Dark Heart of Italy

so, this weekend I've read the first 200 or so pages of the Dark Heart of Italy. the book is very interesting in that it presents a lot of information about italy that you won't find in a textbook. It's sort of like reading a history channel documentary. The author picks apart topics such as Italian football and literacy with a very interesting approach.

The discussions of scandal and buying referees in Italian football reminded me of the steroid abuse scandal in Major League baseball. Then he went on to talk about how Italian football had its own substance abuse problem. It was interesting to hear about how revered the italian footballers were and the level of media attention the game receives. Speaking of media attention, the discussion of Italian television and the interrelationships of ownership was very eye opening.

Jones goes in depth discussing how conflict of interest doesn't exist in italy, and if it does, it's a good thing. Individuals own football clubs, television stations, and companies and they overtly employ their families everywhere. One person even owned more than one football team that regularly competed against each other. To circumvent a national television law, someone bought local stations in every locality and synced schedules and aired the same things. Some of these things that would very basically be big scandals in America are seemingly ignored or indirectly embraced in Italy. I suppose it all comes back to how inefficient and how irregularly punishment is handed out by the government.