I want to cite a wonderful passage by John Steinbeck, written in 1953 about Positano, Italy:
About ten years ago a Moslem came to Positano, liked it and settled. For a time he was self-supporting but gradually he ran out of assets and still he stayed. The town supported him and took care of him. Just as the mayor was their only Communist, this was their only Moslem. They felt that he belonged to them. Finally he died and his only request was that he might be buried with his feet toward Mecca. And this, so Positano thought, was done. Four years later some curious meddler made a discovery. The Moslem had been buried by dead reckoning and either the compass was off or the map was faulty. He had been buried 28 degrees off course. This was outrageous to a seafaring town. The whole population gathered, dug the Moslem up, put him on course and covered him up again.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012
With anti-Muslim sentiments running so high,
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Hola, It's Io
- An essay by Susan M. Schultz
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1 comments:
We are long gone from such literary icons I fear, with all due respects to present companay. A few years ago I told my Riverside Co. Sheriff neighbor I had thought of giving him a Christmas gift of a copy of the Grapes of Wrath; he looked at me as though he wanted to kill me.
We are so far gone from the New Deal Age and the likes of Steinbeck and Hemingway (you know the FBI literally hounded him to suicide). They've even resurrected the Wicked Witch of the North and her abominable Atlas Shrugged! Have you seen the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes! A riot.
The new "Premier" of Italy is a former Goldman Sachs banker, unelected, Mario Monti who will be trying to figure out how to privatize even more of that country into the hands ofthe most obscenely wealthy oligarchs, speaking of people being forced from the land by the banks...love how the media keep calling it a "bail out" when "hostile takeover" seems to me much more apropos. But I digress from your intended purpose.
Nice quote Mr. Dinh, I approve of that one, the humanity.
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