Oh, so there is evidence of a long-running intellectual tradition that is against the war-thing in Libya: "This war is stupid and dangerous for all," writes Umberto Eco in a letter to the IHT, what must be his shortest and most-straightforward declaration of all time. (And also an attack on Bernard-Henri Lévy.)

Mike Bongiorno, an American-born game show host in Italy whose massive popularity helped Silvio Berlusconi break the monopoly of state-sponsored television, has died at the age of 85. Bongiorno's fame inspired Umberto Eco to write "The Phenomenology of Mike Bongiorno," a brief excerpt of which is found above.

One of the major contentions of Alexander Stille's excellent The Sack of Rome is that Silvio Berlusconi, through his control of the country's most popular television networks, created an electorate which would happily vote for someone like him. Berlusconi was aided immeasurably by the massive corruption of both the left and the right, but it was only through his channels' steady diet of crappy American nightime soaps like Dallas and game shows featuring scantily clad young women that Berlusconi was able to coarsen the culture to the extent that a ridiculous figure such as himself could be viewed as a plausible candidate for high office.