Candidates for Hare's Test

"Basta Bunga Bunga", a letter from Italy by Ariel Levy in the current New Yorker.  It is about Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and whether Italians have had enough of him and the culture he embodies.  Is it just an Italian billionaire's culture or endemic to our world?  Berlusconi has a number of TV shows and a number of young, buxom, inexperienced women from his TV shows are given important government posts.  The author describes some Berlusconi shows. This is one of  them: "Scherzi a Parte," a woman in her underpants hangs from a meat hook alongside hundreds of hams as a man in a butchers costume stamps a sell-by date on her behind."
When the author suggests that she meet with the Prime Minister for an interview, Berlusconi's close friend advises her that she would first need plastic surgery to roughen up her looks so then the Prime minister would keep his hands to himself.   
Again in the article: "Until 1981, 'a crime of honor' that is killing your wife for being unfaithful or your sister for having premarital sex could be treated as a lesser offense than other murders; as late as 2007 a man in Palermo was sentenced to just 2 days in jail for murdering his wife after his children testified that she had been disrespectful to him". 
In a related news, NYC Hotel Maids in two hotels that have recently been in the news will now be allowed to wear an intercom buzzer in case while visiting a guest, especially French billionaires, in their room they need "back-up".
From the Tao:

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.