One of the key events on which the United States is founded is the historical act of citizens refusing to pay their taxes –  celebrated by patriots as the Boston Tea Party.  So it puzzles me a bit when I hear some of the descendants of these same brave revolutionaries routinely jeer at Italy as a place where people don’t pay their taxes.

One, the blanket condemnation isn’t true. Many Italians do pay their taxes. But for those who don’t, a chart published in the Globe and Mail last Friday offers some justification for the tax-dodging. It shows Italians being taxed at the third highest rate in the developed world (“Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP in the developed world” July 29, 2011).

Tax rates in the US, in contrast, are among the lowest, according to the chart, with the country ranking third from the bottom.

See chart here. (Saw link to this article on Informed Comment here).

The video above is a promotional spot for the protests tomorrow by Italian women against Silvio Berlusconi in various cities of the country (“Lo spot con Isabella Ragonese“ la Repubblica, Feb 7, 2011). Ragonese is an Italian actress.

From Ansa.it (Italian women to stage anti-Berlusconi rallies, Feb 11, 2011)

Women will take to the streets of Italy’s cities on Sunday calling on Premier Silvio Berlusconi to resign after prosecutors this week requested he be sent to trial for allegedly using an underage prostitute.

For those far away and only vaguely attentive to Italian politics, there’s a helpful summary of what happened earlier this week by Geoff Andrews on openDemocracy (“Silvio Berlusconi: endgame, prolonged” Dec 14, 2010).

Excerpt:

The end of Silvio Berlusconi’s political career has been heralded more often than those of any other Italian leader in modern history… The strong sense of decay surrounding him remains pervasive, yet his day of destiny has once more been postponed. What explains this endless dialectic of shame and survival?…

Read full post here.

Nonetheless, as the report also shows, the percentage of the Italian population online is only 51.7 percent (30,026 million). That compares to 68.9 percent in France, 79.1 percent in Germany, and 77.3 percent in the USA.

In Italy, one online sector where some promising new developments are underway is journalism, according to an article by Federica Cocco today at OWNI.eu (“Italian journos search for escape route in oppressive job market” Nov 17, 2010).

Cocco reports on some of the current hardships many Italian journalists are facing in traditional media. As a solution, she writes, some of them are “trying to find refuge in the web.”

According to a 2010 survey by Human Highway and Liquida, Italy now counts 1.7 million bloggers – half a million more than last year. The study also concluded that 23.1% of the 24 million Italian netizens read blogs regularly, and the majority of them focus on current affairs.

Cocco also reports on the recent launch of two notable online news reporting websites.

Read the full article here.

The blogger is Ingrid D. Rowland, Univ of Notre Dame professor based in Rome. Her challenger is Mauro Gilli who according to some Googling by me, is a doctoral student in political science and one of the creators of the Italian website focusing on economics and politics, Epistemes.org (can’t swear to my accuracy of Gilli’s ID but am fairly sure) (Update:verified by Mauro).

In her post, Rowland offers an entertaining historical glance backward at some shenanigans of various Roman emperors. In comparison, she finds Berlusconi’s scandals somewhat deficient. Gilli writes to protest that Rowland’s post is:

…quite empty of any substance once we take the anecdotical analogies to ancient Rome away.

I do quibble with the charge that Rowland’s post is vacuous. She reviews some details about the mounting dissension within the ranks of the Berlusconi government and, especially to my liking, points to the emergence of  a few Italian women leaders that are worthy of note.

Gilli, however, points out the context of what he describes as a far bigger problem for Italy than the replacement of one Prime Minister with a new one. And it’s this problem that Gilli describes that I myself hear most often lamented by the Italians I know.

Read blog post and comment here.

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In this video, cellist Yo-Yo Ma is performing selected segments from both these works.

Today Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli is to be given his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, ANSA.IT reports (Mar 2, 2010). Bocelli attributes the award to his popularity with the USA public, according to the article.

Excerpt:

After debuting at the Sanremo Song Festival in 1994, where he won the Newcomers section, Bocelli has gone on to sell 70 million albums worldwide – 24 pop, eight opera – and has performed at some of the world’s top music venues with the likes of Sarah Brightman, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Laura Pausini.

As was the case with Pavarotti, Bocelli has been criticized by some for his popular cross-overs into pop music. When asked about this, according to the article, the singer dismissed the criticism, describing himself as a musician and “not genre specific.”

An Italian photographer, Pietro Masturzo, has won the premier award at the 53rd annual World Press Photo Contest. The photo was taken in Tehran last June. It shows a woman shouting in protest from a rooftop.

…in the fall of 2009, more than eight-in-ten Italians said they would like to see tighter restrictions on immigration.

Titled the Global Attitudes Project, the Pew surveys are conducted in 55 countries, and have been  ongoing for the past decade, according to the article.

I almost missed this, mamma mia! A last minute bit of web surfing turned it up. Today is the 2010 International Day of Italian Cuisines.

And the star of this day is tagliatelle al ragù bolognese. More often humbly christened spaghetti and meatballs in the U.S.  In England, absolutely irreverently, spag bol.

From the sponsors of the mouthwatering event:

“…hundreds of chefs, in more than 50 countries, will simultaneously prepare this dish to say “no” to the forgery and counterfeiting of Italian products and cuisine around the world.”

The sponsor is the GVCI (Gruppo Virtuale Cuochi Italiani) — English version is the Virtual Group of Italian Cooks. It’s a network of over a thousand professionals in Italian food and wine who work all over the world, according to the Group’s website.

Depending on where you are on the globe, you may still be able to find a restaurant participating in the event — see map of locations here.

If not, you can whip up your own dish of the tagliatelle at home. The authentic recipe is here — including the homemade pasta itself.