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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. Italian authorities suspended rescue operations today at the Costa Concordia shipwreck. That's because of safety concerns after the cruise liner shifted on its rocky bed. The wreck has become a metaphor in Italy for economic and moral decline.
As NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, the country is gripped by the contrasting profiles of two men who played roles in the incident.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Francesco Schettino, captain of the 1,000-foot long floating palace, Costa Concordia, is under house arrest on suspicion of multiple manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.
Italians are now mesmerized by the audio of a heated conversation between him and Coast Guard Captain Gregorio De Falco. During the four-minute conversation hours after the collision, an increasingly enraged De Falco orders Captain Schettino to return to the ship and help coordinate the many remaining passengers' evacuation.
"Go back onboard, damn it." Although De Falco's Italian expletive is much harsher than damn it, the line has become Italy's top trending hash tag. Minutes after the audio was posted online, Italians had a new hero. By this morning, his imperative phrase was the new national slogan. T-shirts were being sold online with the words, Go Back Onboard, Damn It.
De Falco is an unlikely idol, 48 years old and balding. He tried to avoid reporters as he entered a magistrate's office to give testimony for the investigation, insisting he's no hero. But judging from comments posted on Twitter, Facebook and newspaper websites, many Italians disagree.
One tweet from Sofia Rosada said, it's men like De Falco who should be governing. Instead, we are full of men like Schettino. A boy named Salvatore Garzillo wrote, the next time someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up, I'm going to say a man like De Falco.
But several Twitter comments wondered how low have we fallen that we make a hero of a person who simply did his duty? Go Back Onboard, Damn It has exploded into a howl of indignation against the incompetence, greed and corruption that have pervaded Italian society over the last two decades.
By steering his ship with 4,200 people onboard too close to a rocky coastline, Captain Schettino's nautical bravura was all too reminiscent of what many commentators call Berlusconismo. They're referring to a lifestyle associated with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, known for flashiness and cutting corners.
New Prime Minister Mario Monti has to deal with a potentially bigger shipwreck, the eurozone debt crisis. He has yielded the spotlight to his environment minister. He is closely monitoring the risk of an ecological disaster should fuel leak out from the stricken cruise ship into the Tuscan marine sanctuary.
Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.