I have just received a letter from the South of Italy that reads: « Caro Houatfeu, for us, Italians, what happens in the USA is a real delight. American and European newspapers are full of comments about the attitude of the US President and his team who are suspected of extorsion, like the Italo American mafia (Black Hand or Mano Nera). An online newspaper has said that extortion will kill the American dream. Poverini! Italians have been living with it (and some, off it) since the sixteenth century. We even have a familiar nickname for it, il pizzo, from the Sicilian word pizzu, a bird’s beak, and the expression fatici vagnare ù pizzu, or go wet your beak (by drinking from those who pay protection money). That the US President would wet his beak with rich Europeans is for us business as usual, but my Sicilian friends think that he is even smarter that our own mafiosi, because on top of protection money, he ask Europeans to pay for the arms that will protect them, as if the mafia would also ask us to give them money to buy their guns. Allora bravo, bravissimo, do we say, what an artist, il Donald! We have given him a new nickname: Trumpizzo. In 2004 was created in Palermo an NGO called Addiopizzo, whose aim is to gather shops, companies and individuals who refuse to pay the mob. In 2006, it opened in Calabria and in 2012 the Calabrian team was received by a Committee of the European Union for the fight against extorsion. The guys in Bruxelles had been warned! Allora, let us all support Addiopizzo, e basta con il pizzo! Cordiali Saluti, Massimo ».