Rifiuti

I haven’t been to see any live music as of late, so I’m distracting myself with other people’s problems this week. That garbage that has been piling up in Napoli is getting to me, and even though I live approximately 4400 miles away from it, I tell you that I can smell it from here. Maybe it has to do with the fact that a certain client of mine is based in Napoli and hasn’t paid his bill for four months.

There is so much trash in the streets that people can’t even drive around anymore. This looks like complete insanity to me. What is going on? Why haven’t people rioted? Why haven’t the homes of the Camorra been burnt to the ground? Even in Colombia, the Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar managed to get that bad apple under control. How can this possibly be tolerated?

So now, the trash is being transported through the Alps to Switzerland?! We hear stories of an unfinished incinerator and construction overruns, and other stories of property investment around something that was sold as a “golf course” that should have become a trash dump.

All I know is that corruption kills ambition, and southern Italy will always be poor if their culture continues to permit this kind of malfeasance... and the images and stories that continue to come out of there are just unbelievable... I would like to visit, but I'm thinking that now may not be the best time.

****

One of the things I'd like to see some day is the Fòcara di Novoli, which just happened this last weekend on the 16th. Novoli is on the heel of the boot in Puglia, a long way from Napoli, and the Focara is the burning of a 25 meter high pile of vines, to thank or in honor of Sant'Antonio Abate who stole fire from hell, supposedly for the benefit of humanity. Other than for cooking and this enormous bonfire, humanity's use of fire may not be living up to his saintly expectations.