What the post and the comments miss is really the *true* irony of this so-called prank.

Apparently, the "artistic activist" Graziano Cecchini - who's been called an "extreme-right sympathiser" - launched them as a protest against the appalling garbage collection crisis that's been going on full-blown in Naples for at least six months, if not longer. The irony is of course that I'm supposing the balls then had to be cleaned up by municipal sanitation engineers. Nice... How's that for advocating better allocation of sanitation resources?!

But fear not... it seems that not all of the balls have hit the wastestream. At least some are actually available for sale on Italian eBay. (Just like you can buy a bottle of Cecchini's earlier "prank," the Trevi Fountain dyed red, in the U.S. for a mere 99 cents with $35 for shipping!) For the more budget-minded, however, "replica" Spanish-Step balls are already available on American eBay starting at just 99 cents! So, I guess it's not just "art" or "protest" or even "litter"... it's also a "bargain"! *GAK!*