Italian News Snippets: 07.29.07

Some news snippets from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• Florence and Rome are the World’s Best Cities – according to Travel + Leisure magazine readers, anyway.
• Using the “V” word (Italy’s “F” word) is no crime, so says an Italian court.
• I love Italian food, but putting the Mediterranean diet on the UNESCO list? Really? A diet?
• Omigod, I want to go to Lucca and be a test subject at the new shoe manufacturing research facility. Seriously, I have no problem being a guinea pig for Italian shoe makers. Where do I sign up?
• When you see weather reports that say Italy is on fire because of the high heat this summer, that’s not just a figure of speech. Forest and brush fires are ripping through southern Italy.
• A hunger striker in Italy has died after protesting his right to end his own life; Italy’s Health Minister says it might be time to consider introducing living wills to the country.
• A 60-year old woman near Venice was busted for growing nearly 700 marijuana plants on her terrace. Her son claims he tried to get her to stop growing the stuff. Yeah, right.
• Vineyards in Tuscany are planning to pick this year’s wine crop about a month earlier than normal this year due to weird weather patterns.
• Remember that show of “gay” art, the first one ever to be shown in Milan? Well, it was canceled before it even opened because people worried it might offend Catholics.
• The issue of rights for unmarried couples is back on the Italian political agenda. Y’know, because they had so much fun chatting about it the last time.
• Rome is putting on a mock trial this summer, trying two emperors from ancient Rome on trial for immorality, arson, persecuting Christians and killing Jesus Christ. I wonder who’ll speak in favor of the emperors?
• Soon, staying in an Italian hospital is going to get even better – the Slow Food movement is coming in to revolutionize hospital meals.
• This year, the Vatican went carbon neutral.
• You may have trouble finding risotto in Italy after this hot dry summer is drying up the River Po and the rice and corn growing regions around it.
• It must be summer – there’s another Italy article from the New York Times. This one’s about Palermo.
• I’ll bet you thought the only chain restaurants in Italy were McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, right? Wrong. Italy has chain restaurants, too. Shelley reviews one here.
• Like London’s tax on all vehicles driven into the city, soon Milan will be imposing a traffic charge on heavily-polluting vehicles.
• Yet another person has dived into Rome’s Trevi Fountain and had to be fished out by local police. What, does everyone want to be Anita Ekberg these days?
• Ever wonder where Italians go on vacation? Deirdré provides the answer – complete with a video of a passing marching band and scenes of umbrella-clad beaches.