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Naples

We both had rather negative memories of Naples from the 1970's.  But it was like a different city.  Now Naples seems to be thriving there is no evidence of the crime wave that once brought the city down.  Indeed there are tourist friendly police everywhere.  The people are friendly, no longer distant and suspicious. The city is clean and interesting.

After returning from Pompeii we spent several hours in the National Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale) in Naples, viewing original items, mosaics and murals, many from Pompeii,  although not everything was on display. 

Among those that are is a large collection of erotic art from Pompeii and Herculaneum some of it from private homes.  It's not clear if this preoccupation with sex was limited to the resort towns or not - like the British seaside love of 'dirty postcards'.  No other Roman towns from before the advent of Christianity remain in tact.

 

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A fraction of the non-erotic collection

 

Everyday images decorating walls in homes like sculptures in public places frequently illustrated some myth and the characters semi-nude.  But nudity is represented in many homes and art galleries today.  It doesn't mean that we all run around naked nor do I imagine did they.  The unusual difference is that we usually keep what we might term pornography in a bottom draw, whereas they seemed to be happy to display it.

Thus, modesty prohibits me showing you more than a small sample of the Roman erotic images:

 

 

 

As a change from the museum we dropped in to the cathedral. It was a lonely experience.  

 

Cathedral interior - repairs are under way to prevent it falling down

 

Among the other interesting things in Naples is the underground chambers.  We took a tour of the city underground including some buried Roman ruins - a theatre at which Nero performed - now partly incorporated into Neapolitan houses. 

It is said that in order to construct the city walls a rather unique quarry was found.  Blocks of stone were cut from the rock underling the city then hoisted to the surface through shafts.  This generated a series of huge interconnected underground chambers that became cisterns for storing water against a possible siege.  The trouble was that the shafts used during construction doubled as wells and as garbage disposals.  What better place to dispose of a body?   Initially there were people charged with keeping the water clean but at some point this service failed and the garbage took over.  The stench from underground must have been appalling.

Jump forward to 1940 and Italy under Mussolini and the Fascists had declared war on Britain and invaded Egypt and Greece. In consequence Naples had come under air attack from the RAF based in Malta.  Following the German lead, allied bombing during WW2 deliberately targeted economic infrastructure including skilled workers and other key civilians, in other words: cities, as a way of bringing the enemy to its knees. 

Although it was not like Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Berlin or even Dresden, Naples would become the most bombed Italian city and suffer between 20 and 25 thousand civilian casualties, about the same as Dresden.  By 1943 there was on average a British or American air raid on the city every second day.  Air raid shelters were needed but the readymade underground chambers were full of rotting garbage.  The solution was to press it down and pour concrete over the whole mess. 

The constant raids had the desired effect.  As it became apparent that the war had turned against them, the people of Naples would turn on the Fascists and their Nazi allies and hasten the beginning of the end of the war in Europe.

 

Naples Underground

 

Today tourists can wander about in these historic underground chambers, on slightly undulating concrete floors, and not a hint of the entombed garbage remains.  Among some wartime memorabilia there are experiments growing different plants under lights and a convent's wine cellar that once occupied one of the underground chambers.  

 

Naples Above Ground

 

We left by train for Florence full of enthusiasm for Naples.

 

 

 

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Travel

Israel

 

 

 

2023 Addendum

 

It's a decade since this visit to Israel in September 2014.

From July until just a month before we arrived, Israeli troops had been conducting an 'operation' against Hamas in the Gaza strip, in the course of which 469 Israeli soldiers lost their lives.  The country was still reeling. 

17,200 Garzan homes were totally destroyed and three times that number were seriously damaged.  An estimated 2,000 (who keeps count) civilians died in the destruction.  'Bibi' Netanyahu, who had ordered the Operation, declared it a victory.

This time it's on a grander scale: a 'War', and Bibi has vowed to wipe-out Hamas.

Pundits have been moved to speculate on the Hamas strategy, that was obviously premeditated. In addition to taking hostages, it involving sickening brutality against obvious innocents, with many of the worst images made and published by themselves. 

It seemed to be deliberate provocation, with a highly predictable outcome.

Martyrdom?  

Historically, Hamas have done Bibi no harm.  See: 'For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces' in the Israel Times.

Thinking about our visit, I've been moved to wonder how many of today's terrorists were children a decade ago?  How many saw their loved ones: buried alive; blown apart; maimed for life; then dismissed by Bibi as: 'collateral damage'? 

And how many of the children, now stumbling in the rubble, will, in their turn, become terrorists against the hated oppressor across the barrier?

Is Bibi's present purge a good strategy for assuring future harmony?

I commend my decade old analysis to you: A Brief Modern History and Is there a solution?

Comments: 
Since posting the above I've been sent the following article, implicating religious belief, with which I substantially agree, save for its disregarding the Jewish fundamentalists'/extremists' complicity; amplifying the present horrors: The Bright Line Between Good and Evil 

Another reader has provided a link to a perspective similar to my own by Australian 'Elder Statesman' John MenadueHamas, Gaza and the continuing Zionist project.  His Pearls and Irritations site provides a number of articles relating to the current Gaza situation. Worth a read.

The Economist has since reported and unusual spate of short-selling immediately preceding the attacks: Who made millions trading the October 7th attacks?  

Money-making by someone in the know? If so, it's beyond evil.

 

 

A Little Background

The land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, known as Palestine, is one of the most fought over in human history.  Anthropologists believe that the first humans to leave Africa lived in and around this region and that all non-African humans are related to these common ancestors who lived perhaps 70,000 years ago.  At first glance this interest seems odd, because as bits of territory go it's nothing special.  These days it's mostly desert and semi-desert.  Somewhere back-o-Bourke might look similar, if a bit redder. 

Yet since humans have kept written records, Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Ancient Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, early Muslims, Christian Crusaders, Ottomans (and other later Muslims), British and Zionists, have all fought to control this land.  This has sometimes been for strategic reasons alone but often partly for affairs of the heart, because this land is steeped in history and myth. 

Read more: Israel

Fiction, Recollections & News

ChatGPT and The Craft

As another test of ChatGPT I asked it: "in 2 thousand words, to write a fiction about a modern-day witch who uses chemistry and female charms to enslave her familiars". This is one of the motifs in my novella: The Craft (along with: the great famine; world government; cyber security and overarching artificial intelligence).

Rather alarmingly, two of five ChatGPT offerings, each taking around 22 seconds to generate, came quite close to the sub-plot, although I'm not keen on the style or moralistic endings.  Here they are:

Read more: ChatGPT and The Craft

Opinions and Philosophy

Adolf Hitler and me

 

 

 

Today, with good cause, Adolf Hitler is the personification of evil. 

Yet without him my parents may never have married and I certainly would not have been conceived in a hospital where my father was recovering from war injuries. 

Read more: Adolf Hitler and me

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