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June 28, 2011

The "Right" to Marry

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
Wedding Photo Montmartre, Paris, June 2011

Everyone is talking about the new New York State law that gives non-heterosexual couples the right to get married, but the belated law is really about recognizing homosexuals as...

January 27, 2011

Anti-Italian Bias: Surreal or Not Surreal, That is the Question

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
A parrot on the bird feeder in your backyard after a snow storm in Brooklyn, New York is surreal. Mob round-ups, Silvio Berlusconi's antics, and "Jersey Shore" are not.

When they are covered in the media, Italians and Italian Americans are usually the butts of their own jokes and for some of us this is not a laughing matter. Fighting back is like...

December 6, 2010

WikiLeaks Revelation: the More Italy Changes... You Can Guess the Rest

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
I didn't have a picture handy of Silvio Berlusconi with his allegedly very close friend Vladimir Putin, so I thought one taken in Vlad's "Lennongrad" hometown (Leningrad/St. Petersburg) while I was there for a conference might be equally informative and ultimately damaging.

I am beginning to get tired of hearing about the incompetence of the American Diplomatic Corps and US Intelligence Agencies as it seems to me that I have already heard (and...

November 6, 2010

Andrew Cuomo: Coffee, Tea, or Cappuccino?

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
In the end, we are what we eat.

Given the unfortunate hot breakfast drink metaphors "Tea Party" and "Coffee Party" that have been brewed to simplify the already simple-minded partisan political debate in...

October 13, 2010

Blame it on Columbus

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
Marching in the Columbus Day Parade requires a commitment that up until the present time I have been unable to make. I did however march in the Turkish Day Parade in 2005, but that was more of a courtesy than a commitment. It's not that I have a problem with Cristobal Colon himself or El Dia del la Raza but you never know who's going to show up in the crowd of spectators or marching on Fifth Avenue.

This year's reflection on the Columbus Day Parade in New York City has become much more problematic as at least one of the Italian American characters who was proudly marching in...

August 20, 2010

Ground Zero Mosque: Ramadan Mobarak!

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
The Christian Cross had become a tourist attraction at Ground Zero as will the Cordoba House Cultural Islamic Center and Mosque, he said hopefully. As did Yakov Smirnoff on his mural -- "The human spirit is not measured by the size of the act but by the size of the heart."

I wrote this a few weeks ago but the intolerance is growing so I added a new note about "Park51," "Cordoba House," "the Islamic cultural, community center," and, of course "place...

June 12, 2010

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe, Vote for the Guy Whose Name Ends in “O.”

Jerry Krase
Andrew Cuomo & Rick Lazio

Two (or perhaps three) people with Italian-sounding last names are simultaneously running for governor of the State of New York. This means that Italian American voters will have...

May 6, 2010

Obama and Political Color Blindness – Not!

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
Racist toys such as this "Jolly N----- Dentist" mechanical bank were common in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I keep it around with some more and less celebratory artifacts to remind myself of how far we have come... or perhaps not.

Readers of i-italy have long been interested in the fortunes of Barack Obama. Here is an unfortunate update (to which a couple of unfortunately Italian Americans have contributed)..

March 22, 2010

Explaining American Politics Again: The Health of Democracy

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
People protesting against their own interests somewhere (everywhere) in America.

It is difficult to explain why, in reference to the passage of HR3962 "The Affordable Health Care for America Act," so many people who will actually benefit from it protested...

February 26, 2010

Home Cooking: Italian American Style

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
Brooklyn pizzaioli in training

The Bastianiches have nothing on the Krases when it comes to bringing the family together around the table but I wonder about the Berlusconis

January 14, 2010

Guidos and Negros

Jerry Krase
On the right: the cover of "The N Word" by Jabari Asim

The Italian and Italian American traditions share many common practices, the most important of which for the case at hand is the knack for rhetorical and other displays. It is the...

December 23, 2009

The Meanings of Christmas Present

Jerry Krase
Jerry Krase
This is the depleted basket in which guests to our annual Christmas party have taken the small gifts collected by my wife Suzanne during our most memorable trip this year (quest' anno). This year the trip of note was to Sicily where I visited the village of Marineo near Palermo in which my roots are sunk. Therefore the "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" sign hanging from the basket handle is written in Sicilian. il insegno "Buon Natale ed il nuovo anno felice" scritto in siciliano

Decorating for Christmas can say a lot more about people than the words they use to talk about it. These are some of the things I saw around me during the day before Christmas and...

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