Say one thing one day, the opposite the next. It weeds out coherence and the thinking citizen, leaving only the devoted fanatic.

great perception, that's it in a nutshell. shades of glenn beck...

believe in garbage, but believe in something!

o madonna..

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

My knowledge of Italian slang was insufficient to be quite sure what torments Sabina Guzzanti had specified for poor Mr Ratzinger to get her prosecuted (see below), but a kind passer-by has enlightened me - he is to be tormented by gay devils of an active, rather than a passive disposition. As Dario Fo has pointed out, speculating about the torments endured by dead Popes is a noble tradition, with Dante as its leading exponent, and it is a depressing sign of Italy's current state that it should again be a matter for prosecution. Note: On September 19th Justice Minister Alfano decided not to proceed with this misguided prosecution of Ms Guzzanti.

Dante was particularly negative about the fate of Pope Boniface VII. I am not sure if this is the same Pope Boniface mentioned in that classic history "The Bad Popes", who ate a chicken on a Friday. A colleague reproved him, saying that he might be punished after death for this breach of dietary rules. He replied that he was no more likely to survive his death than the chicken was.

Speaking about Pope Celestine, Boniface's predecessor, Dante coined the famous phrase Il Gran Rifiuto. Pope Celestine's tale is well recounted in "The Bad Popes". Two of the great Roman families - it might have been Orsini and Colonna, I can't recall - couldn't agree whose turn it was to be pope, and the conclave was deadlocked. Rules specify that the supply of wine and food to the conclave should be progressively reduced, but these rules were set aside with Berlusconi (or Mugabe)-like resolve, and the deadlock endured far too long. Eventually somebody suggested that a holy hermit, then living in a cave in the Abruzzi, might be a good compromise candidate. The poor man was taken off, much against his wishes, and made Pope, but, perhaps predictably, turned out to lack completely the necessary administrative and diplomatic skills for the job. Since he was very popular, he had to be got rid of tactfully. Somebody hit on the idea of secretly drilling a hole in the wall of his bedchamber. Then, while the old man slept, one of the Cardinals spoke repeatedly, in sepulchral and portentous tones: "This is the Holy Ghost speaking. You must resign". Delighted to find out that his longing to get back to his cave had divine approval, Pope Celestine did so, becoming the first and last Pope to resign: he made il gran rifiuto,to Dante's disgust.

There must be millions of Protestants and of Muslims for whom it is an article of faith that Mr Ratzinger will have a tough time after death (though this writer feels that Pope Boniface may have been on the right track). They may differ from Ms Guzzanti about the punishment - I think the Koran specifies eating filth and drinking boiling water (an experience, incidentally, available, though only at surprisingly high cost, at most British motorway service stations) rather than being tormented by gay devils - but they should be warned that, in present-day Italy, they risk being hauled up in court if they express their views publicly. Of course, this is much more likely to happen if they are addressing an appreciative audience of thousands in a packed square, and have just been speculating on what it was that the Minister of Equal Opportunities did to qualify her for the job, and pointing out that many other Italians would like Equal Opportunities of having it done to them.

Of course, if you are prosecuted, you can take comfort from the thought that, if you expressed your views well enough, they may well be erecting statues of you in 700 years time.

A large assembly, organised by Beppe Grillo, to protest against Mr Berlusconi, was held in Piazza Navona, Rome, in July. The meeting was widely decried in the press as being in poor taste, because of the lack of respect shown to the rulers. (A lack of respect which recalls Montaigne's dictum that "kings deserve our obedience because of their position, but they deserve our respect only to the extent that it is earned by their virtue"). Sabina Guzzanti, who participated in the assembly, is apparently to be prosecuted because of disrespect shown to the Pope. In reality, the authorities hope to punish her for a quite different crime.

The Minister of Equal Opportunities appointed by Mr Berlusconi is one Mara Carfagna, once a topless TV presenter, substantial acreages of whom can be seen here. Ms Guzzanti brought to the attention of the audience a report in the Argentinian paper El Clarin, available here, mentioning rumours that telephone interceptions had contained allusions to Lewinsky-like services offered by Ms Carfagna to the perjurer. There can be little doubt that it was this, rather than the very tame references to the Pope, that has aroused the ire of the prosecutors. More recently, Mr Berlusconi, referring to the current economic difficulties, mentioned the need for Italians to grit their teeth. Sabina Guzzanti added the proviso "Not you, Mara".

After the press had self-righteously deplored the poor taste shown at this assembly, Dario Fo recalled an Arabic fable (available here in Italian) about a zebra who was attacked by a lion, and effectively retaliated by kicking the lion with its hind legs and shitting all over it. Whereupon the monkeys in the forest expressed their horror at the poor taste and low behaviour shown by the zebra, and admonished it not to retaliate in that offensive way, but to imitate the grace and charm of the deer. Which the zebra then tried to do, being promptly massacred by the lion. The monkeys commented "she's dead, but with what elegance and civility!"September 10th 2008 - Lessons from ThailandA Thai court has ruled that Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a keen gastronome, must step down after appearing in a television cookery programme. His offence is not that of cooking his favourite dish - pork in Coca-Cola - nobody who has not eaten that dish can judge what, if any, sanction it merits. Rather his offence is to have accepted €300 from the television company in expenses for appearing in the programme, which violates a rule established in Thailand with the purpose of preventing ministers from having any business links.

The contrast with Italy is of course striking. The rules in Thailand are perhaps excessively strict. But the step is a long one from accepting money in expenses for appearing in a television programme, on the one hand, to owning all the private television companies and controlling all the public ones, on the other.  There is no other country in the world that could tolerate the massive conflict of interest, and the noxious fusion of business and government, which Italians now take for granted.