{"id":3648,"date":"2017-04-28T23:49:02","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T23:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=3648"},"modified":"2017-04-29T11:50:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T11:50:37","slug":"rome-look-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=3648","title":{"rendered":"Rome: Look Around"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rome: The Good, The Bad, The Heartbreaking.
\n<\/strong>The Bad.
\nRoma \u00e8 schifoso. \"\"<\/a>Seriously. Rome is not\u00a0just dirty, it’s nasty. \u00a0It\u2019s filthy. Dumpsters overflow with garbage, stinking puddles of ooze spreading out from\u00a0the base.I don’t know why my souvenirs of Rome didn’t include Cholera. Bags of garbage are left on street corners for city pick up that may or may not happen. Seagulls, dogs, and other scavengers* rip them open and scatter the contents. I’m not bitching about graffiti or pollution. \"\"<\/a>Litter is everywhere. People drop wrappers, cigarette butts, cans, bottles, and half-eaten pizza on the sidewalk and walk away. Rome’s parks are weedy, trashy and unkempt, overgrown pastures for the homeless. Don’t take my\u00a0word for it. Watch this April 2017 \u00a0footage of poor neglected Piazza de Vittorio.<\/a> If you want to cut to the to the rubbish chase, start at 2:43.<\/p>\n

Locals tell me it\u2019s an intractable situation created by city employee corruption and\/or the Mafia. The whole system needs to be scrapped and redesigned. Good luck with that.<\/p>\n

In April, Rome mayor Virginia Raggi, elected on a promise to solve the garbage crisis, announced a 12-point plan to clean up the eternal city<\/a>.
\nMy favorite unintentionally hilarious point is redefining garbage as \u201cpost-usage materials.\u201d Poof! Garbage no longer exists, so there\u2019s no longer a crisis.
\nOne glimmer of hope – recycling is a fundamental Roman skill. Roman builders scavenged \u2018spolia\u2019 (reusable materials)\u00a0throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the church re-purposed temples into churches and recycling is the centerpiece of Raggi’s plan.<\/p>\n

I doubt a Keep Rome Beautiful<\/em> PSA will do it, even if they made Michelangelo\u2019s David cry. <\/a>
\nHowever, in a world where smoking can successfully be banned from Italian restaurants, anything is possible. Maybe divine intervention is the way to go. Pray for a miracle.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*rats<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rome: The Good, The Bad, The Heartbreaking. The Bad. Roma \u00e8 schifoso. Seriously. Rome is not\u00a0just dirty, it’s nasty. \u00a0It\u2019s filthy. Dumpsters overflow with garbage, stinking puddles of ooze spreading out from\u00a0the base.I don’t know why my souvenirs of Rome didn’t include Cholera. Bags of garbage are left on street corners for city pick up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-rome","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-WQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3648"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3662,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648\/revisions\/3662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}