To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 21:48:47 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fw: Winston Smith
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Wed, 21 Aug 2002 22:20:12 -0400 "Michael Walsh"
<MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> writes:

> (For those who are not familiar with the magazine, it's a good news
> weekly =
> from the UK that covers the world; no Time/Newsweek fluff.)
>

The Economist is quite possibly the best magazine for weekly world news
and analysis there is.  It's been published for over 150 years.  The
magazine carries no bylines; all of the writers remain anonymous.  That
is presumably a precaution against them being influenced or pressured by
outside interests.

> One of the fascinating things about old Winston Smith is how 1984
> did not =
> predict the future, but was probably instrumental in preventing a
> future.  =

I think that is what Orwell intended.  Another interesting book about
'the future' is Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward... 2000 to 1887',
published in 1887.   A man goes to sleep in a basement room in Boston in
1887 and the room is somehow sealed up and forgotten.  He wakes up in a
socialist America in the year 2000.  Americans in the year 2000 have a
guaranteed annual income, equal for all, and have music machines on which
the sound volume is adjustable by turning a screw.

Ron Kean

.

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