Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 22:50:53 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fw: Winston Smith
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> 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.

I'll second the recomendation of the Economist.  While they have their
editorial prejudices (who doesnt?), they're enough different from the
usal ones to give a very different slant on things.

>>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.

The word that comes to mind is "quaint".  It's quite useful as a
description of the "utopia" that nineteenth century Socialists were
looking toward.  A lot of ther twentieth century succesors still have
the same goals, without really understanding where the basic ideas came
from.

Recommended reading.

There's also an "updated" version by Mack Reynolds.  *Not* recommended
reading.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."