La Dolce Vita art and culture in Italy

This article comes from the online journal, the Huffington Post,  always an interesting read on just about any subject, current or otherwise, you could imagine.  In pursuit of “the sweet life”, travel to Italy in terms of art, culture, cuisine, wine, design and beautiful people, will surely fit the bill and satisfy the heart’s desire.  Just a summary of this article follows.  If you want to read the rest and view the beautiful photographs within the article, you’ll have to drop by the Huffington Post.

Culture Zohn: Roman Holiday Meets La Dolce Vita — American Academy Style

“We all have a fantasy about taking off for six months or a year, getting away from the grind in order to have the time to muse and contemplate. We know we would be the better for it, our ideas sharper, our vision about our work clearer. We might even finish the thing we had started and put away in the drawer or begin the thing we had made notes on or sketches for and put away in the drawer, the famous drawer that like the Bocca della verita threatens to suck up whatever lies are put inside its cold, imposing mouth.

Most of us, alas, have not had the chance to do that.

Some very lucky, very talented people do, however. Though there are writers and artists colonies of all stripes, there could be none more achingly beautiful or more intellectually dynamic than the American Academy in Rome. Long a secret of architects and designers who were annointed early on in their careers with fellowships and who come back to occasionally to refuel, the Academy is gradually widening its net, this year including an engineer and a dancer and those of us who can only afford a month or a few months, yet want somehow to stop the world so we can get off.

As far back as 1666 when the French established their Academy in Rome, the city has been serving as a tutorial in all things classical, when the Grand Tour stop in Italy was the Alpha and the Omega of culture; if you walk near the Mussolini-style Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna or the Villa Giulia designed by Vignola, you can see the enormous Academy buildings from many nations in all their faded splendor.

None come close to the splendor of the American Academy, founded in the early twentieth century and its magnificently restored Villa Aurelia.

The fellowships given each year are hotly contested and with good reason; you only have to spend an afternoon or a lunch at the long refectory tables dining on Alice Waters inflected cuisine or spend a hushed moment in one of the multi-storied windowed studios or take a walk in the sublime gardens or grab a Campari or espresso at the Bar to know that you have achieved paradise.”

Read the rest of this story here

Somer Thompson – How the Police Found Her

The tragic news story of the murder of a little girl named Somer Thompson is one of the current news stories in the online news  today.  Read the article below from CBC news.

How Police Found Somer Thompson and How They Hope to Catch Her Killer

ORANGE PARK, Fla. (CBS/AP) Garbage trucks were the key to finding seven-year-old Somer Thompson’s body and garbage trucks may be the key to finding her killer.

Officials say investigators tailed nine garbage trucks from Thompson’s Florida neighborhood to a Georgia landfill and then picked through the trash as each rig spilled its load.

They sorted through more than 225 tons of garbage before the little girl’s body was found.

At a news conference, Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler said the quick discovery of Somer’s body, two days after she disappeared, may have saved precious evidence that could lead to her killer.

“Had we not done this tactic,” Beseler said. “I believe that body would have been buried beneath hundreds of tons of debris, probably would have gone undiscovered forever.”

Searching landfills is common when children disappear, but it is unusual to try to zero in on them more efficiently by tracking a neighborhood’s garbage trucks, said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Somer vanished on her one-mile walk home from school Monday in a heavily populated residential area, about a mile from a stretch of fast-food restaurants and other businesses, in the Jacksonville suburb of Orange Park.

Searchers combed the area before investigators, following garbage trucks that collected trash Tuesday, spotted her lifeless legs in a landfill about 50 miles away.

An autopsy to establish the cause of death is done, but authorities Thursday would not disclose their findings. Beseler would not say if Somer had been sexually assaulted or answer other questions about the condition of the body.

So far the police have questioned more than 155 registered sex offenders in the area. State online records show 88 sex offenders live in Orange Park, a suburb of about 9,000 people just south of Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

Now as the search for a missing girl turns into the search for her killer, the garbage trucks may again play a pivotal role.

Investigators will presumably try to pinpoint the trash bin or garbage can where she was dumped, based on the trash around her and the truck’s pickup route. That could hopefully help them piece together a better timeline and offer a firmer direction for the investigation.

No arrests have been made.”

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