Florence Sparkled Under the Bright Sun of Tuscany

Florence Duomo

After a restless night, trying not to sleep too close to the chasm between the twin beds cobbled together as one Italian-style matrimonial bed, we woke up with more mosquito bites and threw open the window to let the Tuscan sunshine in. From the eighth floor of our hotel, the downtown Florence, with its distinctive Duomo was sparkling like a red jewel against the late spring clear blue sky.

Our love affair with Florence started twenty-two years ago and has brought us back again and again, and every time we have discovered something new.  The capital of Tuscany, the birthplace and cradle of the Renaissance, is truly the crown jewel with magnificent palaces, museums, cultural monuments, art and architecture, a place where the visitor can feel lost in time.

 

Cupola of the Brunelleschi Duomo, a real jewel

Photo: Wikipedia

 

Florence, about 39.5 square miles, is always crowded by lovers of art and everything Italian (about 13 million per year), who never stop coming to experience the sights and sounds of history. It started with the “Grand Tour” in the 19^th century and has never stopped. It can be hot and humid in the summer and foggy in winter but, if you are lucky like us, a cool spring or a late fall are the best times to visit. The lyrical countryside is most verdant in late spring and early summer.

River Arno from Ponte Vecchio Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

The River Arno runs peacefully and muddy today through downtown Florence. You can see bridges crossing the river in the distance and the Florentine hills surrounding the city. In medieval times, wealthy merchants retreated to these hills during hot summers. August is still the favorite vacation month of Italians. It is not a good time to visit though because many businesses are closed and it is really, really hot.

Ponte Vecchio

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

Taking the early hotel shuttle in the morning, I stopped first in my favorite silk shop, the Evangelisti, while David was busy searching for a place to have lunch in the vicinity. On a parallel street from the city hall, Palazzo Vecchio, he found the sandwich shop where he had spotted the night before a large crowd of students, a sign that the food was good and inexpensive.

A huge fresh and just-sliced pork sandwich and a prosciutto sandwich later, we ate standing in the narrow shop crowded with smoked ham hocks, bologna, and fragrant salamis hanging from the ceiling; a few miniature wooden chairs designed for Tiny Tim, glass displays overflowing with typical Italian salads, meats, freshly made breads, anemic bulbs, a message board, and bottles of wines from the local and neighboring vintners completed the rustic decor.

There was no empty spot in this miniature eatery. A couple and their beautiful yellow lab were seated right in the front of the store, literally on the edge of the very narrow cobbled sidewalk, on the tiny street designated both pedestrian and “carrabile.” It was a dangerous game of “watch out for cars and scooters” to walk on this street.



Basilica di San Lorenzo exterior

Photo: Wikipedia

 

Established first by Etruscans, the Florence of today owes its existence to Julius Caesar who built a settlement for his veteran soldiers in 59 B.C. and named it Fluentia because of its location at the confluence of two rivers. Later changed to Florentia (flowering), the settlement was built like an army camp, close to the route between Rome and the north, in the fertile valley of the River Arno. The main streets intersected in what is today’s Piazza della Repubblica, a lively square with street entertainers and a carousel. On a previous trip we had stayed in the four-star hotel in the corner of the Piazza. It was so convenient to walk out the front door and into Renaissance art, architecture, and history.

Carousel in front of Santa Maria della Croce

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2005

 

The Florentines have had a love-hate relationship with the River Arno which keeps the area fertile but also floods it from time to time and markers give testimony to its fury and flood levels.

Among the many bridges that span the Arno, Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) is the most famous. The multitude of shops built on its edges, hanging like fruit and held up by stilts are infamous for its beautiful but expensive jewelry, art, and souvenirs.

Ponte Vecchio

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2004

 

Butchers occupied these shops at first but Florentines complained bitterly about the stench coming from the River Arno where butchers dumped animal blood and guts into the water, and the butchers were eventually thrown out in 1593 by the Medici Grand Dukes. Gold merchants replaced the butchers as soon as the shops were cleaned.

As nasty and smelly as the Arno must have been back then, it made a full come back today. I saw what appeared to be a beaver swimming below one of the shop windows. I can only imagine what the monthly rent must be to occupy such a tiny and special place – and it was like a miniature shop inside.

Vasari corridor from Palazzo Vecchio to Uffizi

Photo: Wikipedia

 

The bridge also carries Vasari’s elevated corridor which connects the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti, the Medici residence. The neighboring bridges are Ponte Santa Trinita and Ponte alle Grazie.

The original Ponte Vecchio was built by Etruscans; it was first documented in 996; but the current one was rebuilt in the 14^th century. It was the only bridge in Florence that survived WWII undamaged. As the locals tell the story, it survived because of an alleged direct order from Hitler to spare it. Its unusual construction of “segmental arches” reduces span-to-rise ratio and the number of pillars into the riverbed. The back shops that can be seen from upriver were added in the 17^th century.

The Hills surrounding Florence

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2004

 

One of the guides told the story of how the concept of bankruptcy originated here on Ponte Vecchio.  When a banker (money-changer) could not pay his debts, the table on which he conducted business (banco) was destroyed (rotto) by soldiers, thus the practice became to be known as “banco rotto”(broken table), or possibly “banca rotta” (broken bank).

We walked to Ponte Vecchio, ever so careful to avoid the speeding scooters, the tourists, the pick pockets, and the kids balancing precariously large cones of gelato. I took pictures of the vistas and admired the expensive “vitrine” laden with gold jewelry, something that insurers would never allow in fine jewelry shops in the United States. My friend Sevil would have loved window shopping on this bridge.

Benvenuto Cellini Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

To honor the great Florentine sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini, and the fourth century of his birth, the goldsmiths commissioned his bronze bust in 1900. His statue carved and cast by Raffaello Romanelli stands on a fountain in the middle of the Eastern side of the bridge.

There are padlocks on the bridge placed by lovers who throw the key into the river under the illusory belief that their love will be eternal. The warning of a steep fine of 160 euros may have prevented some from attaching padlocks to the bridge. However, mass hysteria founded on foolish superstition, still leaves behind thousands of padlocks that must be removed monthly, padlocks that have caused expensive and extensive damage to the bridge.

Uffizi Photo: Wikipedia

The Uffizi Gallery, with one side facing the river Arno, started as a project by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 at the order of Cosimo di Medici to make room for offices of Florentine magistrates, hence the name “uffizi” (offices) but was not completed until 1581. The magistrates’ offices, the tribunal, and the state archives were combined under one roof, with the eventual intention to display art works from the vast Medici collections. Grand Duke Francesco I, the son of Cosimo I, carried out his plan.

Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici member, negotiated a Patto di famiglia, which left the art treasures to the public in Florence, forming the first modern museums. The gallery had been opened to visitors by request since the sixteenth century but it opened officially to the public in 1765. The collection was so huge that some of the pieces had been transferred to other museums in Florence.

A car bomb which exploded in Via dei Georgofili in May 1993 severely damaged the Niobe room, classical sculptures, and the neoclassical interior which had been repaired; however the frescoes were damaged beyond repair. It was believed that the Sicilian Mafia was responsible.

Street art in Florence

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

Uffizi is so popular that standing in line for a few hours is not unusual. Last time we visited the museum we had to wait about an hour to get our tickets even though we had reservations.

The flood which resulted from a heavy rainstorm in August 2007 affected the Gallery when water leaked through the ceiling and visitors had to be evacuated.  The heavy flood of 1966 damaged many art collections in Florence including the Uffizi and inundated churches like Santa Croce.

In addition to ancient sculptures, the Uffizi collection contains works by Cimabue, Giotto, Sandro Boticelli (Primavera, The Birth of Venus, Adoration of the Magi of 1475), Leonardo da Vinci (The Annunciation, Adoration of the Magi), Albrecht Dürer (Adoration of the Magi), Michelangelo (Doni Tondo), Raphael (Madonna of the Goldfinch), Titian (Flora, Venus of Urbino), Caravaggio (Bacchus, Sacrifice of Isaac, Medusa), and Rembrandt (Self-portrait as a Young Man), just to name a few.

Boticelli's Birth of Venus

I was in awed silence as I paced the marble corridors of history and was lost in beauty, color, form, and genius.

Backtracking from the Ponte Vecchio, we came upon the Mercato del Porcellino (the piglet market) where tourists were busy rubbing a wild boar’s bronze snout for good luck and having pictures of themselves taken with it after throwing a coin in the fountain to make sure they would return to Florence.

Markets were held at this location as early as the eleventh century. The Loggia was added in the mid-1500s during the reign of the Grand Duke Cosimo I to protect vendors from inclement weather. The Fontana del Porcellino (the fountain of the piglet) is a 17^th century replica of a Roman statue which was also a copy of an original Greek statue.

Street art  Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

As we got lost on purpose on various narrow and dark cobbled stradas, we encountered phenomenally talented street painters who were using the asphalted pavement to duplicate with so much skill masterpieces from the Uffizi, using only colored chalk and charcoal.

San Lorenzo and the Medici Chapel

Photo: Wikipedia

 

Running from the Church of San Lorenzo along Via Ariento to Via Nazionale are the San Lorenzo markets.  The Central Market (mercato centrale), a two-level indoor market, sells raw and cooked food, and fruits and vegetables. In typical Italian fashion, food or produce cannot be touched, you must ask the shopkeeper to pick it up for you and place it in a bag.  The outdoor market sells leather goods, clothing and souvenirs which are of cheaper quality and not exactly inexpensive. I remember buying here a pair of sandals for April sixteen years ago.

Interior of Basilica of San Lorenzo

Photo: Wikipedia

 

The exterior of Basilica di San Lorenzo is a monastically-drab stone that can be easily overlooked when compared to the more lavish marbled-exteriors of many other basilicas I have visited. It is one of the largest churches in Florence, the burial place for famous Medici family members from Cosimo il Vecchio (the Old) to Cosimo III, and for the longest time, the parish church for the Medici family. After three hundred years of being the city’s cathedral, the bishop’s seat was moved to Santa Reparata.

It is believed that the first church at this location was consecrated in 393 A.D. when it stood outside the city walls. As the city grew, the church found itself in the heart of the Central Market.

One of the Medicis, Giovanni di Bicci, offered to replace the 11th century Romanesque rebuilding and hired Filippo Brunelleschi, the most important architect of the first half of the 15^th century, to design it.  “The building with his alteration was not completed until after his death.”

The San Lorenzo Church is part of a large monastic complex that contains the Old Sacristy by Burnelleschi with interior decorations and sculpture by Donatello, the Laurentian Library by Michelangelo, the New Sacristy based on Michelangelo’s design, and the Medici Chapels by Matteo Nigetti.

The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana), built by the Medici Pope, Clement VII, to emphasize the Medici’s scholarship, contains more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. These manuscripts and books of the famous merchant family formed their private library. Michelangelo planned and built this library in the style called mannerism, with elongated proportion, balance, ideal beauty, and highly stylized poses, often exaggerated.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

 

Failing Is Not an Option, but No-Zero Grading Is

As if adding Common Core to the nation’s standardized education system was not damaging enough to our dumbed down indoctrination system, progressive academics are now pushing to eliminate a failing grade.

Washington Post wrote that, in Maryland, “Prince George’s County is weighing in changes that would soften its stance towards late work and bar teachers from giving students zeroes for assignments.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-it-becoming-too-hard-to-fail-schools-are-shifting-toward-no-zero-grading-policies/2016/07/05/3c464f5e-3cb0-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html

As Washington Post reported, “The county has long languished as one of the worst-performing school districts in the state, but it has seen modest improvement in a number of academic measures in recent years.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/high-school-graduation-rates-fall-in-prince-georges-county-but-improve-statewide/2013/10/30/0fb73298-417f-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html

Progressive are now wrestling with the idea of socially-engineering school grades to help with the social promotion of more students because academics, in their finite wisdom, cannot decide if grades should show:

1.      Punishment

2.      Motivation

3.      Representation of what a student has learned or not learned in class.

In Virginia’s Fairfax County Schools, one of the largest school systems in our nation, a new policy dictates that no middle and high school students can earn a lower score of 50 if “they make a reasonable attempt to complete work.” The problem is, who decides what is ‘reasonable attempt,’ what is the exact definition, and how will it be measured.

How subjective will this evaluation be and what do the rest of the students think who have actually done their work on time and how does it devalue their efforts? In the end, why try at all if failing students will be passed anyway?

High school teachers, who were going to fail a student, had to reevaluate the grade by using “quality points,” changing an F into something else, less damaging to the student. In other words, let’s give Johnny an award for just walking across the stage without tripping too many times.

In Prince George’s County in Maryland, administrators are limiting failing grades to 50 percent minimum when the student shows a “good-faith effort,” another subjective evaluation. What is “good faith?”

Educators who have contributed continuously to the demise of our education system believe that rewarding failure actually helps students climb out of mathematical doom and prevent them from dropping out before graduation. What is the point of graduating someone who has learned precious nothing, can barely read or write, but was socially promoted?

Good teachers know that grades can be a wonderful tool to motivate a student to try harder, to be more diligent, and thus prepare them for college and work. Hiding failure by boosting unearned grades is a disservice to students who do not have basic subject matter knowledge to succeed later on in life or in college and a disservice to the other students who actually work hard to earn their grades and might eventually put forth less effort themselves.

The leftist academics argue that “not everyone learns the same way or at the same pace,” which is true, however, let’s not mix ‘how one learns’ with ‘completing assignments on time’ and ‘performing well or poorly on tests.’

Michael Petrilli, president of the Fordham Institute, said, “It reflects the soft bigotry of low expectations around student effort and student behavior.” Students learn fast that “hard work and homework are not important.” He continues, “Is it because we think certain groups of kids aren’t capable of them?”

Rick Wormeli said that test retakes and changing the grading system are being considered at more than half of U.S. schools. Some educators believe that “a score of zero is mathematically unjust.”

Gregory Hood, principal of James Madison High School in Fairfax County said, “A zero provides no information about what a student has learned, and it negatively impacts a student’s grade when averaged with other grades.”

I would like to elucidate his quandary, it’s quite simple to understand – the student has learned nothing in that assignment therefore his knowledge is worth zero. And yes, a zero on an assignment does change a student’s overall grade, and it should, it does not “distort” a student’s grade, it merely reflects the lack of effort and of learning. Furthermore, one poor grade is not impossible to overcome.

Some schools base grading on standards, on what students actually learn, not on work habits, student effort, punctuality, or homework. Fairfax County permits students to turn in work late, retake major exams if the score is below 80, and homework can only count 10 percent of a student’s grade.  In other counties behavior and attendance are not factors in grades.

Some college classes require attendance and a certain number of absences will severely affect a student’s grade. Why would you pay so much tuition to learn and then skip classes? On the other hand, if you have a progressive teacher who brings his/her ideology and political affiliation to class and punishes students who dare to show their divergent views and beliefs, why come to class to be subjected to harassment every time?

Ultimately lazy students will learn to “game the system” and manage to pass without much effort.

As a former teacher, I believe that grades should reflect a student’s work ethic, habits, preparation for class, oral participation in class, and turning in work on time because meeting deadlines and a good work ethic, whether academic or not are part of the fabric of a future adult in the real world who must be accountable for their actions. There are not many re-dos for botched jobs that cost lives and money in the real world. An incompetent person is usually fired.

Thomas R. Guskey, Professor of Education, suggested a new grading system. One grade should be for ‘content mastery’ and another grade for ‘process criteria,’ such as student collaboration, participation in class discussion, turning work on time, etc.

I would like to be treated by a doctor who excelled at ‘content mastery’ and skill rather than collaboration or participation in classroom discussion that is many times counterproductive to learning when students stray from the topic at hand because they want to kill time before the bell rings.

Theresa Mitchell Dudley, president of Prince George’s County Educators’ Association, is quoted as saying, “We have no problem being fair to students. But if they are not doing the work and not performing, and we give them a grade they did not earn, how does that make them college and career ready?”

Let’s make the grades soar through these half-baked ideas, while the students’ actual achievement will plummet and schools will become even more mediocre than they really are.

Do we want EMTs and police to arrive late because that’s the work ethic they learned in school? Do we redo a collapsed bridge built by people who failed at simple mathematical calculations and measured something incorrectly or made a mixture of concrete too brittle?

Ultimately, this new grading policy trend is intended to further erode society by teaching students to avoid accountability, which is now an endemic problem in our country, and to promote mediocrity, negligence, and indolence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next Stop in Tuscany, Florence

View from our hotel of Florence
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

We made it to the ultra-modern four-star Hilton Hotel on the outskirts of Florence which was no small feat in the slow rush hour traffic.  The roads and ramps are so much narrower in Italy, that I am positive an 18-wheeler would not be able to maneuver the turns and the exits. We were assigned a room on the 8^th floor with a gorgeous view of downtown Florence and the Duomo. 

The bed was maddening, the joining of two twin beds on the same frame which worked fine as long as neither one of us fell in the crack in the middle. The fancy marble shower leaked copiously through the glass enclosure. The bathroom had a bizarre feature; I am not talking about the ever-present and annoying bidet but a sliding partial wall that revealed a glassed window from the bedroom into the shower. It was a peeping Tom meets modernity for the sake of adding more glass into the décor and perhaps an illusion of spaciousness.

To make matters worse, that night we got bitten by mosquitoes while sleeping. Who would have thought that mosquitoes could fly that high up? Perhaps we would not have cracked the window to get some fresh air and much-needed coolness as the A/C was tied-to a smart meter tightly controlled from the reception, a balmy 26 degrees Celsius.

Interior of the gorgeous ceilings in Palazzo Vecchio seen through a window

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

An elegant and smiling reception clerk apologized the next day and brought up delicious chocolate and a plug-in with a chemical repellent. An elegant note suggested that we should keep the windows closed at all times.  Apparently Florence was built on a swamp and mosquitoes have been a problem through the centuries. Some of the Medici members who were reputed to have been poisoned actually died of malaria; scientists found out through DNA analysis of the remains of two of the Medicis entombed in a church.

David Wikipedia

That evening we took the 6:30 p.m. hotel shuttle to downtown with numerous magpies who talked incessantly like children who escaped parental supervision.  They were dressed up to the nines in their tightest clothes possible. They were in town for a conference on May 5-7, the State of the Union, Women in Europe and the World, and were going to dinner together. One lady nearby told me that Prime Minister Rienzi was going to address them the next day at 7 p.m. in Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria.

As I spoke to three young men whom I stopped later in the piazza, I found out that one talk did address the problem of European women raped by the influx of Middle Eastern refugees allowed into the country by their own government who were willing to change the face of Europe and Islamize it. The speech was allegedly posted to the website.

The bus dropped us and picked us up at the train station, a bustling sea of travelers from around Europe who were taking fast trains in various directions. We had to walk a good distance from the train station to the old downtown, past the beautiful marbled and well-lit Duomo. The EU tourists had thickened even though it was early evening.  

Via dei Calzaiuoli  Photo: Wikipedia

I could tell the locals by the way they walked, hurriedly and with a purpose, on the edge of the street, in perfectly matched and artsy designer clothes, carrying a fashionable Italian leather briefcase, and wearing uncomfortable-looking but beautifully crafted shoes meant to be showy, not utilitarian.

A self-respecting Italian would never be caught in a pair of Nike tennis shoes. Clownish-looking shoes resembling our bowling shoes were an aesthetic expression only fashionistas could understand.

The ever-present Italian silk scarf was elegantly tied around their necks even though sometimes it was not cold enough to justify wearing a scarf. If you wanted to look Italian, you could not possibly leave home without a scarf or a shawl, it was an essential accessory, especially around Milan and Venice where the weather could turn on a dime.

My silk scarf shop that looked like a prison on the outside

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

Our favorite gelateria on Via dei Calzoiuoli

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

Piazza della Signoria at dusk

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

The street to the left of Palazzo Vecchio with the three gentlemen I interviewed

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

The Piazza with the Duomo at night

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

Shops were closed, the streets are rolled up early in Florence too, save for gelaterias and a few restaurants that catered to tourists. The locals eat in out of the way places where tourists seldom venture and the owners charge a cover if they agree magnanimously to serve you. If they don’t, the chef with hairy arms and starched white coat and hat may get upset. Our favorite gelateria, on Via dei Calzaiuoli still served the best gelato in oversized cups.

 Photo: Wikipedia

Via dei Calzaiuoli connects the famous piazza del Duomo with the Piazza della Signoria.

We found the tiny silk scarf shop I discovered twenty years ago called Evangelisti but it was closed. Italians workday is much shorter than our traditional eight-hour day. Italians know rest and take pride in their two-hour siesta, riposare dopo pranzo.

The evening ended at the outdoor restaurant Il David, by the heating lamps casting a glow on the Loggia with its beautiful statues, right across from the replica of the famous statue of David, currently housed in the Galleria dell’ Accademia.  Michelangelo’s original statue of David was placed initially outside the Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the Republic’s defiance of the tyrannical Medici family.

Turtle and Rider statue in Piazza della Signoria

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

In the center of Piazza della Signoria, was a gaudy temporary piece of art made of shiny rose metal, a man riding a turtle.  The piece was a strident expression of modern art meets tasteless, in sharp contrast to the beauty surrounding it.

Giambologna’s equestrian statue of Duke Cosimo I (1595), celebrates the man who brought the entire Tuscany under Medici military rule, while Ammannati’s Nettuno (1575) revels in the Medici’s maritime successes.

Loggia dei Lanzi

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

Photo: Wikipedia

 

Loggia della Signoria (Loggia dei Lanzi), with wide arches designed by Benci di Cione and Simone di Francesco Talenti (1376-1382), is an open air art gallery of antique and Renaissance art with beautiful original sculptures and copies. It is told that Michelangelo had proposed the construction of such arches all around Piazza della Signoria. The terrace was used by Medici princes to watch public ceremonies in the square and to watch Gonfaloniers and Priors being sworn into office.

The name Loggia dei Lanzi goes back to the rule of Grand Duke Cosimo I. His landknechts (lanzichenecchi, short lanzi) were German mercenary pikemen who were housed in the Loggia.

Photo: Wikipedia

One of the statues by Cellini which took almost ten years to complete (1554), Perseus, is holding in one hand Medusa’s head dripping blood and a lance in another, an alleged reminder of what could have happened to those who crossed the Medici family and its rule. The intricately carved marble pedestal displays bronze statuettes of Jupiter, Mercury, Minerva, and Danae.  In his autobiography, Cellini described how the melting furnace got overheated while he was casting the bronze, spoiling the process. Cellini fed the furnace with his own household furniture and with 200 pewter dishes, plates, pots, and pans, successfully restarting the bronze flow.  When the bronze cooled, the statue was finished except for three toes on the right foot which were added later.

Neptune Fountain

Photo: Ileana 2016

Palazzo Vecchio façade

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

 

The Medici lion

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

On the right side of David, the Medici family appropriated and placed Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus (1534) to demonstrate their power upon return from exile. A Medici lion and Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabines completes the statuary of the Loggia. It was carved from an “imperfect block of white marble, the largest block ever transported to Florence.” The beautiful statue placed in the Loggia since 1583, can be admired from all sides. The marble pedestal is also decorated by bronze bas-reliefs with the same theme.

Michelangelo's David outside Palazzo Vecchio

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

Giambologna’s marble statue, Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus (1599), was placed in the Loggia in 1841.  Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus, discovered in Rome, stood originally at the southern end of Ponte Vecchio.

Corner of Palazzo Vecchio Photo: Ileana 2016

 

The back of the Loggia has five marble female statues and the statue of a barbarian prisoner from the Hadrian or Trajan’s era, discovered in Rome in 1541 and housed at the Medici villa in Rome since 1584 until brought to the Loggia in 1789.

Uffizi middle courtyard that separates the two wings

Photo: Ileana 2016

 

On the left side of the Loggia, crowded very close to the Palazzo Vecchio, leaving just a narrow street in the middle, is the Uffizi palace, harder to see in the low lit surroundings.

Utterly exhausted, we trudged our way back to the train station for the 10:45 p.m. shuttle pick up for Hilton hotel.  I will continue the exploration of Florence after a good night’s rest.

 

 

Big Brother of Smarter Planet, Smarter Cities

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2009

IBM has a vision for you, Mr. and Mrs. Global Citizen, a vision for Smarter Cities around the globe. You have not been consulted about it but you will be subjected to their vision whether you agree to it or not. And if you want to learn more about IBM’s international effort to build “a Smarter Planet, Smarter Cities,” in preparation for what they dubbed, “the cognitive era,” you can read more about it here. http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_cities/overview/

IBM aligned its philanthropic pockets with the plan to build a Smarter Planet. Some goals mirror U.N.’s Agenda 2030 seventeen stated goals for the globe. http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

Following a revelation in November 2008 that the planet is becoming smarter, “IBM began a conversation” about things that make the world work, cars, appliances, roadways, power grids, clothes, natural systems such as agriculture and waterways, and many other things that need to be mined and controlled through data and information systems.

“IBM is committed to a vision of Smarter Cities as a vital component of building a Smarter Planet. A Smarter City uses technology to transform its core systems and optimize finite resources. At the highest level of maturity, a Smarter City is a knowledge-based system that provides real-time insights to stakeholders as well as enabling decision-makers to manage the city’s subsystems proactively.”

“IBM Corporate Citizenship has launched the Smarter Cities Challenge to help 100 cities around the world become smarter through grants of IBM talent and technology.”

“The City of St. Louis is one of the 24 cities [U.S.] to earn a grant from IBM as part of that company’s philanthropic efforts to build a Smarter Planet. IBM’s Smarter Cities-Challenge aims to contribute to the improvement of high-potential cities around the world.”

The IBM 6-member team identified the “public safety ecosystem” as the communal reach and interaction of those participants in the public safety arena: mayor, board of aldermen, metro police, circuit attorney, clerk, judges, sheriff, corrections, probation, and parole, in essence controlling everything and everybody.

IBM published its findings and recommendations in a 64-page paper in 2011, IBM Smarter Cities Challenge Report. https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/mayor/documents/upload/IBM-Smarter-Cities-Challenge-St-Louis-Report.pdf

The specific report for St. Louis analyzed the causes of crime and made recommendations for public safety. Great detail and importance were given to “criminal justice” and its organizational structure, involving many governmental departments. Recommendations on how to deal with potential offenders included “cloud” and “data banking surveillance,” as well as “profiling.” In a global economy, IBM sees a co-operation between non-profits and government with the citizen being the subject of their control.

This website shows that IBM’s Smarter Cities is already international in cities like Africa, U.S., Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America. https://smartercitieschallenge.org/cities

The Smarter Cities framework chart shows four overlapping circles of control that leave nothing to chance:

-       Population management

-       Language

-       Wealth

-       Education

-       Community

-       Wellbeing

-       Retail

-       Housing

-       Environment management

-       Managing crime/public safety

-       Traffic

-       Street furniture

-       Office infrastructure

-       Broadband

-       Infrastructure

-       Securing inward investment

-       Economy

 

To express it more plainly, IBM envisions cities as a “system of systems.”  Independent systems will disappear and will become interconnected, supervised, and controlled by the powerful government that will see in real time how much and what you consume and engage in, thus will be able to curb anything you do that they deem “wasteful.” crime/

public safety

Environ

Education

Retail

Broadband

Infrastructure

Securing inward

investment