Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Post-Authoritarian fun!

No, this isn't really an update on my travels -- that's coming in a few days. This is just me sharing a funny quote I read in a book for my "Post-Authoritarian Transitions" class. It's from an American officer touring Italy during the country's post-World War II rebuilding:
The Italians can tell you the names of the ministers in the government but not the names of the favorite products of the celebrities of the country. In addition, the walls of the Italian cities are plastered more with political slogans than with commercial ones. According to the opinion of this officer there is little hope that the Italians will achieve a state of prosperity and internal calm until they start to be more interested in the respective merits of different types of cornflakes and cigarettes rather than the relative abilities of their political leaders.

He wasn't being ironic.

Anyhoo, tonight I'm going down to Liverpool to see a football match between Wigan Athletic and Liverpool. It should prove interesting. On Saturday I'm taking a day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Look for a report on those travels on Sunday!

4 comments:

AnneB said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AnneB said...

Sorry. Previous comment was written under the influence of writing 3000 words of fiction in three days, and I'm a little punchy now. I deleted it because you do not need the world to know what a sports illiterate your mum is.

*going away now and lie down with a cool cloth on me forehead...*

Kayla said...

oreo pizza my friend, oreo pizza.

Dan said...

Mom's comment above leads me to believe that she mentioned something about Man U, when in fact you were going to see Irish star Robbie Keane and Liverpool play.