are supported by the local mayor and have also blocked streets, the ferry service and staged a hunger strike.

At the heart of the question are nets. For fishermen, the norms are so restrictive they prohibit getting an honest day’s catch.
It started with a EU driftnet ban that became law in 2002. Along with the day’s catch these enormous nets running hundreds of kilometers, are set up vertically to lie just below the surface and trap dolphins, sperm whales, sea turtles and sharks.
Fishermen had the option of taking EU funds to change profession or keep fishing with smaller nets.
Just how small is the problem: protesters say they can still make a living if they use 180-centimeter nets approved by the EU but they might as well not fish at all with 10-centimeter nets as decreed by the Italian government.

Caught in a game of cat-and-mouse, fishermen work on the fly and hope avoid to police who make little distinction between those using giant driftnets and the 180-centimeter models. The battle both in the water and out is likely to be long — in May rangers confiscated six of these fishing boats with driftnets and tons of catch in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Fishing associations, who will meet with regional fishing representative Michele Cimino July 19, say they will continue to protest until the law is changed.

“The protests are a sign of just how desperate we are,” Ettore Iani, of the Italian League of Fishermen, says. “It’s time we rethought the laws to fix this injustice, the laws are unreasonable and a violation of rights.” ?1999-2004 zoomata.com
This is an original news story. Play nice. Please use contact form for reprint/reuse info.

Judy Witts (Florence/Certaldo)

Posted on by
Reply

First Person: Real Life In Italy

Each month we introduce you to someone who has made the dream of picking up and moving to the Bel Paese a reality. In their own words they share the good parts, the bad parts and the just plain absurd moments of day-to-day life in Italy.

Looking to move to Italy? Try the reader-recommended Survivor Package

ID Card: Cooking teacher (www.divinacucina.com) and Italian life coach is what I have put on my business card!
In Florence since 1984, organizing culinary programs, walking tours and wine tastings for one day or one week.
The life coach part started as a joke as so many of my ex-clients have moved here with my help.

Besides teaching and taking people on tours, I have a dining guide for Florence and Chianti. This satisfies my art desires since I do all the photos for the site and the research. I continue to study art here in Florence whenever I can and do marbleized paper, bookbinding and ceramics. Continue reading →

Italian mayor defends tourism by catching thieves

Posted on by
Reply

zoomata staff
posted July 1 16:21 p.m.

No one can say mayor Mauro Guerra isn’t doing his best to keep tourists in this small Italian town happy. He chased down and helped catch thieves who robbed hapless foreign tourists in Tremezzo, part of the Como Lake district about 60 miles from Milan.An English couple saw thier suitcases fly away while waiting for a taxi and started screaming for help. Guerra jumped in his car to follow the bandits who outmaneuvered him by running through a park on foot and into a waiting car.

The mayor, whose last name means “war” in Italian, didn’t give up the battle.
When he saw the green getaway Fiat coming back his way he tried to block it, but the driver swerved on to the sidewalk and around the mayor.
Guerra was fast enough to get the license plate number and call the carabinieri from his mobile phone. After waiting with the tourists for the luggage to return, Guerra realized he had another problem to solve. He was over an hour late for a city council meeting. ?1999-2004 zoomata.com This is an original news story. Play nice. Please use contact form for reprint/reuse info.