Liberal Talk Radio

Perhaps you wondered why that fantastic unsolicited op-ed you wrote received no response from the Times opinon editors? Well, to start, is your father a New York Times bestselling author and a former Times writer & Times guest op-ed columnist? If so, then perhaps that perceptive piece about your semester abroad would fit nicely there, nestled between Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman on a Wednesday in, you know, what was at least at one time one of the most influential op-ed pages in the country:

To read the articles about Amanda Knox, you would think that all American students are hash-smoking party girls with little memory of their weekends.

This makes the foreign immersion process so much more difficult. We college students come here to learn Italian, study new things, live on our own outside the American cocoon, experience the culture and form relationships with the people and the country. And Bologna should be the perfect place for this. Umberto Eco is a professor here, at what claims to be the world’s oldest university, and Prime Minister Romano Prodi lives down the street in a rather typical ochre-colored Bolognese house. Plus, a pizza margherita, at under three euros, is one of the most affordable eating pleasures in the world.