I finished Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. What I find interesting is how it displays the blatant inadequacies of the Italian justice system. The things a public minister can do with impunity is unfortunate. He eventually paid for his mistakes, Judge Giuliano Mignini did, but the damage he did throughout his career must be immeasurable. Not only that, how many other public ministers operate the same way and get away with it?

The most telling fact in the book, if it is true, is the safe house of one Antonio Vinci supposedly used to keep an armoire to sequester the pistol and artifacts from some of the victims. Spezi and Preston were thwarted in their attempts to bring the place to light because of stupid law enforcement officials bent on doing things their way, following impossible lines of investigation.

I also watched a movie last night called The Man From Earth. Fascinating movie. It is about a college professor that leaves his post after 10 years. His colleagues want to know why, and he decides to break a vow and tell them his reasons. He is 14,000 years old. The movie is about their conversation afterward. I especially enjoyed the part of the conversation that goes into biblical figures. The man says he attempted to affect human events by preaching what he learned from the original Buddha, and inadvertently started the Christian religion. The abhorrence displayed by the biblical literalist was awesome.