Word: mob
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...rabbit's belly exposes the wound where it was shot; the blank eyes of a lamb's skull look disconsolately at its butchered torso. Equally unsettling, a large painting of The Taking of Christ is notable less for the sorrowful figure at its center than for the jeering, crazed mob that surrounds him. The same menacing irrationality appears in disturbing later works such as The Burial of the Sardine and Procession of Flagellants - the former an attack on superstitious folk celebrations, the latter on Catholic ritual. In Goya's view, such misguided practices were invigorated by the upheaval...
...reasons that transcend geography, turning around the south ought to be Italy's most pressing national priority. Youth unemployment in the Mezzogiorno is a staggering 36%; and between 1991 and 2005, according to one recent study, the Interior Ministry dissolved 154 local city councils in the area because of Mob infiltration. These conditions have caused a steady exodus of the region's most promising youth to points north and abroad...
...failure of the state is on stark display 180 miles (290 km) south of Amendolara in the town of San Luca. This is the heart of 'Ndrangheta country. The Calabrian mob - whose name derives from the Greek word for "honorable man" - controls wide swaths of territory through intimidation and extortion. The payoff has been great: it has grown into a world leader in cocaine trafficking, with an estimated $47 billion in annual revenue. But the toll has been heavy. The "Massacre of Ferragosto" - the gangland killing last Aug. 15 in Duisburg, Germany, of six young men from in and around...
...that "respect" is often a cover for pervasive corruption. Last month, police arrested a member of Calabria's regional council, Franco La Rupa, for alleged connections to 'Ndrangheta (he denies the charges); according to local reports, he is the fifth regional politician to be arrested for alleged Mob ties since...
Alberto Cisterna, a Calabrian anti-Mob prosecutor, says new, counterintuitive thinking is needed to overcome both the Mob and bad governance. Organized crime, like the politics of favoritism, will wither in influence, he says, when people start viewing it as a relic of the past. "The Mafia, like the old way of doing politics, is no longer able to satisfy people's primary needs," he says. "The trash in Naples is the failure of both systems...