"L'estate sta finendo!" Welcome to another loving issue of "Only In Italy!"

Dear Only Staff,

Having worked in bella Napoli for 18 months, I can tell you my Italiano co-worker could not speak of Napoli calcio without absolute homage to the Great short one! He gave Maradona credit as the single hand of God in resurrecting soccer in Naples! So what if Diego didn't pay taxes. The money would only have gone North for God knows what, official cars, nice villas, etc.

You all have added to that list of extra goodies for the politicos over the time I've been reading the post! By the way, it's pretty much the same here in the states! Keep the news and your wit and humor about it coming...they make my day. Ciao! Larry in California

Thanks for the letter, Larry. You're absolutely right. The Napolitani have this incredible attraction and loyalty to Maradona especially considering the fact they haven't been able to win any championships since he left. The city will certainly be ecstatic when he comes to celebrate his birthday with them.

By the way, your Italian co-worker...when he spoke of Napoli calcio, did he pay homage to Maradona and your pockets when he picked them? Just curious.

Enjoy the issue, keep writing and Grazie!

Rome - September 9, 2010 - Unsafe sex has been rampant among young Italians during the lovemaking high season this summer, according to figures released on Thursday.

A poll of people in 10 Italian cities with an average age just under 19 revealed that half said they are "not always careful" and that they only took precautions the "first time with a new partner".

The study by the Italian Gynecology and Obstetrics Society (SIGO) said 6% percent of respondents do not use any form of contraception. Furthermore, 23% said they considered the coitus interruptus pull-out method as a valid form of contraception, even though it does not protect from sexually transmitted diseases and is highly unreliable as a way of stopping unwanted pregnancies.

Nevertheless, SIGO said some progress has been made, given that a whopping 52% of young women said last year that they did not use contraceptives at all.

"Generally in September there is a 30% increase in the number of people who come to our clinics with unwanted pregnancies and infections they have contracted in the summer," said SIGO's Emilio Arisi.

"Let's hope we see fewer young men and women than usual this September. There's still a lot to do, above all in informing youngsters, especially in schools. We have to say that our public institutions have been quite slack on this front up to now".

In the summer months 61% of the young people polled said they had sex.

Worrying about the Italian people and how they should conduct themselves. "Mamma mia", and what (yawn) mind shocking revelations. What about the study that discovered that 19% of gelato vendors in Naples wear dirty socks?

Quite frankly, we think it's the reaction from Italian men to an August survey which reported that the Latin Lover myth was dying, with Italian men being labeled as too feminized. Regardless, women shouldn't believe all they hear about Italian men being the best lovers in the world. We're okay...nothing special. It's just that we have more important things on our mind.

Some of us claim we can carry a dozen doughnuts without our hands. Truth is...most of us can't carry two and we'd pass out if we tried with more than three.

Why doesn't SIGO perform a more interesting study on why some gorgeous Italian women settle for vile and worthless specimens? How many of our readers have been on an Italian beach this past summer and have said to themselves,

"Look at that! Ma, porca miseria, I haven't seen such a mismatch since Cleopatra and Caesar."
"Figlio di puttana, is she with him or was she kidnapped? I'm calling the police..."

Rome - September 9, 2010 - Italian elder statesman Giulio Andreotti unleashed a storm of criticism Thursday when he said a widely regarded hero murdered while liquidating a Mafia-linked financier's assets in the 1970s had brought it on himself.

In an interview for a TV program on the affair, Andreotti, 91, said "I don't want to fill in for the police but certainly (Giorgio Ambrosoli) was someone who 'was asking for it".

Ambrosoli, 46, was murdered outside his house in July 1979 by a Mafia hitman commissioned by Michele Sindona, a Sicilian banker whose empire was crumbling amid speculation the Mafia was calling in favors and debts.

Previously Sindona had been a high-flying financier whose activities on the foreign-exchange market prompted Andreotti to dub him "the savior of the lira". Sindona died of a poisoned cup of coffee in jail in 1986, after being convicted on several counts of fraudulent bankruptcy and Ambrosoli's murder.

Ambrosoli had continued digging into Sindona's affairs despite several death threats. Posthumously awarded a medal for civic heroism, he has had piazzas named after him and was commemorated in a 1995 biopic entitled A Middle-Class Hero, directed by Michele Placido.

Most of the criticism of Andreotti's surprising remark used this description of Ambrosoli.

The spokesman for ex-graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro's Italy of Values (IdV) party, Leoluca Orlando, called Ambrosoli "a true middle-class hero" and added: "With just one phrase, (Andreotti) smeared the memory of brave Giorgio Ambrosoli, murdered because of his honesty, the same honesty of all the honest citizens and servants of the State who lost their lives because they refused to compromise".

Ambrosoli's son Umberto, quizzed by an Italian news agency, was more composed in his reaction.

"I think the remark doesn't need any comment. It speaks for itself. I don't know if Senator Andreotti's words represent the prevailing school of thought. I, frankly, have the opposite impression. The economic and financial world learned from that affair to change things while the political world doesn't seem to have done so".

But the overall reaction was so strong that it spurred Andreotti to issue an apology, claiming he had been misinterpreted.

"I'm very sorry that an expression in Roman dialect caused a serious misunderstanding of my assessment of the tragic circumstances of Ambrosoli's death," Andreotti said in a statement.

"I was referring to the grave risks Ambrosoli had consciously exposed himself to," he said.

Seven-time premier Andreotti was convicted and then cleared of helping the Mafia but the 2004 acquittal verdict said he stopped working with the Mob in 1980. The appeals court said any pre-1980 crimes were covered by the statute of limitations.

During the trial, prosecutors detailed Andreotti's extraordinary defense of Sindona and the pressure he put on the Bank of Italy to try to bail out the banker's Banca Privata Italiana.

Prosecutors said Andreotti went on defending Sindona even when "reasons of decency might have advised him not to". The prosecutor told the jury this could only be explained by the fact that both men were tied to the Mafia.

Andreotti again refused to condemn Sindona in other remarks to the TV program, to be aired on state broadcaster RAI Thursday evening.

"I tried to see things objectively. I was never a pro-Sindona advocate but I never thought he was the devil incarnate.

"His international activities showed a financial and economic competence which gave him cards others didn't have. If there was no reason to be hostile to him, you could only speak well of him".

During the final part of his career Sindona was also linked to Roberto Calvi, another Mafia-tied banker whose body was found hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982. Calvi had been nicknamed God's Banker because of his links with the Vatican Bank.

"Vaffanculo!" You despicable old man. You see? He's an example why our generation can't stand the elderly generation. You're supposed to wear warm clothes, avoid breaking your hip, keep quiet and give us cash at Christmas.

Andreotti, Italy's oldest statesman, has unfortunately survived many political crises during his controversial career. The 91 year-old politician is known as "Eternal Giulio" for prevailing over Italian politics since the end of World War II...and for avoiding chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart disease and diabetes that should have eliminated the "grandissimo" lying "cornuto" at least 10 years ago.

He is also nicknamed "Beelzebub" and "The Prince of Darkness" because of his alleged Mafia links. Other disparaging nicknames include "The Black Pope" and "The Hunchback" (fee free to come up with your own names).

In a career spanning nearly half a century, he went on to serve 7 times as Italian prime minister between 1972 and 1992, occupied nearly every damn ministerial post, and was foreign minister six times, all thanks to his insomnia and appetite for work instead of foods with high dietary fiber. He only sleeps a few hours each night and spends the rest of his time writing dull books that no one reads, notably on the popes and his late mentor, de Gaspari, who took him into politics thanks to a chance meeting with him at that pearly Vatican.

He was acquitted, convicted and then acquitted again of ordering the murder in 1979 of Mino Pecorelli, an investigative journalist who had alleged that Andreotti had links to the Mafia and to the kidnapping and murder in 1978 of Aldo Moro, a former Prime Minister and close Christian Democratic colleague. He was also acquitted on a separate charge of "Mafia association". However, in 2003 the final judgment in the Pecorelli case stated that Andreotti had had strong ties to the Mafia until 1980.

As an altar boy he acquired the faith that has never left him. He still goes to Mass every day...in order to avoid being struck by a lightening bolt which is way overdue.

"I'm very sorry that an expression in Roman dialect caused a serious misunderstanding of my assessment of the tragic circumstances of Ambrosoli's death." What "cazzate!" Even illegal and illiterate Chinese immigrants that live in Rome knew exactly what he was saying.

Palermo - September 9, 2010 - Italian police posed as patients to discover a ring of seven false dentists in and around Palermo.

As soon as the bogus dentists asked them to "open wide" the cops took out their badges and booked them, police said Thursday.

The Carabinieri discovered the self-styled dentists' real qualifications. Six of the seven had diplomas as dental technicians while a seventh only had a middle-school graduation certificate.

Dozens of cases of unqualified dentists are discovered in Italy every year.