There were two news items on yesterday evening’s edition that struck me more than any other. It’s true that the nature of news reporting is such that you will inevitably get the worst picture of the nature of man. Crimes and wars are committed by man upon man. It is usually our reaction to natural disasters that seem to bring out the “humanity” (that ill-fated term) in us. Yesterday though we had to hear of the fraudulent activity related to two of the great tragedies of this century. In the first case we heard of how “heros” of 9/11 had been claiming disability benefits ever since when they had absolutely no disability at all. In the second case we heard of how thousands of euros intended to assist victims of the L’Aquila earthquake tragedy had been misappropriated.
Such news items do make you wonder where the world is going at. The world will remain full of criminals and “evil” in an anti-human sense but they will never cease to surprise.
« Considerate se questo è un uomo
Che lavora nel fango
Che non conosce pace
Che lotta per mezzo pane
Che muore per un sì o per un no. »
– Primo Levi
