Italy: what goes up must go down

Readers of the blog will know that I have a few obsessions (while people who know me know that the number is somewhere in the hundreds)...So, I thought I'd provide, from time to time, the lowdown on whassup with the hottest issues of the day (and, to that anonymous reader...I apologize, Mara Carfagna is not one of them).

Alitalia -- It's fallen so far off the radar that I thought that maybe it just died a silent death, akin to the $60M www.italia.it website (Berlusconi-Stanca's folly) after the last govt pulled the plug. Even the opposition in Parliament brought it up the other day -- on one of the local talk shows -- called Chi l'ha visto? (Who's seen it??). It's still flying, right?

But, never fear, AirOne (my fave airline) is picking up the slack with its awesome new made-in-Italy ad campaign. Taking you to new heights as they show us a few guys -- walking, no less -- to an oil platform...Obviously, they're talking about the price of fuel...
Monnezzopoli (Garbage City) -- While the local officials scratch their collective heads wondering why the tourists aren't flocking to their proud city, it looks like the garbage is overflowing again. The Germans, who took all the excess and recycled 99.9% of it without burning a single celery stick have had their proverbial fill. The government is sticking its foot down and opening the 10 designated sites to riots and protests. But, not only are they arresting protestors, they've arrested 25 people from the last government on a series of charges from favoring the camorra to damaging the State.

And this govt wants to build four nuclear reactors? They can't get rid of our Coke cans & coffee grounds let alone find places to bury nuclear waste...
What comes up must come down -- First, they're taking down the (invisible) elevators of the Vittoriano -- they're an eyesore...Now, they want to dismantle the Ara Pacis (see photo in left column). The Mayor wants to issue a referendum on the matter...

Seeing that the new City Govt. inherited record deficits, they obviously can't think of things to do with all the cash in the city coffers.