S.P.Q.R.

So I find myself in the eternal city… Roma…

So much has changed since this city-state ruled the world… and yet… so much hasn’t…

Despite all of our “enlightenment”, all of our technological advances… the human condition remains painfully static…

Armies fighting costly wars of imperialism… a quarrelling senate, economic strife, rampant elitism, currency manipulation… along with pointless decadence… bread and circus…

This is where it all began… our modern civilization (if you can call it that)… of course the Greeks and Egyptians might have issues with that statement (and cultures before them) … but so much of our collective modern culture can be tied directly to what transpired under the Roman Empire… and to my amazement, we haven’t seemed to learn from their mistakes…

Are we merely hamsters on the wheel of perpetual failure..?

Hegel’s paradox tells us that “man has a history of failing to learn from history”

Let that rattle around in your noggin’ for a bit…

This place has me perplexed… I’ve been here before… a few times in fact… I want to love Rome, but I don’t get the impression that she wants to love me back… so here we are, at an impasse…

I am looking for her soul but so far I haven’t found it… maybe it’s because of where I am…

I am staying at a spectacular hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps… so spectacular that if I were to actually use the mini-bar I’d have to sell my car to pay the bill… The kind of place where internet cost 23E ($30) a day… where the only way to get a 7E ($10) cup of tea is to order it via room service, who slap another 10E onto the bill for their pleasure… (yes… the trip upstairs to your room costs more than the cup of tea itself…)

Oh how I wish I was a Saudi prince…

And what is it with European bathtubs… are they made for Lilliputians? And why must every shower entail a raging battle between me and the shower curtain… (the shower curtain is winning so far but I swear I’ll leave that clammy bastard bleeding and shivering on the cold marble floor before I check out…)

And the food… what the hell happened the food? So far it’s been watery pasta sauce and particle board pizza… and the cold minestrone at the Vatican had me doing the porcelain shuffle for a good 24 hours… (Damn Catholics… getting me back for a lifetime of blasphemy…)

Have Italians lost pride in their cuisine? (ok… I did have some pretty good risotto…) I lived in Italy for three years in the eighties and if memory serves me, the grub was nothing less than spectacular... I’m not one for fancy restaurants… I enjoy doing the Anthony Bourdain thing… eating where the locals eat… maybe it’s because I’m in a touristy area… maybe it’s because it’s the off season… maybe they think that I won’t know any better because I’m a dumb American… who knows… but I’ve had a couple meals here that make the Olive Garden seem like haute cuisine in comparison… as a corpulent foodie I must state that I am profoundly disappointed…

Back to the Vatican… extremely beautiful and impressive place… and yet… if you really pay attention… something horrifically sinister lies beneath… the extortion of souls… As I walked along the halls of the museum I could not help but think of all Catholic history not represented there… persecution, enslavement, unchecked power… guilt, fear, and punishment… ruinous crusades, perverse inquisitions, the slaughter and forced conversion of native peoples, the hoarding of treasure, collaborations with fascists, and last but not least rampant pedophilia…

No mention of any of these things from a church that prides itself on “la boca de verita” (the mouth of truth)

Ah well… I’ll be excommunicating myself to Vienna on Friday…

More to come…

Ciao.

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