G-7 Italia

It was Italy’s turn to host the G-7 meeting of the wealthiest democracies last week.  Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni chose the southern region of Apulia to impress the member nations, which include the U.S., Canada, France, UK, Germany, and Japan. The...

MONTANI SEMPER LIBERI 

In the 1987 film Matewan, based on a true story in 1920s West Virginia, filmmaker John Sayles dramatizes the stand-off between corrupt factory bosses and the coal miners whom they exploited: poor whites (Appalachians, largely of Anglo or Scottish stock), African...

There from the Start

It isn’t often that I reminisce about this enterprise we call the Italic Institute.  Now in our 37th year with a modest following across the nation, I was recently surprised to learn of the passing of someone upon whose shoulders the Institute depended. ...

The Defaming Fathers

Someday there may be a monument to The Godfather, where the corpses of its founding fathers will be interred and worshipped.  Gone now are Mario Puzo, author of the original bestseller and co-screenwriter of the film; Marlon Brando (Don Vito Corleone), James Caan...

Michael Corleone, War Hero

The other day on the Laura Ingram Show (FOXNews), Ingram and comedian Jimmy Failla (Fail-la) mocked cable network AMC for putting what is called a ‘trigger warning’ on the Mob movie Goodfellas as it contains “language and/or cultural stereotypes” that may be offensive...

ESPRESSO BEAN TOWN

Boston’s late Mayor Thomas Menino Mayor Thomas Menino presided over what has been called the “Boston Renaissance” (1993-2013).  The state of Massachusetts itself also produced two Italian American governors: John Volpe, who later became...