Many Italians see the import of Halloween celebrations as harmless excuse to party before the Nov. 1 holiday, but at least one public official is battling the friendly invasion–with cash incentives. Rosario Crocetta, head of public schools in Gela, Sicily offered about $500 as a bonus to schools in his district that don’t throw Halloween parties for elementary and middle school students. Crocetta says the fanfare and candy of the American import overshadow local traditions for the day of the dead, Nov. 2–in which children await traditional marzipan sweets and toys, left the night before ostensibly as gifts from dead relatives. Crocetta’s anti-Halloween plan met with consensus from other local officials. “We must hand down the values and history of our people,” sentenced county council member Alessandro Pagano. “We can’t let ourselves be influenced by trends. In America, this holiday has historical reasons, but not in Sicily. It’s time to put a stop to this exasperated globalization.” It may be harder to convince the kids, though. “I like Halloween better,” said one Sicilian youngster interviewed on RadioRai2. “Terror is much cooler and anyway we get candy for both.”

Related resources:
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/9369/festedeimorti.html
History of Sicily’s day of the dead traditions, in Italian with rocky English translation…

48% Italian women, age 20-64, overweight
36% Italian men, age 20-64, overweight
15% Italian men, obese
21% Italian women, obese
$22 million USD spent by Italians yearly on surgery for obesity
Better to undergo surgery than fulfill the stereotype of the fat, jolly Italian. A recent congress of the Italian Society of Surgeons issued a warning against the flood of Italians requesting stomach stapling or intestinal bypasses for mere love handles. Although about half of Italians can be considered overweight, they still boast trimmer waistlines than many Spanish, Greek, German and Belgian counterparts. Surgeons cited sedentary lifestyles and “American-style” fast food as plumping up the national girth, warning that in a few years Italian rates may catch up with U.S. obese averages, currently about twice as high.

Selling theses was such a common practice that a tutor thought nothing of offering one to a campus policeman at the University of Urbino. The bold offer sparked an investigation of Italy’s most famous tutoring service, CEPU, credited with miraculously pushing students through the labyrinth of Italy’s university system.
For a quarter of a century, the company flourished thanks to Italy’s army of repeat university students, known as "fuori corso." According to statistics from Ministry of Public Education, only 9% of Italian undergrads get a degree before they turn 25 and 750,000 students are currently behind with exams. The government estimates this late entry into the work force costs Italy approximately $7.5 billion USD yearly.
Prosecutors in Urbino have charged 12 CEPU tutoring consultants with compiling and selling at least 23 theses, which are necessary to obtain an Italian undergraduate degree. Investigators say a thesis could be had for $5,000-7,000 USD. The company has denied involvement in the scam.
CEPU marketed heavily to frustrated students and their exasperated parents using controversial testimonials like Juventus soccer star Alex Del Piero, currently fuori corso himself, and 22-year old motorcycle ace Valentino Rossi, who does not have a high-school diploma.
www.fuoricorso.it
The virtual community for repeat students….

An Italian castle just got a different kind of reinforcement: a “shield” of four tawny owls to keep the pigeon population down. Mayor Maurizio Tornielli, of Bereguardo (Pavia), obtained the backing of Italian bird protection society LIPU, which determined the best place for a nest along the ancient castle walls. These guard owls hunt the much-maligned pigeons as they sleep. Tornielli maintains the back-to-nature method is a last resort: “We’ve tried everything from contraception to nets–but we couldn’t keep the population down. This seemed a natural next step.”

Officials in the town of San Giuliano Milanese have decided to prove it’s OK to drink the water– by offering sparkling water at almost no cost from a restored well.Locals can stroll to the Fonte di Campoverde in the center of town for refreshing, bubbly water billed as low in sodium and good for hypertension. The water, tested every 15 days for purity, will cost residents a measly 0,04 lire per liter with a limit of 12 liters per week per person. It’s the latest in a series of initiatives is trying to change Italians’ reluctance to use tap water for drinking. Currently, Italy is third worldwide in consumption of bottled water and, according to ISTAT statistics, about half the population prefers to drink bottled water over tap for safety concerns. In Rome, the water called “cold like snow and virginally pure” in 200 AD has started flowing again in the fountain by Ammannati on the corner of Via Flaminia and Villa Giulia after five months of restoration. Tourists and passersby can now sip from the city’s “virgin springs,” thanks to the Living Fountains project.

1861 Italy’s first census
22 million families & 5 million businesses polled, 2001
40 page-long questionnaire
11 languages for questionnaire
“The Italy you are. The Italy you’ll be.” (L?Italia che sei. L?Italia che sarai), was the slogan used to kick off the national census poll this week. Clearly, future Italians are in for some changes.
Despite having one of the smallest immigrant populations in Europe, for the first time ISTAT opted to make the questionnaire available in a language other than Italian. The list of languages available includes Albanian, Sinhalese, Serbo-Croatian and Polish.
And, if 30 years ago, the quality-of-life questions included whether families had a bathroom or not (in 1961, only 50% did) pollsters now watch the increase in home owners (around 60% in 1981) and vacation homes. Final data won’t be ready until 2003 but initial results will be made available in Feb. 2002.
www.censimenti.it

73% proud to be Italian
42% can’t get the flag colors right
19% ability to "get by"*best quality of Italians
10% intelligence best quality of Italians
A poll of 600 Italians conducted by SWG revealed an unexpected patriotism, albeit a bit fuzzy on the particulars. Never a populace to flag-wave, some 23% even confused Mexico’s flag for the Tricolore.
What are Italians today most proud of? Art (28%) followed by the three F’s: food (22%) fashion (17%) and Ferrari (13%). Only five percent consider Bel Paese contributions to science a point of pride, but Noble-prize winner Rita Levi Montalcini beat out Sophia Loren and Luciano Pavarotti–42% to 13% and 5% respectively–for the Italian to best represent the country abroad. Actress Loren defended her fellow Italians from the lazy label, "We’re creative because many of us grew up in poverty," Loren said. "We’re anything but lazy–we couldn’t allow ourselves to be."

Related resources:
www.videoclipart.com/italian_pride.htm
A hypnotic animated kind of "pride"–at least the flag colors are in the right order…

*the untranslatable "arte di arrangiarsi"

57% consider fall time for a new start
68% want to spend more time with family
69% resolve to tighten budget
22% plan to sign up for a gym
10% resolve to stay faithful to partner

It’s not news that Italians consider fall the real "new year," some 21 percent of the 1,085 between the ages of 20 and 55 polled would go so far as to change the calendar. And so, after the long summer holidays come new resolutions for getting back to school or work: watching less television, spending less money eating out, going to the gym, getting better grades and so on. They would appear to have different ideas, however, about emotional ties–among those good intentions, staying true to one’s husband or wife isn’t one of them. Too unrealistic, maybe?

http://www.dr-seduction.net
meet the inventor of a high-tech chastity belt–capable of telling suspicious partners just how long the beloved’s underwear has been taken off…

A small town near Parma thumbs some magnificent noses at Italy’s beauty obsession by holding a “King Nose” contest. “Do you have a nice nose? Do strangers stare at it? Do you have an excellent sense of smell?” recites the application form for this contest held the first Sunday in September.For the unsure, the city of Soragna tells aspiring contestants how to see if their noses measure up:
*widest point, from nostril to nostril
*depth, from tip to top of mouth
*any other distinguishing characteristics
The idea started 20 years ago as part of celebrations for the Befana during Epiphany, but organizers began to take it seriously when they realized that Italy is second only to Brazil in terms of the number of folks who get plastic surgery. Needless to say, of the 100,000 nips and tucks done each year, slimming down the old schnozzola is very popular. The contest turned into a proper feast day every fall, in celebration of "important" noses. An equal opportunity for the nasally-endowed, a contest for Queen Nose was added two years ago. The "crowned noses" win about $2,500 to be spent in local shops.

Related resources

http://giostradeinasi.freeweb.supereva.it

Throwing self-consciousness to the wind…

Ceregate is a tiny town in the Val Staffara, suspended between the borders of Lombardy, Liguria and Piedmont, with five stone houses surrounded by wild cherry trees and a small church. It has no residents, no electricity or running water. A symbol of innumerable ghost towns in the area, where industrialization has led young people away for work, it stays alive thanks to efforts of elderly residents in the surrounding areas. Ceregate, part of the hamlet of Cegni (a whopping 75 inhabitants) hit its all-time population density with 25 residents.

“The last one died in 1996,” said Giuseppe Zanocco, 90, prior of the Ceregate sanctuary. “His name was Carlo Buscaglia. He sold coal, lived by candlelight and got by using water from the river. Once a week he went to Cegni for groceries, an hour on foot and a quick chat with the people he met along the road.”

So the residents of Cegni, most of whom get by with the minimum state pension and wood-burning stoves for heat, took it upon themselves to keep the town "alive." Twice a year they repopulate the sanctuary, Easter Monday and the first Sunday in September. The recently-restored church opens doors for Mass, a picnic is held and an auction of local foodstuffs provides maintenance for the sanctuary—this year’s raised about $1,500.

The parish priest, who looks after a total of 500 souls in four towns, commented: "This isn’t a ghost town, but a town that’s slumbering in history. We’re happy and proud to wake it up every once in awhile."