by John Mancini | Jun 12, 2022 | Uncategorized
If I had to pick the top gun in Washington today it would be, hands down, Nancy Pelosi. By every metric, House Speaker Pelosi is the keystone of the Biden Administration. Not only does she have the president’s legislative back, she is the narrator-in-chief for...
by John Mancini | Jun 5, 2022 | Uncategorized
The war in Ukraine has become a touch & go situation for the West. The war conjures up all our nightmares: Stalin reincarnated in a “democratic” Russia, Europeans killing each other over borders, refugee crises, entangling alliances, fears of nuclear...
by John Mancini | May 30, 2022 | Uncategorized
Each Memorial Day we reflect on America’s war dead. These days, we should also reflect on the victims of mass shootings, especially those who never had a chance to grow up. For those of us whose childhood roots are in the 1950s each succeeding decade is a “tree...
by John Mancini | May 22, 2022 | Uncategorized
Last week, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter (BLM) stated that much of their organization’s $90 million income since its inception came from “white guilt.” In other words, wealthy Whites and White-dominated corporations needed to buy forgiveness for...
by John Mancini | May 15, 2022 | Uncategorized
There are many quotes in the Bible that guide us but there is one that challenges us. It was uttered by the Roman perfect of Judea Pontius Pilate, with Jesus standing before him: “What is truth?” In the New Testament according to John (18:33-38) Pilate and...
by John Mancini | May 8, 2022 | Uncategorized
Appropriate for Mother’s Day is the old quip, “Well, at least your mother loves you!” That might be the way Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito rationalized his overnight descent into Hell last week when his draft opinion on abortion rights was outed by some...
by John Mancini | May 1, 2022 | Uncategorized
In our pantheon of heroes, Americans of Italian stock can look back some 3,000 years to a people who struggled to reconcile human existence with Nature. That struggle encompassed the many goals of revealing the secrets Nature, of controlling Nature, and of...
by John Mancini | Apr 24, 2022 | Uncategorized
President Eisenhower, a former general, warned us about the Military-Industrial Complex. But, the last few years has given us another danger: the Corporate-Woke Complex – a multilateral movement to undermine democracy and subvert Western culture. Standing in...
by John Mancini | Apr 17, 2022 | Uncategorized
In Issue X (1990) of The Italic Way, we explored the Italic connections in the Bible. In particular how ancient Italians, as Roman officials, were involved in the birth of Christianity. We are all familiar with Emperor Caesar Augustus calling for a census and...
by John Mancini | Apr 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
Our Almanac reminds us that Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and Verrazzano weren’t the only Italians this nation ought to be thankful for. On April 9th, 1682 Enrico Tonti and Frenchman Robert La Salle arrived at the Gulf of Mexico after traversing waterways from the Great...
by John Mancini | Apr 3, 2022 | Uncategorized
A London-based research outfit called YouGov matches perceptions to actual stats. For example, panels of volunteers surveyed in the United States think that Blacks are 41% of the U.S population when the Census says they are only 12%. The reason for the...
by John Mancini | Mar 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
In his criminal invasion of Ukraine, it appears that Vladimir Putin has underestimated Ukrainian resistance and overestimated his own Russian military. History is full of such folly. Take a war, any war, and you will find this same hubris at work. The...
by John Mancini | Mar 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
On March 20, 1800, Italian scientist Alessandro Volta reported that he had created the Battery – a device to generate electricity from a pile of dissimilar metal discs, some salt water, and wire. Two centuries later many people believe Volta’s invention will...
by John Mancini | Mar 13, 2022 | Uncategorized
I always ask the same question when war or terror breaks out – where are the holy men? Pope Francis seems to be the only religious leader who gets media attention if he calls for an end to violence. This week he urged Vladimir Putin: “In the name of God, I...
by John Mancini | Mar 6, 2022 | Uncategorized
For 16 years (218 BC – 202 BC) Hannibal and his mostly Celtic mercenaries ravished the Italian peninsula, annihilating Roman and allied armies and pillaging the wealth of newly unified Italy. The Italic people suffered PTSD on a massive scale, so much so that...
by John Mancini | Feb 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
These days, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi doesn’t recognize the Vladimir Putin he used to pal around with. The two were quite the odd couple back in the early 2000s, hugging and partying each time they met. It almost looked like Italian...
by John Mancini | Feb 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
I’m addicted to watching the PBS series Finding Your Roots hosted by Prof. Louis Gates Jr of Harvard. The series is in its 8th season, and last week it explored the roots of Tony Danza. This being Black History Month I thought it appropriate to mention that...
by John Mancini | Feb 13, 2022 | Uncategorized
The current crisis in Ukraine conjures up another Munich analogy. Russia’s Vladimir Putin easily fits the bill as the new Hitler. He has already seized Ukraine’s Crimea region and now wants the rest of that country, just as Hitler first took Austria in...
by John Mancini | Feb 6, 2022 | Uncategorized
I often get my blog subjects from our online Almanac. February 3rd celebrates the courage of Lt. Willibald Charles Bianchi in 1942 that earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Some 27 Americans of Italian...
by John Mancini | Jan 30, 2022 | Uncategorized
It started innocently enough, but it escalated into a debate on The Godfather. A friend and I were enjoying a leisurely ride in my car listening to Sirius Radio when the 1959 song Sea of Love came on. I quickly related it to the movie by the same name starring...
by John Mancini | Jan 23, 2022 | Uncategorized
Last Saturday, my grandson celebrated his fifth birthday at an amusement center with all his friends and their parents. Among his buddies was pre-school classmate Terrance, a Chinese American. Terrance’s father was there, and we chatted a bit. He had...
by John Mancini | Jan 16, 2022 | Uncategorized
Martin Luther King Day is one of two holidays celebrating Black heritage – the other is Juneteenth (June 19th), when news of liberation reached Texas slaves in 1865. Despite having two of the only race-based holidays, most Black leaders would abolish Columbus...
by John Mancini | Jan 9, 2022 | Uncategorized
It has gone from a partisan slogan to fake history: “Republicans are undermining democracy.” Our own Nancy D’Alessandro Pelosi, Speaker of the House, may not have authored the line but is perpetuating it. But is her narrative undermining our Republic? Last...
by John Mancini | Jan 2, 2022 | Uncategorized
Greta Thunberg, the Cassandra of Climate Change, may be too distracted to realize that the Earth may be too-late-to-save before her 2030 prediction. An asteroid will be arriving here in 2029 – on April 13th to be exact. Fabrizio Bernardi Co-discovered in 2004,...
by John Mancini | Dec 26, 2021 | Uncategorized
The iconic Broadway restaurant Sardi’s reopened this week to serve returning theater-goers. It survived the pandemic with $4.5 million in Covid relief funds. Hopefully, it will remain open and prosper. During my 30-year career in Manhattan real estate...
by John Mancini | Dec 19, 2021 | Uncategorized
Last week, speaking before Democrats at a holiday celebration House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have hit the punch bowl a bit early. She exclaimed, “Our country could not be more – it could not be better served, than with this most experienced, capable hands than...
by John Mancini | Dec 12, 2021 | Uncategorized
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the highest paid bureaucrat in the federal government – some $500,000 per year. More than the president earns! As the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with a budget of $6 billion he is also the Chief Medical...
by John Mancini | Dec 5, 2021 | Uncategorized
A few days ago, three White men were convicted in a Georgia courtroom of the murder of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery. The trial was nationally televised and perceived as racially motivated. Whether it was actually a hate crime will be determined in a second trial of...
by John Mancini | Nov 28, 2021 | Uncategorized
Crime and punishment have become an obsession these days. We have lots of videos of crimes as they happen. We see plenty of televised trials. We see verdicts and sentencing that range from right-on to outrageous. And since today commemorates the death of Italian...
by John Mancini | Nov 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
Three weeks ago a neighbor in our weekend co-op complained that his baseboard heat was not working. I checked the boiler room and found his circulating pump making disturbing noises. A plumber was called, the pump replaced, and the heat restored. But, a few days...
by John Mancini | Nov 14, 2021 | Uncategorized
Our Institute is finishing up a report on the origins of World War II with emphasis on the rivalry between Great Britain and Fascist Italy. It’s been an eye-opening research project that has much to do with the colonialism of the 1930s. For the great...
by John Mancini | Nov 7, 2021 | Uncategorized
A couple of years ago, I tried to obtain Italian citizenship, but the Italians don’t make it easy. All your vowels have to be in order – my last “i” was originally an “o”, and the documentation is complex – what the hell is an apostille! One relative attempted it...
by John Mancini | Oct 31, 2021 | Uncategorized
Here’s an election dream for 2024: Republican Governor Ron DeSantis vs Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Both Italian American conservatives with no utopian flights of fancy. DeSantis may have aspirations for the White House, but Manchin (orig: Mancini)...
by John Mancini | Oct 24, 2021 | Uncategorized
In case you missed it, October 9th was Leif Erikson Day. Since 1964, Public Law 88-566 by Congress recognizes that Nordic Americans were “believed to have been” the first Europeans to settle in America. This year’s Proclamation of Leif Erikson Day was...
by John Mancini | Oct 17, 2021 | Uncategorized
It’s been nearly two years that the world has suffered the tragedy of the China Virus. This plague has killed close to 5 million people on the planet, including 744,000 Americans and 131,000 Italians. And, no “experts” see an end in sight. Even the...
by John Mancini | Oct 10, 2021 | Uncategorized
Each year the President of the United States issues a proclamation reminding the nation of its debt to the Genovese explorer and the national holiday that affirms it. This week, President Biden repeated that custom but converted Columbus’s voyage into a...
by John Mancini | Oct 3, 2021 | Uncategorized
For those of you who are monitoring the legislative sausage-making process in Congress this week, you will understand that we are not watching a Democrat vs Republican struggle but one between Utopians and Realists. Democrats clearly have the bulk of Utopians...
by John Mancini | Sep 26, 2021 | Uncategorized
I don’t like the grubby look of Italian males these days – more than five o’clock shadow but less than an actual beard. Beside the unkempt appearance, it indicates a certain laziness. But, I’m sure Italian men with this look consider it macho and alluring...
by John Mancini | Sep 19, 2021 | Uncategorized
We’ve come a long way from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s goal of “flattening the curve” at the start of the China Virus pandemic. Regrettably, he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are leading the way to a flattening of the American spirit, instead. These two Italian...
by John Mancini | Sep 12, 2021 | Uncategorized
Each September 11th will always remind us that our conflict with Islam has yet to be resolved. On 9/11, I was working in midtown-Manhattan when the planes struck in lower-Manhattan. I recall a comment I made at the time to a colleague that the disaster was...
by John Mancini | Sep 6, 2021 | Uncategorized
Like many of you, I tend a vegetable garden in the Italian tradition with the goal of preserving the harvest, not merely consuming it fresh. Planting seeds, transplanting seedlings, caging, staking, weeding, mulching, watering, and fertilizing even on a small...
by John Mancini | Aug 29, 2021 | Uncategorized
This week, a fanatic at the Kabul Airport chose to annihilate himself and 108 innocent people, including thirteen American military members, in the name of Allah “the Compassionate, the Merciful.” Akin to human sacrifice, suicide bombings have always appalled...
by John Mancini | Aug 22, 2021 | Uncategorized
No one can deny that our current exit from Afghanistan is a national humiliation brought on by incredible political and military incompetence; and the chips haven’t finished falling where they may. But, there is a greater humiliation that few will discuss:...
by John Mancini | Aug 15, 2021 | Uncategorized
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seeking immortality. At 80, this may be her last term in public office, her last chance to create a socialist republic the utopian Left dreams about: a cradle-to-grave federal safety net, couch-potato voting, endless Black...
by John Mancini | Aug 8, 2021 | Uncategorized
This month’s cover story in National Geographic magazine is about gladiators. It’s a great cover with plenty of photos and recreated scenes to satisfy any devotee of the ancient sport. It’s a short read that dispels many of the legendary beliefs about the...
by John Mancini | Aug 1, 2021 | Uncategorized
Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of a fickle finger of fate. On July 31, 1871, inventor Antonio Meucci was severely injured in a steam boiler explosion aboard the Staten Island ferry Westfield. The disaster left 100 people dead and Meucci convalescing at home...
by John Mancini | Jul 25, 2021 | Uncategorized
Don’t you love those PBS nostalgia specials featuring the old vocal groups? A recent one reminded me of a mega-project our Institute undertook to produce a concert of Italian American performers from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. The year was 2002, we christened the...
by John Mancini | Jul 18, 2021 | Uncategorized
Harry Truman loved to say that the only thing new under the sun is the history you don’t know. As the United States is making a hard left, Truman’s quote is hauntingly accurate. They may call themselves “Progressives” but I prefer the label...
by John Mancini | Jul 11, 2021 | Uncategorized
Is Red China to be feared more than Russia? Can we afford two enemies at the same time? Which has the most potential to destroy us economically, politically, and socially? A surprising answer can come from Italian history. As a lifelong student of history, and...
by John Mancini | Jul 4, 2021 | Uncategorized
On this July 4th, while we celebrate the most patriotic of holidays, I recall this day on a foreign shore in 1987 honoring the cultural taproot of our American republic. I wasn’t gazing on the Magna Carta in the British Library, or upon the Parthenon in...
by John Mancini | Jun 27, 2021 | Uncategorized
Many local newspapers subscribe to the Associated Press daily almanac, a one-column feature that puts current events into historical perspective. Although the AP is a nonprofit funded by participating newspapers, the bias of those participants flows into AP’s...
by John Mancini | Jun 20, 2021 | Uncategorized
The year 2020 was annus horribilis for those of us who value tradition. The newly minted and half-baked federal holiday called Juneteenth is one result. It was born of two events last year that changed the direction of our Republic: the murder of...
by John Mancini | Jun 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
In Italian history, June 10, 1940 was a day of infamy, when Italy declared war on Great Britain and France. Eighty-one years ago this month, Mussolini and the Savoy monarchy chained their nation to a Teutonic ideologue whose insanity knew no bounds. What...
by John Mancini | Jun 6, 2021 | Uncategorized
Today, let’s examine the intramural struggle among our paesani in government. Ancient Romans often staged life and death battles in their arenas. Arena means “sand” in Latin, the stuff they spread on amphitheater floors to soak up the blood. There may be...
by John Mancini | May 30, 2021 | Uncategorized
As a child, I recall relatives talking about my maternal grandfather’s brother Luigi being killed in the First World War. I never heard any details, but there was mention of his parents in Italy receiving money from the U.S. government for his death. His...
by John Mancini | May 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
So, let’s concede that White economic privilege exists. But, it may not be what you think, as stemming from discrimination, exploitation, and outright theft. Rather, it has cultural and historical roots too complex to denounce with a bullhorn. Think of...
by John Mancini | May 16, 2021 | Uncategorized
“America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani has had a couple of tough years. It all started with his passionate loyalty to Donald Trump, first spearheading a fact-finding mission to Ukraine to expose the political and financial machinations of Hunter Biden, then to...
by John Mancini | May 9, 2021 | Uncategorized
The official end of the Second World War in Europe was May 8, 1945. I would think that even “woke” Americans would agree that the Allied victory was a good thing for humanity. But, who knows? In this topsy-turvy nation, where racism is the measure of...
by John Mancini | May 2, 2021 | Uncategorized
In 1917, the Italian Army suffered one of the worst disasters of the First World War. A combined offensive by Austria-Hungary and Germany broke the Alpine Italian line at Caporetto and swept within seventy miles of Venice, capturing some 250,000 Italian...
by John Mancini | Apr 25, 2021 | Uncategorized
In Merry Ole England there was a phrase that summed up Anglo-Saxon contempt for Italian ideas infecting England: “the Italianate Englishman is the devil incarnate.” This concept was born around 1535 with the translation of Machiavelli’s The Prince...
by John Mancini | Apr 18, 2021 | Uncategorized
Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Draghi (DRA-ghee) is spouting a form of “Italy First” these days, and getting accolades from Italians and Europeans alike. The bold Draghi recently seized a shipment of Covid vaccines stored in a Rome warehouse that were destined...
by John Mancini | Apr 11, 2021 | Uncategorized
I used to think that mind control was only possible in totalitarian countries. But, over the past few years an amazing transformation has taken place in this country – in journalism, entertainment, and culture. A deluded utopian, not merely...
by John Mancini | Apr 4, 2021 | Uncategorized
There is a mini-tale in Italo Calvino’s 1980 book Italian Folktales that has always fascinated me. Titled “The Science of Laziness,” the tale is from the northern city of Trieste and is clearly politically incorrect, insofar as it targets Turks. No doubt,...
by John Mancini | Mar 28, 2021 | Uncategorized
There’s a new book titled Lincoln on the Verge, about the newly elected president taking a whistle-stop journey from his home in Springfield, IL to Washington D.C. in 1861. Covering thirteen days, with stops in eight northern states, the purpose of the trip was...
by John Mancini | Mar 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is reportedly seeking solace from his political agony with the Black community, rather than the Italian American community – so reports the NYTimes. The irony is that Letitia James, his own Attorney General – a Black woman – initiated...
by John Mancini | Mar 14, 2021 | Uncategorized
March 15, 44 B.C. was the day Caius Julius Caesar was knifed by a clique of Roman senators intent on saving the Republic from dictatorship. Figuratively, the knives are also coming for another powerful scion of Italy in Albany, NY – Andrew Cuomo, 3-time governor of...
by John Mancini | Mar 7, 2021 | Uncategorized
Last week, the Mayor of Rome officially opened the Mausoleum of Augustus to the public. The ashes of our greatest emperor were interred there in A.D. 14 as well as an engraved summary of his career called the Res Gestae (“Things Accomplished”). Both his...
by John Mancini | Feb 28, 2021 | Uncategorized
Why are the utopian Left and our immaculate minorities intent on uprooting Western Civilization? It’s all about “White Supremacy.” You cannot build a utopian society from a fragmented and diverse population unless you control Euro-American history – that...
by John Mancini | Feb 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
I wonder if New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo is sad that Donald Trump is no longer president. Before January 20th, New York’s Covid-19 nursing home death toll (15,000) could be conveniently blamed on Trump, with the media’s blessing. Was it a coincidence that...
by John Mancini | Feb 14, 2021 | Uncategorized
Do you know there is a chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in Italy? Do you know that French leaders are resisting the invasion of “woke” culture? How are these social upheavals spreading across continents and oceans? Short answer: the Media....
by John Mancini | Feb 7, 2021 | Uncategorized
It’s hard to say whether Italy or the United States is in a bigger mess. Both are suffering from the pandemic; both are in the throes of political turmoil. Instead of just Democrats and Republicans battling it out, as here, Italians have five parties in...
by John Mancini | Jan 31, 2021 | Uncategorized
The current political and social upheaval unsettling our nation includes Americans of Italian descent on both sides of the turmoil. I don’t find all of them noble or worthy of praise just because they are “Italian.” It is their actions and ideology that...
by John Mancini | Jan 24, 2021 | Uncategorized
Communist China’s official news agency reported Donald Trump’s departure from the White House with the words: Good Riddance! The Communists followed those words with economic and travel sanctions against 25 ex-Trump officials, including Italian American...
by John Mancini | Jan 17, 2021 | Uncategorized
On the cusp of Inauguration Day and the Martin Luther King holiday, our nation is gearing up for the “change America!” promised by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently. Under the Biden/Harris Administration, minorities will achieve command and control to a...
by John Mancini | Jan 10, 2021 | Uncategorized
Donald Trump did what his enemies could never do, destroy his own legacy. Maybe he should have stuck to tweets until his last day in office. Instead, his ego demanded live action. For weeks, he summoned his faithful to Washington, DC for a final rally -–...
by John Mancini | Jan 3, 2021 | Uncategorized
Since our perspective is Italic, I assembled a list of notable paesani who made a splash in 2020, that sobering and contentious year. Their talents ran the gamut from entertainment to science, but most of them got sucked into the political maelstrom that...
by John Mancini | Dec 27, 2020 | Uncategorized
I once managed a building in the Jewelry District of Manhattan. It was a truly multi-ethnic building with retail booths and manufacturing. One day, a number of my Jewish tenants complained about sneaker prints on the restroom toilet seats. That was...
by John Mancini | Dec 22, 2020 | Uncategorized
For Christmas Day, the IFC Channel on cable is offering “Christmas with the Family,” broadcasting a string of Mafia movies: Godfather I & II, GoodFellas, and A Bronx Tale. The family alluded to is, of course, any [Italian] crime family. In this...
by John Mancini | Dec 14, 2020 | Uncategorized
Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to accept a lawsuit by the State of Texas against four “swing” states that Texas alleged violated election laws – laws enacted by their own state legislatures. Texas was joined in the suit by...
by John Mancini | Dec 8, 2020 | Uncategorized
A group of students at Brown University in Rhode Island have condemned statues of Caesar Augustus and Marcus Aurelius as White supremacists, and want them removed from campus. The group, Decolonization at Brown (DAB), asserts that the two Italic emperors represent...
by John Mancini | Oct 4, 2020 | Uncategorized
There is a popular image dating from the Second World War of Italians as untrustworthy allies and unworthy adversaries. Hollywood promoted these themes in war propaganda, then, and in popular movies since. The classic tale carrying these themes was Breaking...
by John Mancini | Sep 27, 2020 | Uncategorized
We may never have an Italian American in the Oval Office, but we’ve got some sacred icons. The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court has conjured up the spirit of Justice Antonin Scalia. Conservatives are championing her nomination with a simple...
by John Mancini | Sep 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
Last June, the city of Wilmington, Delaware abruptly dismantled statues of Columbus and Caesar Rodney, signer of the Declaration of Independence, ostensibly to avoid possible vandalism. I only learned of this the other day when President Donald Trump condemned the...
by John Mancini | Sep 13, 2020 | Uncategorized
Christopher Rufo is a young journalist of Italian stock (Lazio region) who just became the hero of traditional Americans around the country. It only took a guest appearance on FOX News, where he reported on a perverse form of diversity training in federal agencies, to...
by John Mancini | Sep 6, 2020 | Uncategorized
Whether you label it “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” “Trump-itis,” or just “Dump Trump,” there is a lot of hatred across the country for the man who occupies the White House. It’s not just about political preference. There is something about Donald Trump that evokes...
by John Mancini | Aug 30, 2020 | Uncategorized
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an Italian American gangster resisting arrest. They all seem to go peaceably when the police or feds come. Did their parents give them “the Talk” before they embarked on their life of crime? The very idea that “capos,” “captains,”...
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