• weinzierl 3 hours ago

    Reminds me of the story of Andre Camara, who photographed a favela drug war in the mid 80s.

    Take away: criminals are vain too.

    • articulatepang 2 hours ago

      For those who don’t know: the film City of God is based on this, and it’s a great movie. One of my all-time favorites. The directing, acting photography and storytelling are all very well done. Worth anyone’s time.

      • barrenko 2 hours ago

        I have to rewatch what, been a decade.

        • noduerme an hour ago

          From 2002. It's crazy how happy I was to have 360p mpeg rips back then. I'm gonna have to re-pirate it tonight.

      • jama211 2 hours ago

        Yup, they want to be documented. Tale as old as time.

      • antirez 28 minutes ago

        Sciascia, btw, is one of the biggest thinkers and writers of '900. It is not really defined by his mafia-related novels and takes. He used to be friend with Borges, and was regarded as one of the top men in humanistic culture. Disclaimer: I was born in a town (Campobello di Licata) near his town (Racalmuto), but I'm not saying this because of this fact.

        If you never read Sciascia, I suggest you starting from his last, tiny novel: "Una storia semplice". I believe there are English translations that can be found around as ebook or used on eBay.

        • null_deref 2 hours ago

          It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.

          • viktorcode an hour ago

            They pushed them out of Italy, which forced mafia to adapt in the US, eventually becoming richer and stronger. A much more powerful transnational mafia returned back to Italy.

            • nkrisc an hour ago

              That’s just the state mafia replacing the other.

              • locallost 2 hours ago

                One Mafia pushed the other out. No improvement for normal people.

                • blell 2 hours ago

                  Why does that anger you? Democracy is fundamentally unable to solve such issues.

                  • Etheryte an hour ago

                    Nearly every democratic country in the world is a counter example to this, what do you mean exactly?

                    • null_deref an hour ago

                      Please elaborate I think there’re quite a few examples that contradict this

                    • trhway 42 minutes ago

                      With Putin's Russia transition to authoritarian and recently becoming fully totalitarian, the Russian Mafia of 90s (with the 90s being the most democratic time in Russian history), is pretty much no more. FSB and police have replaced them in the protection and extortion domain. Thus nowdays an arrested colonel of FSB or police may easily have a couple cubic meters of money (euro and dollars) at home, to the envy of many mafioso around the world. Or Chechnja - instead of many smaller (and poorer and less organized) warlords of 90s, now there is only one with personal army of 40000 and exploiting the whole region in the style of the most cruel mafia.

                      • MrBuddyCasino 2 hours ago

                        They can, they just don’t do it. This is the case in every western „liberal democracy“.

                        • alecco 2 hours ago

                          They just loooooove the campaign contributions.

                      • newsclues 41 minutes ago

                        Modern version has spawned TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Saviano

                        • lormayna 37 minutes ago

                          Saviano is exactly one of the "antimafia professionals" that Sciascia claimed about.

                        • reddalo 3 hours ago

                          Off topic, but I'm always amazed by Archive.md/.is/whatever. To this day I don't understand how they manage to bypass a lot of paywalls.

                          The mystery about the owner makes it even more intriguing.

                          • amouat an hour ago

                            I assume they just pretend to be the Googlebot so the site just gives the text.

                            • jama211 2 hours ago

                              I just assumed they copied it into their own db

                              • moffkalast an hour ago

                                Given to how many people its existence must be incredibly infuriating, it's so odd that it's not being chased down with more haste than pirate bay was. I mean I'm glad it's not, but kinda surprised.