Article: Mud-slinging after the deluge

THERE IS something particularly insulting about mud, as the fastidious inhabitants of Alessandria discovered last week. The floodwaters that swept across northern Italy finally receded, swirling eastwards to the Po delta to spend themselves in the Adriatic. But towns and villages in Italy's wealthiest provinces were still floundering in the mire. And in the eyes of many northerners, so was the Italian government.

"You were the victims of the flood," intoned the Bishop of Alessandria, Monsignor Ferdinando Charrier, over the coffins of eight of the 10 local people who were among 64 Italians killed in the disaster. "But you were also victims of a society that seeks only the ephemeral and the ...

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