The people are living seperately together," he said. "So there is responsibility. I cry, you cry. You cry, I cry. We all come running, and the one that stays quiet, the one that stays home, must explain. Is he in league with the criminals? Is he a coward? And what would he expect when he cries? This is simple. This is normal. This is community.

Mike Stanton is our preeminent aficionado and raconteur of Rhode Island’s flamboyantly criminal political follies, and The Prince of Providence is the chronicle of a great American rogue, Mayor Buddy Cianci—a paragon of charisma and corruption.

The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

The photographs of one dead terrorist mastermind carry no real news or information about the nature or horror of war. They just create sensation instead of deeper understanding.

Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building.

Denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many victims, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime.