"Immersion in the life of the world, a willingness to be inhabited by and to speak for others, including those beyond the realm of the human, these are the practices not just of the bodhisattva but of the writer." --Jane Hirshfield

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Big Brother Wants to Know What You're Drinking

I often wonder if the many people who talk about Big Brother have read Orwell. Now I'm wondering what's the real point of the new legislation in Tennessee that requires carding everyone, no matter their age, and checking their drivers' license, whenever they buy beer. When news reports (at Yahoo) mention that they've already caught one criminal, it's hard not to think that tracking the public is really what it's all about, not just preventing underage drinking.

Remember that chilling line, "You are the dead."?

Besides 1984 and Animal Farm, Orwell wrote Down and Out in Paris and London, an oddly cheerful report on a variety of flophouses, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying, a funny satire on money and Englishness (and other books I've yet to read).

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