Latest work
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The 2006 Vote
Read more: The 2006 VoteDespite Prodi’s thrill, the results leave Italy governable in name only. Neither side won a clean mandate. The good news: nearly 84 percent of Italy voted, an elevated figure that does the country credit. The bad news: the results leave Italy persuasively governable in name only. Neither Left nor Right…
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Still U.S.A. today
Read more: Still U.S.A. todayThe 1970 image of actor George C. Scott as Gen. Patton has entered patriotic legend. The United States, says the cab driver, is a gas-guzzler. It burns history for sport, can’t get enough, and stops for no one. “You remember those big luxury cars in the Hollywood movies, with the…
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State of play
Read more: State of playYemen in the mix. A naïve and constricting vision of regional power permeates mass media and online chatter in response to Middle Eastern revolts and the refusal of brutal leadership cadres to capitulate either to the fervor of local uprisings or the hyperventilation of “world is watching” public opinion. Anti-government…
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Slick loathing
Read more: Slick loathingBerlusconi had provided ample fodder for parody over the years. Here’s an Italian vignette from another time. It’s the early 1960s and a politician drives a rakish Lancia toward Rome at an outrageously fast speed, even for Italy. Beside him is a blonde who is not his wife. Finally, a…
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Sex and the shifty “I”
Read more: Sex and the shifty “I”Amanda: Bad-seed foreigners. Eleven years ago, the United States and Europe dissected the sexual scandal then besieging President Bill Clinton. Roughly, the central question had this formulation: Was the focus on Clinton’s infidelity motivated by genuine outrage over deceit and sexual misconduct or were lies and libido merely fig leaves…
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Sex & lizards
Read more: Sex & lizardsShe lay in the rowboat, idling away the afternoons… In 1960, facchino was my favorite word. When the train huffed to a halt in Naples, scarecrow porters mobbed the windows. Facchino! Facchino! they cried. Facchino! Facchino! I shouted back. Be quiet, said my father. As a facchino loaded our suitcases, I probed the ganglia of train bottoms. Trains…
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