(no subject)

I have been downloading Italian folk songs, and there is one (from Rome, natch) that I really want to hear. Title: Te ci hanno mai mannato a quer paese? - roughly translated, Did anyone ever tell you to get lost?

Edited in: I have now heard it, and it is even better than I thought - in fact, the proper description is "laugh-out-loud funny". Also, unfortunately, quite untranslatable.

(no subject)

Never mind the drink, the dope and the jailbird husband. All you need to know that Amy Winehouse is out of her head is to look at her hairdos.

The spirit I am up against

http://fpb.livejournal.com/308946.html?replyto=2370258
You will notice that this person is shocked that someone does not agree with her politics and doubly shocked that a Catholic calls a non-Catholic a "heretic". Such a sheltered life she must have had.

PS: you have all the space you want to whine about me in your LJ or in fandom_wank and the like, but you are not from now on welcome to waste my space to do so. The warning is on record, and your charges against me are so wrong as to be in bad faith. End of story.

Oh, Hell

An enormous scandal is breaking out in the port city of Genoa, which is being compared for size and criminality to the celebrated Clean Hands affair of 1992, which brought down the Christian Democrats and nearly every other party. It is not likely to do as much political damage this time, since those involved all belong to the old Left (Genoa has always been a Communist stronghold, like many port cities) whose successors have already lost the elections and are now in the opposition. However, beside the city government in both its old and new shapes (one of the accused is a former anti-globalization activist who was among those responsible for the notorious violence at a G8 meeting in Genoa a few years ago), Catholic groups are also deeply involved. And unfortunately, the trail reaches right up to the gates of the Vatican. In the recorded conversations of two of the chief accused, the name of Genoa's former Archbishop, Tarcisio Bertone, is said to recur some forty times. And if Cardinal Bertone's name sounds familiar, it is because he is now the Secretary of State of the Vatican.

Cardinal Bertone is too high up to be investigated and charged, and besides, as one of the world's top diplomats, he has immunity to the hilt. And this is what makes it even worse for the Church. If the Cardinal could have met his accusers in court and prove his innocence, that wouldhave been best. Even if he had been convicted, that would not have been so bad: most people would realize that there are rotten apples in every barrel, and let it go at that. But not to be tried for a possible involvement in crimes worth dozens of years in jail is just the worst conclusion of all. The accusations against Cardinal Bertone will lead a ghostly life across newspaper pages and the Internet, and accompany him wherever he goes. And as there are already at least two Cardinals (Law and Mahoney) who have left the public with the impression that the got away with murder, this is the last thing the Catholic Church needed. Of course, if he is guilty, let him pay. But even if he is innocent, this is a disaster.