The Natural World

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Lawn Work

For a few days in a row now, neighbors have been taking care of their lawn work (as have we). The machines are so damn loud, though. It gives me a headache.

Literary Criticism

“Criticism changes with the fashion of the time. A story is always a story.”

-- V. S. Pritchett

My Right Foot

I did a little 'dancing' to Elvis this evening. "Bossa Nova" will do that to me. I'm starting to feel optimistic that my right food might not be jeopardy, after all. It's still a problem, but I am thinking that it is not merely wishful thinking to say that it is getting better.

Chile

This excerpt is from an introduction that Hitch wrote for Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits.

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But the story is about Chile. For millions of people across the world, this very name took on the same resonance as had “Spain” forty years before. On one side, the landlords, the clerical hierarchy, the army, the fascists. On the other, “the people” in their variously gnarled, exploited, neglected and semi-upright postures. Arbitrating and manipulating things were far-off superpowers and vested interests. My little summary does, admittedly, possess all the subtlety of a Brecht play put on in Berkeley. But sometimes things are quite simple, and even Brecht might have turned down the idea of multinational corporations instructing Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to use murderous force to protect their dividends.

-- Christopher Hitchens

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