I heard from too many Guidos & Guidoettes from Manhattan and the Bronx.
I particularly am amused by an "obsessed" I-A Soprano fan telling those who think of the Sopranos as a blot on the Italian Heritage, and as having no societal redeeming values to "get a life"???  Obviously a deep thinker with high values :)
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Thanks to Alan Gerard Hartman of ITA-Sicily
ITA << http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~itasicily/>>

ITALIAN PARADE GIVES STEREOTYPE THE BOOT

Newsday
By Bart Jones
Staff Writer
October 14, 2002

Italian-Americans lined the streets of Massapequa yesterday to celebrate their heritage and honor their ancestors with Long Island's annual Columbus Day Parade. More than a few castigated New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, too.

Bloomberg sparked an uproar last week when a New York Daily News gossip columnist revealed that the mayor was inviting two cast members of the hit HBO mob drama "The Sopranos" to march in today's Columbus Day Parade in Manhattan. Parade organizers told him to come without the actors, Lorraine Bracco and Dominic Chianese, or don't come at all. So he isn't coming.

That made him persona non grata yesterday in Massapequa, where many people contended that he committed a major blunder.

"Not only did he insult the Italians, he insulted the Catholics," since he also won't attend the traditional Columbus Day Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, said marcher Ann LoMeo of Deer Park.

"I think he is foolish. He just alienated a lot of the Italian vote for his ego," said another marcher, Tom Adamo, 71, of Massapequa.

Parade organizer Joe DiTrapani said Long Island Italian-Americans joined in the campaign to get Bloomberg to disinvite "The Sopranos" stars. "We think there is no place in the Columbus Day Parade for people who depict us the way they do," he said.

Yesterday's parade, organized by the Sons of Italy fraternal organization, was in what some might call the Italian-American capital of Long Island, or at least one of them. In North Massapequa, 48.9 percent of residents identify their heritage as Italian, according to the 2000 Census. In Massapequa Park Village, the figure is 41 percent.

With a quarter of its population of Italian heritage, Long Island boasts one of the biggest Italian enclaves in the nation. Suffolk County has the largest Italian-American population of any county in the nation, according to Census figures, with Nassau close behind.

So Columbus Day is no small matter on Long Island, whose Italian-American population of 728,174 is 35,000 more than New York City's. Italians remain the major ethnic group on Long Island, followed by Irish (558,968), Germans (399,098) and Latin Americans (282,693), whose numbers are growing rapidly.

Though the crowd of about 1,000 or so that turned out yesterday was lighter than usual (organizers blamed the rain) many marchers said they were proud to honor ancestors who risked their lives to come to America on crammed ships and then went on to work in sweatshops or even as organ grinders on the streets.

"We're thinking of our families who came to this country from Italy," said Nardina Trotta of Hauppauge. Her father, Leonardo, came to America as a boy and never attended school. Instead, he went to work in a coat sweatshop in Brooklyn. He was 12.

He went on to marry another Italian emigrant, Josephine, and the couple raised 10 children. Nardina, the youngest, eventually worked as a dietary supervisor for 25 years at what today is called St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown. She marched yesterday to salute her parents, she said, "and the courage they had to come to this country."