From the parapets of the Pew Center and other such watchtowers of serious discourse, the prospects for maintaining an informed electorate look bleak indeed.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Strange Bedfellows'

Glasgow City Council hopes to buy cameras which could automatically detect unusual activity, such as unattended bags or people on bridge parapets, before alerting the emergency services.

BBC: 'Super intelligent' 400 CCTV cameras scheme for Glasgow

Historians are bleakly recalling the jubilee disaster of 1450, when crowds surging to and from St Peter's jammed the Castel St Angelo bridge, causing the parapets to collapse whereupon 200 pilgrims fell into the river and drowned.

ECONOMIST: Italy��s millennial tangle | The