The Road by Cormac McCarthy, New York: Random House, 2006, 287 pp.
The Pesthouse by Jim Crace, New York: Doubleday, 2007, 255 pp.
These two recent novels, different in quality, attitude and impact, both depict a bleak and miserable fictional future for the United States in which human relations have become thoroughly degraded.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Communist Party’s essential functions remain: collaborating with the Democrats, serving as political hitmen for the labor bureaucracy, apologizing for and justifying countless acts of swinishness. Such a movement attracts unscrupulous people, people to whom history and principle mean nothing.
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The Jewish catacombs under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s Rome villa are being restored and readied for visitors. “It’s going to take several months to prepare the site and make it safe,” said the head of Italy’s Jewish Cultural Heritage Foundation, Bruno Orvieto.
Sphere: Related ContentA New York Times article published Sunday reports that a dispute within the Bush administration over its domestic spying programs in 2004 centered on so-called “data mining” operations. These programs involve accessing massive databases of communications logs—both foreign and domestic—to search for links and associations between tens of millions of people.
Sphere: Related ContentThe arrest of antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan along with several dozen others on July 23 in the office of Rep. John Conyers, Democratic congressman from Detroit, has a political significance that transcends the immediate event.
Sphere: Related ContentIn the second round of US-Iranian talks in Baghdad on Tuesday, US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, intensified the pressure on Iran over unproven claims that Tehran is training and equipping anti-US insurgents in Iraq.
Sphere: Related ContentAntiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and dozens of supporters were arrested at the Rayburn House office building in Washington DC on Monday following an hour-long meeting with Democratic Representative John Conyers of Michigan.
Sphere: Related ContentThe obvious question is: Given ample constitutional grounds together with this mass popular support for bringing impeachment proceedings against the president and vice-president, why is Feingold, supposedly among the most liberal Democrats in the US Senate, pushing for only a motion of censure, a measure that would have no legal implications and would do nothing to stop the administration from continuing its criminal actions?
Sphere: Related ContentPreliminary results from DNA tests carried out on a mummy believed to be Queen Hatshepsut is expected to support the claim by Egyptian authorities that the remains are indeed those of Egypt’s most powerful female ruler.
Egyptologists in Cairo announced last month that a tooth found in a wooden box associated with Hatshepsut exactly fitted the jaw socket and broken root of the unidentified mummy.
Sphere: Related ContentTensions between the United States and Russia, already inflamed at the G8 summit last month, have erupted over the issue of independence for Kosovo. The dispute is also splitting Europe, emboldening secessionist movements elsewhere to press for independence and threatening further instability in the Balkan region. There is widespread fear of further violence whether independence goes ahead or not.
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