merican Back from Abroad // Steven Hayward
You can’t see San Francisco’s poop piles from 10,000 feet. It almost seems liveable.
Yes, I am finally back. Not exactly tanned, but rested and ready. This is due to jet lag, an encounter last night at San Francisco with an extremely moronic TSA crew (where for some reason you have to clear security again prior to catching a connecting flight), as well as because this is a great season to visit Europe, as its ancient cities are much more interesting in late autumn light. However, that also means you don’t get much sun tan. In any event, I’m sending a relief expedition to Scott at Alamo before the firewall gets breached.
There is a lot to catch up on. I have a podcast I hope that I have produced and ready for Alvino-Mario Fantini (editor in chief of the European Conservative), which was recorded in a Viennese café. Because where else would you have such a conversation?
There are a few loose ends in the travelogue. Three observations about Florence.
* OSHA would close down the entire city. They wouldn’t allow stairs like these at the top of Duomo.
The Duomo:
* Where are all the rooftop solar panel? That’s right, this city is dedicated to beauty and rejects ugly.
* The naked Roman and Greek men in all the famous sculptures (David etc.) clearly did at least 100 crunches a day and never missed a leg day at the gym.
A few oddities, starting with me at Nick’s tomb at the Basilica de Santa Croce (Dante’s grave is nearby). I was wearing a Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars shirt with esoteric significance on purpose, as Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag’s Leap, wrote the chapter on Machiavelli in the first edition of the indispensable Strauss–Cropsey history of political philosophy reader. He later won the wine competition in 1976.
At the University of Milan: This is either an Italian take on the shotput, or Marvel’s next super-hero, “COVIDman.”
My point was so important that I had to raise my arms to block the camera. However, the person seated across me is Nicolo Zanon. He is vice president of Italy’s Constitutional Court but more importantly, known as “the Scalia of Italy.” I hope to publish Judge Zanon’s amazing keynote lecture at our conference here on Power Line. (“Lucretia”) seated immediately to his right.
Just when you think Europe has ended, you come across something similar–a paper plate in a Florence bistro that I happened upon randomly. The English-language message was particularly impressive to the waiter, who was happy to hear that it was approved by an American.
