A foreign country seeps into one’s consciousness via large events and personalities, mostly, as in war, earthquake, tsunami, coup d’état, unprovoked bombing, Gaddafi and Assad, etc., but it’s the lesser turbulences that will begin to yield more revealing clues about any society. My two years in Italy, I often combed through newspapers for crime stories, for why, how and who Italy’s residents robbed, killed, wounded or raped were always instructive, as were how these stories were reported. An armed robber in Tuscany would be said to have, for example, a southern accent. Briefly browsing through a handful of Italian rags … Continue reading Reading Crimes