The song of black birds usually doesn’t make the news, but this year mating-season tweeting started about three weeks early leading scientists to predict an early and warm spring for Italy. “It’s an important anomaly,” noted Giampiero Maracchi, director of the Institute for biometeorology of national research center (CNR) in Florence. “By observing these signs from nature we’re able to make three month-predictions. Temperatures in the second half of January through March will likely be much higher than normal.”

Artful Italy: the Hidden Treasures
Any better reason to pack your bags?

270,000 text messages sent, Christmas 2001
70,000 text messages sent, Christmas 2000
10 average text messages sent, per person
1 blasphemous joke sent by text

The notoriously slow national postal service has made Italians loath to send Christmas cards, but that doesn’t stop them from sending greetings to friends and family via the ubiquitous mobile phone.
This year, thanks in part to a series of jokes in dubious taste, the number of messages sent on Dec. 25 skyrocketed 285% over the previous year. Here’s the one of the most popular: "The pope has canceled Christmas celebrations in the Vatican due to the absence of Cardinal Maria Martini. The message ends stealing the punchline from a popular Martini ad starring George Clooney, "No Martini, no party."
www.georgeclooney.org/html/Martini.html
The ad that launched a thousand text messages…

80% Italians know value euro-lire
(1 euro=1936,27 lire)
56% think they’ll be cheated by shop owners
57% unconvinced change to Euro is good for the economy

Looks like an apprehensive "addio’" for the lira. Despite a pro-euro public awareness campaign headed by prehistoric frontman Pippo Baudo, most Italians aren’t expecting anything good to come from the conversion in January 2002, according to polls by SWG. Recent media debates over price increases have fueled the fire–newspapers, cappuccino and bus tickets typically cost 1.500 lire (or .77 euro) but there is some question whether these everyday items will bump up to 1 euro for simplicity’s sake, a 29% price increase. Consumers are protected from euro-related price hikes on institutional costs (banking fees, utilities, fines) but prices on consumer goods are set by suppliers.

Related resources:
http://194.244.130.139/giochi/spendieuro.asp
Have a go with the Italian treasury’s "spend in euro" game

9 million Italians visit fortunetellers, yearly
6 billion lire, estimated yearly profits
7,500 professional soothsayers
45, average age for those who seek advice
58% of clients are women*

Scaring the bejesus out of superstitious Italians is big business. One of the country’s most infamous TV charlatans, screechy Wanna Marchi and her sidekick daughter Stefania recently found out it also, eventually, leads to problems with the law.
The mother and daughter duo allegedly bilked one housewife in Treviso out of half a million dollars–by convincing her she had fallen victim to the evil eye. The scheme was a simple one–viewers drawn in by Marchi’s relentless bellowing on paid TV programs phoned up for lucky lottery numbers. When the numbers didn’t win millions, customers were told they were hexed. Naturally, the hex could be removed–for around $2,000.
An investigation from leading satire program “Striscia la Notizia,” sparked a closer look into Marchi’s financial hocus-pocus by Milan’s tax police. This isn’t the first time the 71-year old, famous for ending every sentence by yelling "all right?" (d’accordo?), has been in trouble with the law. Marchi went to jail for 9 days in 1990 for delcaring false bankruptcy. The slick saleswoman had this to say to her accusers: “almost all the people who’ve done me wrong in the past have died. By 2003, in any case, they’ll all be buried.”

For a closer look:
Mal’Uocchiu : Ambiguity, Evil Eye and the Language of Distress

*Statistics from the 2001 report from the anti-scam hotline…

The Eternal City’s famous feral cats are the latest thing to get “legitimized” by Italian bureaucracy. Once thought of as a nuisance, these abandoned animals were recently declared part of the city’s “bio-cultural patrimony.”

Felines who make their homes in the Coliseum, Cestia pyramid and?Largo di Torre Argentina areas will get individual ‘licenses’ in February 2002 and special cat colonies will be created to care for them.Purring rights for this change of heart go largely to foreigners and tourists who have worked to raise public consciousness to the plight of these animals. “The idea came to us after we saw how popular they were with tourists,” explained Claudio Caterisano of the Civic List. “They stop to pet them and often end up volunteering to take them.” The Cat Sanctuary of Torre Argentina has undoubtedly helped the cause–founded in 1994, the shelter is home to 250 cats and about 8,000 visitors a year make it a stop on their tour of Rome. Locals are hardly without heart–Oscar-winning actress Anna Magnani was among the first to become a cat lady, called colloquially “gattare,” in Rome.

www.romancats.com
A virtual visit to the Torre Argentina shelter

No more leaning over the counter and whispering what ails you: in early 2002, Italian pharmacies will put over the counter medications, well, over the counter.
Currently, clients suffering mild discomforts like heartburn, hay fever or menstrual cramps are handed a remedy by the pharmacist and not given a choice of products. More than just a clerk in a lab coat, the man or woman behind the counter is required to hold a university degree in pharmacology, which may mean an awkward change for Italians accustomed to asking advice of the trusted corner pharmacist. The do-it-yourself approach to medicine is expected to save Italian households around $75 per year. Health minister Girolamo Sirchia announced the change as part of the “pharmacy revolution,” which began with the introduction of generic drugs in September 2001.

Related resources:
www.mega.it/ita/gui/monu/smnfar.htm
One pharmacy worth taking a browse in–for outstanding pampering: the Antica Farmacia Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

52% Italians feel ‘lost’ or ‘insecure’
14% feel depressed
9% feel happy

So much for the legendary sunny disposition of Italians. According to a poll of 938 inhabitants of the Bel Paese conducted by a psychology magazine, only one in ten are content. The survey, however, appears to confirm that Italians are happiest when at home with family. Sunday nights, with the school and work looming the next day, were deemed the low point of the week and only 10% said they felt unhappy or sad during the holidays. To combat the blues, 53% spend time on self improvement, including sports and meditation. The most ‘unhappy’ cities are business hubs in the North– Milan, Turin and Genoa.

“Our goal is to let scooters roam free in the city center,” announced Florentine politician Federico Tondi. The creator of the newly-founded “Scooter Party,” Tondi drummed up 450 members against recent changes in traffic planning in a week.

As of March 2001, the city center will be off limits to scooters– and the battle over the traffic-restricted zone (called ZTL for short) is heating up.
Florence is considered a testing ground for traffic limits in historic centers. Until the 1980s, tourist busses and cars still used Piazza Signoria, when the open-air gallery Loggia dei Lanzi contained priceless original sculptures by Giambologna and Cellini, as a parking lot. Currently only taxis and ambulances are allowed to circulate in the historic center, which runs from the Duomo to the Ponte Vecchio.
While getting cars out of the center is generally regarded as good for pollution levels and tourism, opponents maintain severe measures will eventually strangle the life out of these zones for locals. According to the local department of motor vehicles, there are 250,000 scooter owners–66% of Florentine residents have one.
Even in a country known for colorful political movements, the Scooter Party idea raised a few eyebrows. Political opponent Antongiulio Barbaro, of the DS party, commented: “People who ride scooters, park them and become pedestrians like everyone else… It’s a silly and shortsighted idea for city planning.” Tondi hopes to double adherents to the party before December and begin the campaign push in January.

Roars from the 400-strong crowd in Italy’s first bingo hall in Treviso were fit for a stadium–nothing like the indigenous version "tombola," a classic time-killer during holidays.
Bingo is the latest pastime in a country where 62% of the population gambles regularly–Italians currently place their money on three soccer-betting schemes, wagers on horses and numerous state lotteries.
The first winner, Tina Bianchin, was surrounded by fellow players jumping up and down and shouting "been-go! been-go!" as she was presented with about $400 winnings on a silver tray by the hall’s glamorous hostess. "I’m taking the family out to dinner," enthused Bianchin, a janitor. Rome’s first bingo hall opens this week while a total of 800 halls, expected to bring in $25,000 a day, will dot the country by 2003.

Related resources:
www.anib.it/storia.htm
Brief history of the game in Italy, traced back to Renaissance lotteries. From the Italian Bingo Association…

13.8 billion (USD) yearly cost of criminal activity to business owners
40% of that directly or indirectly funds the Mafia
120,000 shop owners deal with loan sharks
160,000 shop owners pay Mafia ‘protection’ money
80% of these are in Catania and Palermo
Some Mafia stereotypes are better suited to movies but a recent survey shows the “pizzo,” or protection money is still business as usual in Italy. Threatened business owners shell out 8 billion USD a year in “special surveillance” alone, keeping the coffers of the criminal world healthy. The remaining five billion can be totaled up to loan sharks and usurious debt-servicing charges. The numbers come from Confesercenti, the national retailers’ association, in a report released from its “SOS Business” unit. The special unit, formed in Palermo in 1991, offers a free-phone service to help business owners break the Mafia grip.?1999-2004 zoomata.com

Zoomata is the brainchild of a bilingualjournalist based in Italy who thinks out of the box. This brain is for hire.