Current Affairs

U.S. Presidential Election ’08: Uphill race for Republicans

Rudolph Giuliani or John McCain, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Just one year before the United States presidential election (set for November 4, 2008), the election campaign is heating up. According to a study published by the Project for Excellence in Journalism of Washington, U.S. media dedicate more space to presidential candidates than to the war in Iraq. Full Story

New York Itinerary

“New York: The City that Doesn’t Sleep”

“New York is a city that doesn’t sleep: a metropolis that is packed with stimulations, especially cultural.” Barbara Faedda, assistant director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, holds a key role in one of the primary institutions essential for the scientific, cultural and economic life of the community of Italians living in the Big Apple. But as an anthropologist, her view of New York is primarily that of a researcher: “From a multi-cultural point of view,” she says, “New York is an open-air workshop of cohabitation.”

Barbara, how was your first encounter with New York?
“I come from Rome and I’ve been living in New York since April 2006. Before that I had lived for two years in Boston as a visiting scholar. The first impact New York had on me was that of a place that is totally different from the New England town I came from. What struck me immediately was the so-called ‘diversity’ and the evident ‘racial divisions.’”

Divisions that are evident especially in the urban center.
“I experience it daily at work: Working at Columbia, I travel from Inwood, where I live (on the northern tip of Manhattan by the river that runs between it and the Bronx), to the Upper West Side, where the university campus is. Inwood is a neighborhood where many immigrants from the Dominican Republic live: a very interesting place – for example, the language you hear in the street is Spanish, and in a number of stores they don’t even understand English.”

There are those who compare New York to London.
“The two cities are historically too far apart to be compared. I believe a city like London you can replicate, while New York is unique and could never be copied. It is like a big sponge, ready to absorb any and all elements. This is the quality of U.S. culture that I’ve appreciated the most. Because we Italians are not that open, really.”

Do the city’s geographic, or ethnic, divisions have only negative aspects or are there also some positive qualities?
“I see many positive aspects. Ethnic communities become stronger and recreate their national customs and rites, using their languages, celebrating their holidays, practicing their religions. Mass at parish churches in the neighborhood where I live, for example, is celebrated in either English or Spanish. And the latter churches are much more crowded. Then, when the children of first-generation immigrants go to school they become bi-lingual and combine their parents’ culture with that of the general American society – unfortunately also with its negative aspects, like the U.S. standardization, especially regarding consumerism.”

Is the Italian community keeping its distinct identity, too?
“Yes, especially because the Italian community of highly-skilled professionals, academicians and businessmen in a way sells something of our country: its culture, art, style, quality and science. Highly-skilled Italians in New York are considered quite differently from the way Italian immigrants had been viewed until just a few decades ago: they now enter through the main building door, no more sent to the service door.”

Which are the main Italian institutions in New York?
“There are two, located at the two ends of Manhattan, and they are affiliated with two great universities in New York: the Italian Academy at Columbia University and the Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, affiliated with New York University. Another one is the Primo Levi Center, which focuses on Jewish-Italian culture. The Italian Cultural Institute, run by the Italian Foreign Ministry, is very active in spreading Italian culture, as is also the Italian Consulate. These institutions are in constant communication and form a network while maintaining their own distinct identities.”

What is the distinct identity of the Italian Academy, where you work?
“As a center for advanced studies, its identity was determined at its creation, following an agreement in 1991 between the Italian Government and Columbia University, whose president is also the Academy’s president (while the President of the Italian Republic is the Academy’s Honorary President). In addition, half of the members of our Board of Guarantors are appointed by Columbia University and half by the Italian Foreign Ministry.”

And what are your duties?
“As assistant director I’m responsible for institutional relations and for the Fellowship Program, the main program offered by the Italian Academy. It offers scholarships for single-semester or annual studies to researchers from around the world – some ten or twelve every six months – who have presented projects related to the Italian culture. Other important programs are Art and Neuroscience, in which we have hosted some of the most famous neuroscientists in the world, like Vittorio Gallese of Italy, as well as many events and cultural activities.”

Magic among the shelves

“…if he finds his way through a labyrinth of alcoves and cubbyholes and climbs a stairway leading to my private residence then he can linger there and enjoy reading the books in my library and looking at the pictures on the wall of my bedroom.”
(George Whitman)

There are only few places in the world that seem to have a soul of their own when you come by them. They seem to tell you something, no matter whether little or a lot, but objects inside them seem to be speaking to each other, and at times to be watching you in order to determine whether you’d be interested in joining their conversation. Full Story

Sport

Celtic pride reawakened

Celtic pride has reawakened – though it has never really been squashed in the course of these past 21 years of disappointments, defeats and tragedies. Hopes have been raised by a name, Kevin Garnett, and a jersey number, 5. The All-Star forward was acquired during the summer by the Boston Celtics. Executive Director Danny Ainge paid his weight in gold to Garnett’s former team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, to get the 6’11” (2.11 m) player who’s considered one of the best in the world. Full Story

Culture

Woody Allen looks for his New York in Barcelona

Retreating from London’s ever rainy weather and from the cooling U.S. public, where his box office records have been less than encouraging lately, Woody Allen has warmed up to the vitality and colors of Barcelona, where is upcoming film is set. The film stars once again Scarlett Johansson. It is rumored to be a tale of romantic intrigue between a painter, two American tourists and his former girlfriend, unfolding against the background of the Catalan capital. Full Story

New York Itinerary

New York Lighthouses

Whereas around Long Island and along the Hudson River the old lighthouses are still operating, aiding navigation, around Manhattan the lights that used to mark the shoreline shine no more. They are a thing of the past, left by the wayside in the race for modernization, losers in a competition against the flashy highrises and towers.
What has remained are two old ‘lightships’ anchored by the Manhattan piers. One is the Ambrose Lightship, at South Street Seaport, easy to spot with its red paint and name printed in huge letters along its bow. Full Story

Business

Kellogg’s: For over 100 years on the world’s tables.

What’s a good and healthy breakfast? Milk with corn flakes, naturally. That’s what doctors and nutritionists recommend. An intake of fibers, mineral salts, carbohydrates and calcium that get you up and running with energy all morning.
But what exactly are corn flakes and when did they appear for the first time on our tables?
Corn is a cereal, or more specifically grain, oat (in Scottish and Irish) or maize. Full Story

Dossier

In the beginning there were the British Trade Unions

The 19th-century British Industrial Revolution was, well, a revolution, in all senses. The British ‘trade unions,’ elder sisters of similar organizations to sprout later throughout Europe, were the embryos, inspired by Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
Benefit societies, or mutual aid societies, as they were called in the United Kingdom at the dawn of the 17th century, began as simple aid organizations, almost like social assistance institutions, which had nothing to do with wage claims nor with workers’ rights. Full Story

Dossier

May Day: from Haymarket to Milan

Both May Day and the U.S. Labor Day are rooted in the American class struggle.
The former (known also as Labour Day) marks a fundamental battle over workers’ rights, over the 8-hour work day. One should remember that in the early 19th century a working day would begin in America at sunrise and end at sunset. Today such long working hours would be associated with slavery, but in those days such long hours were commonly accepted. Full Story

Dossier

1993: The year of Concertation

A fundamental chapter in the history of Italian unions was written in 1993, when the three principal labor syndicates – CGIL,  CISL and UIL – signed a wage agreement on July 23, a day when the long sought-after Concertation between government, syndicates and industry was achieved.
After a decade in which street protests, factory workers’ walkouts and the abolition of the sliding wage scale (culminating with a law passed by Craxi’s government in 1984) had beleaguered Parliament sessions, workers finally won an agreement with clear terms. Full Story