fantapolitica
humorous look at Italian politics (bilingual)Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Why Doesn't the Italian Parliament Do This ?
Undercover Investigation Reveals Labor Department Fails Workers: Listen to the Calls Here
By Elana Schor - March 25, 2009, 11:00AM
The House Education and Labor Committee is holding a hearing this morning on the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division -- which has utterly failed in its mission to protect workers from discrimination and exploitation, according to an undercover inquiry by Congress' investigative arm.
The inquiry, conducted during the Bush administration by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), involved a series of calls placed to Wage and Hour officials by GAO analysts posing as aggrieved workers. When the undercover GAO folks tried to seek help from the Labor Department to resolve employer issues, they were met with stonewalling ... and in some cases, outright rejection.
You can listen in to six of the undercover calls in question
Now imagining that in Italay is a political fantasy.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Does His Holiness Benedetto XVI have a Permesso di Soggiorno ?
I assume not as he is legally resident in the Vatican not in Italy. Now the Vatican has an impressive art collection, a very large church and an unusually large pharmacy (the Vatican approves some pharmaceuticals before Italy does so people seeking miraculous cures go to the pharmacy not the basilica). However, as far as I know, it doesn't have it's own hospital.
So just in case Lucifer gets really mad at his holiness and manages to inflict a disease on him and his holiness has to go to a hospital quick and stay there for a while (longer than a typical tourist stays in Italy) he would become an undocumented alien in Italy.
Would the doctors have to report him ? Does this help us understand the One True Catholic and Apostolic Church's opposition to the appalling "security" bill ?
La Carica Del 101 !
I'm finally blogging about the best news I've read from Italy in years. 101 members of the majority in parliament wrote a letter to prime minister Sivlio Berlusconi asking him not to make the vote on a bill a vote of confidence (which means no amendments allowed). The issue was that the bill contains the proposizione 738 provision that Doctors have to inform on undocumented aliens who seek medical care.
But back to the parliamentary heroes and heroines. The leader of the back bench uprising against the new Legge Razziale and defender of the Constitution (the right to health and not mere health care is right there in the Italian constitution) is, of course, L'Onorevole Mussolini.
Readers of this blog, if any, will have noticed that I haven't posted recently. I'm totally outclassed. I don't have enough fantasia to match the fantapolitica in the newspapers.
Now I don't know why Berlusconi is so eager to deprive undocumented aliens of health care. The original prop 738 didn't work out so well for Republicans in California. It was blocked as unconstitutional (even though the consitution of California does *not* guarantee health or even sunny weather) non-immigrant Republican has won any top statewide office in California since it passed.
The anti health effort also got him in trouble with the Catholic Church, but he managed to get over that by outdoing Jeb Bush on the case of Eluana Englaro an Italian case vaguely like the Teresa Schiavo case, except that there was no disagreement in her family and a court order to disconnect her feeding tube. He tried an emergency decree to keep it in and was informed by the President of the Republic that emergency decrees are issued by the President of the Republic not the Prime Minister (you know like how Elisabeth is head of state of the UK). This is, of course, clearly written in the constitution and, therefore, ignored by Berlusconi (who has also claimed that Parliament didn't have the authority to vote no confidence in him the one and only time they did). Berlusconi then denounced the Italian Constitution.
So he clearly stands for mandatory health care for people in persistent vegitative states so long as they are citizens or have permessi di soggiorno. Given its firm moral principles, the one true catholic and apostolic church hasn't complained since Berlusconi made it clear that he agrees with them on the key issue.
I was going to start fantareligione but I don't think I'm up to that either.
Monday, March 09, 2009
My Morning at the Questura
I was summoned today the questura (police station) to have my finger prints taken so I can get a new "permesso di soggiorno" (Italian green card). Lo Stato Italiano is getting modern and efficient so I was summoned via an SMS.
Now this is all very embarrassing, because I need a new permesso because I lost the old one. I applied for a new one less than 2 years ago.
I tried to do the fingerprints earlier and was told to come back on the date I was summoned.
Now the really funny part. Thursday I was convinced it was the 9th of March and I went there. They said they don't do fingerprints on Thursday. I assume none of my readers have had the experience of being sure on the 5th that the date is the 9th.
So anyway today I go on the right day. I wait a long time. I notice many nice things about the questura. First there is the same office for Permessi di Soggiorno and Italian passports so actual Italian citizens have to wait in line along with us foreigners. Second they are very non racist with a photo of a police woman hugging to black children and a photo of Toto (famous Italian comedian who starred in hundreds of films) being arrested by a black police officer.
So I'm about to get my fingerprints taken with a new cool computerized machine (like the one they use for foreigners entering the USA even tourists). They ask me to wait for a young women who is actually picking up her actual permesso.
But her prints don't match. She says "That's my mother's permesso." Oooops. Now the automatic response we Italian public sector workers have for such situations is something along the line of "I can't do anything for you. You will have to come back later." The optimal response is to stand there and look sad. Needless to say the woman's permesso was filed alphabetically next to her mothers. She left the office with a shiny new permesso di soggiorno. The new ones are smart cards not pieces of paper with a photograph stapled on (I wish I were kidding).
So my big moment. The person helping me typed my name correctly (ending with double n. Robert Waldman has had the right to live in Italy). Then her face falls. She says "you're married to an Italian." Well yes I am. Following instructions on the wall I noted that fact to a colleague of hers about an hour earlier.
Oh no, I have to go to another office.
Now my cell phone definitely specifically told me to go to that office.
Now I run into an Italian public sector computer system. With Italian civil servants everything is against some rule. However, if you stand there and look sad, they bend the rules.
This approach does not work with computers.
So I thanked the police person and left the questura.
I discovered oddly, that I was ecstatically happy. I mean it was a nice sunny day and this time, it wasn't my fault. Everyone had been very kind and polite.
So why was I so happy ? Well I have long given up on finding an actual human being as incompetent as I am, but, at least, I have found an organization as incompetent as I am.
