Naples won tonight, but it was only a soccer game . . .

Anthony M. Quattrone, Ph.D. — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:42:47 +0000

It’s amazing how a soccer match can change the mood of a whole city. Naples won against Sampdoria tonight and it feels like all of the problems of the city are thousands of miles away. It was a beautiful game, in Genoa, and the Neapolitan players simply would not give up. They were down by a goal at about ten minutes to the end, and, with a few plays, they tied and then took the lead — it was all very spectacular.

The city has big problems, ranging from garbage on the streets (again) to organized crime (always present), and there seems that there is no way out. The “classe dirigente”, the so-called “class of leaders”, a compounded term that has no real translation into English, is absent, or better, it is waiting for something to happen. Where are the intellectuals ? Well, tonight, they were probably glued in front of the TV, cheering for Naples. I hope that they learned something from the Neapolitan players, who simply never gave up! Forza Napoli!

Berlusconi doesn’t know how to say “I’m sorry”

Anthony M. Quattrone, Ph.D. — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:40:07 +0000

The main problem with Berlusconi’s recent statement or joke about president-elect Barack Obama being “tanned” is that he doesn’t know how to say something like “oops, I can see that what I said could lead to a misunderstanding”, or “I’m sorry that my statement came out the way it did – I really did not want to offend anyone”. No, his way of defending himself it to define anyone who criticized his statement as an imbecil.

Mr. Berlusconi, please consider me one of those imbecils.

my opinions, not necessarily the facts

Naples won tonight, but it was only a soccer game . . .

Berlusconi doesn’t know how to say “I’m sorry”