Artifacts desappear from Rome sites

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/04/03/artifacts_disappear_from_rome_sites/2035/

It's fitting that this article came to my attention, seeing as how my last blog talked about protecting sites in Rome. This article absolutely blows my mind. How can people be so short sited to rob the world of it's history one pottery shard at a time? I'm sure people think that by taking a little pebble from the Forum or what have you makes no difference, but when you multiply that by millions of tourists with the same attitude, you've got big problems. Rome recently announced that it will start charging admission to the Forum Romanum, and I say more power to them. Sites like that need some sort of control, or greedy "turisti" will pick the place clean. I'm not saying that we should turn every historical site into a Carabinieri fortress, but some measures, though inconvenient to tourists, are need to preserved history for everyone. I think a lot of the worlds problems would be solved if people stopped thinking so much about themselves and considered how their actions effect the big picture.