Americana Quotes

It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams. ― Don DeLillo, Americana (ACTES SUD; 0 edition, August 10, 1993)

Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.

The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only. Reckless O soul, exploring. I with thee and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all.

...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality. The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.

De verdad, no conozco a ninguna chica americana que se pueda resistir al acento inglés.

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned and a tire pump belonged to the last man who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered.

There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back—and I will.

The debate over the inherent benefits of Pax Americana should have been settled long ago. But history only settles great debates for as long as people can remember the history.

And it is awful here, there is no other way to say it. But I believe that Detroit is America’s city. It was the vanguard of our way up, just as it is the vanguard of our way down. And one hopes the vanguard of our way up again. Detroit is Pax Americana...America’s way of life was built here.

Be like the elephant my friend - with a strong character and a gentle soul.

How many more, I must ask myself, such perfect ends of Augusts will I witness?

America is a great country, built by great people - you know what made them great - the spirit of freedom and a disregard for binding tradition.

There is an old Russian saying. 'A serpent changes his skin, not his fangs.

Where else but America could football flourish, America with its millions of fertile acres of corn, soy, and wheat, its lakes of dairy, its year-round gushers of fruits and vegetables, and such meats, that extraordinary pipline of beef, poultry, seafood, and pork, feedlot gorged, vitamin enriched, and hypodermically immunized, humming factories of high-velocity protein production, all of which culminate after several generations of epic nutrition in this strain of industrial-sized humans? Only America could produce such giants.

... Pero ellos eran la ciencia americana. ¿Comprendes Bruno?. El guardapolvos los protejia de los agujeros; no veían nada, aceptaban lo ya visto por otros, imaginaban que estaban viendo. Y naturalmente no podían ver los agujeros;....

Oh, don't mind Humpty. He's inhaled a hell of a lot of super-glue.

A thinking human must practice thinking.

Most people think of Stephen King as a horror author, but his best work usually comes with a side order of nostalgic Americana.

It looked like the kind of place tailor-made for fourth of July parades and speeches by local politicians and ceremonies crowning the Pig Queen or whatever they had here. The sun should have been shining and making everything look even more corny, like Pure Americana Extract....

The Joker's henchmen break into the museum and empty the display cases; this occurs repeatedly, again and again: finally it can be reckoned upon beforehand and becomes a part of the exhibition.

It may be underfunded and at times mismanaged, but the [Endangered Species] Act is an unprecedented attempt to delegate human-caused extinction to the chapters of history we would rather not revisit: the Slave Trade, the Indian Removal Policy, the subjection of women, child labor, segregation. The Endangered Species Act is a zero-tolerance law: no new extinctions. It keeps eyes on the ground with legal backing-the gun may be in the holster most of the time, but its available if necessary to keep species from disappearing. I discovered in my travels that a law protecting all animals and plants, all of nature, might be as revolutionary-and as American-as the Declaration of Independence.

The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist as half empty. What I see is water that can save someone's life.

Sólo lo difícil es estimulante; sólo la resistencia que nos reta, es capaz de enarcar, suscitar y mantener nuestra potencia de conocimiento

The Pig Chef was - if you thought about it - one of the more sinister icons of American roadside art. Danny's personal totem. What kind of pig is a butcher? What kind of pig cooks barbeque? A traitor pig, a killer pig, a doomed preterite pig destined for eternal damnation. Danny's Pig Chefs showed the full weight of this knowledge in their mocking eyes and snaggled snouts.

You Americans are a very singular people," he later recalled to one of his friends. "I went with my automaton all over my own country—the Germans wondered and said nothing. In France they exclaimed, Magnifique! Merveilleux! Superbe! The English set themselves to prove—one that it could be, and another that it could not be, a mere mechanism acting without a man inside. But I had not been long in your country, before a Yankee came to see me and said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like another thing like that? I can make you one for five hundred dollars.' I laughed at his proposition. A few months afterwards, the same Yankee came to see me again, and this time he said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like to buy another thing like that? I have one already made for you.

But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [... N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get a French translation of one of my books that says 'translated from the American', I think, 'Yes, that's exactly right.

La gente ya está meneando la cabeza a mi alrededor, y si vuelvo a utilizar profesionalmente la palabra "Dios" en un futuro inmediato, no siendo como una sana y común exclamación americana, ello será considerado -o más bien, confirmado- como la peor clase de presunción y un signo inequívoco de que voy derecho a mi perdición.

All that is loathsome, drooping, or decayed is here.

We'd still be living in caves if a few crazy individuals didn't push things forward - change is scary but it's necessary for the progress of a species.

Individual progress must contribute to the collective progress of a people, otherwise, it's of no consequence in the vast ocean of space and motion.

Taking care of your own family is good, taking care of your neighbor's family is better and taking care of all the families in your neighborhood is the best.

Humanity begins with the individual human.

There is no such thing as “my country”, “your country”, it's all ours.

Use the internet wisely for not just the petty enjoyment of your senses, but for the development of your mind as well.

The character of a nation comes not from the character of its leader, but from that of the citizens.

todos sabem que o caminho para a verdadeira audácia passa sempre, primeiro, pelo fingimento.

Por mais que ame as palavras, por vezes elas são completamente insuficientes.

You have always adored driving great distances across your country; it is the only time you ever feel any kind of patriotism.

American—a child not of old borders and ancient alliances, but of ideals and liberty.

After the end of the Cold War, a belief was proclaimed in a ‘New World Order’, an ‘end of history’, world peace characterised by democracy and trade (Pax Americana). Now the Twenty-first century is preparing for us perhaps the most bellicose situation in the entire history of humanity. The enormous wars of the Twentieth century will be smaller than those that we and our descendants are going to experience.

It doesn't matter how many scriptures you have memorized - it doesn't matter how many academic publications you have studied - it doesn't matter how many pilgrimages you have visited - what matters is are you wise and conscientious enough to bring your understanding in the service of the people around you.

Most people think of the Bretton Woods system as a sort of Pax Americana. The American Century, if you will. But that’s simply not the case. The entire concept of the Order is that the United States disadvantages itself economically in order to purchase the loyalty of a global alliance. That is what globalization is. The past several decades haven’t been an American Century. They’ve been an American sacrifice.

[...] experimentaram o que era estar num purgatório, uma longa espera inerme, uma espera cuja coluna vertebral era o desamparo, coisa muito latino-americana, aliás, uma sensação familiar, uma coisa que se você pensasse bem experimentava todos os dias, mas sem angústia, sem a sombra da morte sobrevoando o bairro como um bando de urubus e espessando tudo, subvertendo a rotina de tudo, pondo todas as coisas de pernas para o ar.

Un miembro de la raza humana completamente incapaz de comprender la mayor productividad de la división del trabajo y la propiedad privada no es, propiamente hablando, una persona, sino que moralmente es como un animal —

It was like hundreds of roads he'd driven over - no different - a stretch of tar, lusterless, scaley, humping toward the center. On both sides were telephone poles, tilted this way and that, up a little, down... Billboards - down farther an increasing clutter of them. Some road signs. A tottering barn in a waste field, the Mail Pouch ad half weathered away. Other fields. A large wood - almost leafless now - the bare branches netting darkly against the sky. Then down, where the road curved away, a big white farmhouse, trees on the lawn, neat fences - and above it all, way up, a television aerial, struck by the sun, shooting out bars of glare like neon. ("Thompson")

What America needs is character - a character, bright enough to shine over a whole community - a character burning with love, passion and purity - a character free from all sorts of sectarianism, be it religious, political or atheistic.

E há poucas coisas mais dolorosas do que perder a intimidade com alguém que se ama. É uma neblina que se põe lentamente e vai esborratando tudo. É uma série de portas que se fecham, de tempos e sítios que já não voltam, e a outra pessoa perde-se de nós.

Credomancy may seek to exploit the human desire for a tidy narrative where an unblemished romantic hero vanquishes all obstacles, but such ideals have very little to with reality. Reality requites pragmatism and compromise. Men fail. Women fail. There are no heroes, only human beings who somehow find the strength to behave heroically, no matter how many times they have been unable to do so in the past. If you understand that, Miss Edwards - if you truly and deeply understand that, then you will understand the most powerful thing anyone with a heart can understand.” “And what’s that?” Emily said softly. “That love is not enough. But it’s a start.

A incapacidade de contactar com a realidade é a característica de toda a «arte» americana. Qualquer semelhança entre a arte americana e a natureza americana é pura coincidência, mas isso acontece apenas porque a nação, no seu conjunto, não tem contacto com a realidade.

You better get it while you can You better get it while you can If you wait too long, it'll all be gone And you'll be sorry then It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor And it's the same for a woman or a man From the cradle to the crypt Is a mighty short trip So you better get it while you can

It is not for nothing that that vivacious lady is standing up there with the torch of liberty in her hand, as a beacon to the whole world - take a look at the world through her eyes, if you really want to see something – and you won’t just see scenery – you’ll see the whole parade of what humans have carved out for themselves after centuries of fighting – fighting so they could stand on their own two feet, free and decent, no matter their race, religion and creed.

Ovviamente non si ha il diritto di dar da mangiare a Pop Corn, visto che si trova qui per dimagrire. Novantotto chili a nove anni, un metro e dieci di altezza per un metro e dieci di larghezza! Il solo indumento in cui entri completamente è una tuta sportiva americana, le cui righe sembrano avere il mal di mare.

She knew that Mr. Gryce was of the small chary type most inaccessible to impulses and emotions. He had the kind of character in which prudence is a vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. But Lily had known the species before: she was aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money on it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her husband's vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form of self-indulgence.

I needed death in order to believe I was living, an atmosphere of death much more real and personal than anything the newspapers can offer.

When a civil servant or politician acts out of self-interest, it's called corruption, but when a citizen does it, it's called public interest.

God art thou and thy will be done.

Burn so bright that the world comes to life.

Corruption begins at home and can end at home.

Good is god and discrimination is demon.

Delusions must be treated with wisdom, prejudices must be treated with acceptance, bigotry must be treated with responsibility.

Delusions believed by billions are still delusions and the truth of one humanity embraced by even one human is still the truth.

So long as you remain blindly obedient to your own culture, other cultures would always remain as "other" cultures.

Reasoning is hard to practice compared to the capacity of sentiments, but when practiced, it opens up new gateways of perception.

The world is our family and our family is our responsibility.

It’s the people that matters, not the traditions, doctrines or institutions.

People are what matters and how you treat them determines what kind of a creature you are - a conscientious human being or a mere human-looking animal.

See past all arguments - all thesis and anti-thesis - all opposites, and only then true productive insight of a phenomenon or a situation would manifest in your mind.

Opinions will differ, but let not your humanity be lost because of your differences.

Popularity is not an evidence of authenticity.

In the hands of corrupt citizens democracy gives rise to a corrupt nation.

If you have faith in all the trinities and apostles in the world, and still have no faith in yourself, there is no salvation for you.

A leader must, not should, but must, act as a liberated human being, a being beyond labels in order to bring real harmonious progress in a nation.

Change is scary but it's necessary.

At our current evolutionary stage, a mass of people is no more wise than a pack of wolves.

Even an orange orangutan can win an election with the power of popularity if it exudes enough charisma, but that doesn't make him a conscientious leader of a people.

The best path is to have no path.

The sign of wisdom is to have more questions than answers.

Birth of a question is the beginning of education.

More than money, fame and even truth, give me people.

perímetro. Lydia move o corpo na direção dessa

Most humans think - "we are living our life, the world is not our business." And that's precisely where not only everything gets messed up, but more importantly, that's where humanity loses the right to be called human, for being human requires possessing a sense of responsibility towards the society we live in, without which we might as well be living in the jungle with our fellow animals.

Dovevi comportati bene con il prossimo, anche con i leccapiedi. E se: a) Credevi che Gesù fosse il Figlio di Dio b) Credevi che fosse venuto a salvarti dal peccato c) Riconoscevi la presenza dello Spirito Santo dentro di te (tornavi bambino, diceva lui) d) Non bestemmiavi contro il suddetto Spirito (vedi c) Allora: e) Avresti vissuto in eterno f) In un posto fichissimo g) Probabilmente in paradiso Se invece h) Peccavi (e/o) i) Ti comportavi da ipocrita (e/o) j) Davi più importanza alle cose che alle persone (e/o) k) Non facevi quanto elencato ai punti a, b, c, d Eri semplicemente l) fottuto

Las almas como la de María ignoran el lenguaje mundano del amor; pero se doblegan estremeciéndose á la primera caricia de aquél á quien aman, como la adormidera de los bosques bajo el ala de los vientos.

I come home from work this evening there was a note in the frying pan said Fix Your Own Supper Babe I Run Off With The Fuller Brush Man Well I sat down at the table screamed & hollered & cried I commenced to carring on 'till I almost lost my mind and I miss the way she used to Yell At Me the way she used to Cuss & Moan and if I ever go out and get married again I'll never leave my wife at home The Frying Pan Diamonds In The Rough John Prine

Ho bevuto fino a impazzire, mi sono stordita con le droghe a sedici anni, sono sgattaiolata fuori con uomini adulti per andare all’ultimo spettacolo del Fillmore East, ho vissuto nuda nelle comuni e ho rubato. Ho scritto la mia tesi sul suicidio nella poesia contemporanea americana lavorando come barista mentre mi facevo scopare sul tavolo da biliardo nel retro. Sono stata un’assistente in una clinica per schizofrenici a Chelsea e capogruppo in un centro d’accoglienza per senzatetto sulla Trentesima. Ho seguito le tracce di Giovanna d’Arco in Francia, preso un treno per Roma a mezzanotte e indossato tacchi a spillo per una lesbica italiana feticista della pelle. Ho preso acidi per tre giorni sul treno da Montréal a Vancouver, dove ho passato una notte con un famoso musicista jazz musulmano che mi ha sedotto con il suo sassofono e le sue invocazioni predicatorie. Ho trovato il modo di entrare in campi di accoglienza per vittime di stupro in Bosnia, ho indossato il burqa nell’Afghanistan dei talebani, ho guidato caricata a caffè attraverso le strade minate del Kosovo. Dovevo vedere, sapere, toccare, trovare l’orecchio. Forse stavo inscenando la mia cattiveria, o cercando la mia bontà, o avvicinandomi alla disumanità più profonda per provare a capire come sopravvivere al peggio di cui siamo capaci. Poi sono andata in Congo, ed è là che tutto è andato in frantumi. Là, dove, in un solo colpo, i peggiori atti di crudeltà incontravano la più pura gentilezza. Ero arrivata fin là.

My religion is the best - my nation is the best - my language is the best - my skin color is the best - and so on. One may feel proud saying all these things, but that very pride ends up becoming the cause of all interhuman conflicts in the human society.

An economically weakened and isolationist America will call into question the Pax Americana, whereby the United States oversees international peace and security, and thus expose the world to the unpredictable whims and values of nondemocratic powers. These are not the solutions the world needs. Creating sustainable economic growth in the twenty-first century requires no less than aggressively retooling history’s greatest engine of growth, democratic capitalism itself. This requires a clear-eyed assessment of how ineffective the system is in its current state, politically as well as economically—and then implementing the repairs that will yield better outcomes. Too much is at stake for us to remain wedded to the status quo. The ominous rise of protectionism and nationalism throughout the world portend that the global economy and community are eroding already. The only way forward is to preserve the best of liberal democratic capitalism and to repair the worst. We cannot cling to past practices and old ideologies simply for their own sake. Doing nothing is no choice at all.

Una ragazza in effetti c'era. Non era ancora in ballo, però ci avevo già messo gli sopra. Era una studentessa del secondo anno che come me si era appena trasferita a Winesburg, pallida e snella, con capelli castani scuri e un modo di fare che m'intimidiva per come mi pareva distaccato e risoluto. Seguiva le mie stesse lezioni di storia americana e a volte sedeva proprio accanto a me, ma non volendo correre il rischio di sentirmi dire di lasciarla in pace, non avevo trovato il coraggio di farle neppure un cenno di saluto, e tanto meno di parlarle. Una sera la vidi in biblioteca.

Las razas fuertes exterminan a las débiles, los pueblos civilizados suplantan en la posesión de la tierra a los salvajes. No debieran nuestros escritores insistir sobre la crueldad de los españoles para con los salvajes de América, ahora como entonces, nuestros enemigos de raza, de color, de tendencias, de civilización. Quisiéramos apartar de toda cuestión social americana a los salvajes, por quienes sentimos, sin poderlo remediar, una invencible repugnancia… no son más que unos indios asquerosos, a quienes habríamos hecho colgar y mandaríamos colgar ahora, si reapareciesen en una guerra.

The masses are existentially entitled to talk nonsense and advocate for prejudices, but when an authority of the masses begins to talk nonsense and advocate for prejudice and bigotry, it is an existential crisis for not just those masses but all humans around the world, with implications of catastrophic proportions.

Sully's, on South Prospect, was the quintessential biker-bar, complete with hefty, leather-clad Harley worshippers, and stringy-haired heroin-addicted women who made the rounds among the bikers. Its décor was decidedly Medieval Garage Sale, with a dose of Americana thrown in. An old motorcycle carcass dangled from the vaulted section of the beamed ceiling, and the wood plank floors were littered with butts, scarred by bottle caps and splattered with homogenized bodily fluids. The only light to be had was from neon, dying sconces, and lit cigarettes. Various medieval swords perched on each wall, reminiscent of the times of Beowulf and Fire Dragons on the Barrow.

Increasingly economic historians can draw analogies between the development of the present crisis and the period between the two world wars, as well as the crisis of a century ago, which was associated with the so-called great depression of 1873-1895. The latter crisis resulted in the rise of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, but also the end of Pax Britannica, as Britain began its decline from world leadership in the face of challenges from Germany and the United States. The present world crisis seems to be spelling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana and may hold untold other major readjustments in the international division of labor and world power in store for the future.

É questão de certo interesse perceber que as artes populares dos EUA da virada do milênio tratam a anedonia e o vazio interno como coisas descoladas e cool. De repente são vestígios da glorificação romântica do mundo e sofisticada e aí consumida por pessoas mais jovens que não apenas consomem arte mas a examinam em busca de pistas de como ser chique, cool - e não esqueça que, para os jovens em geral, ser chique e cool é o mesmo que ser admirado, aceito e incluído e portanto assolitário. Esqueça a dita pressão-dos-pares. É mais tipo uma fome-de-pares. Não? Nós entramos numa puberdade espiritual em que nos ligamos ao fato de que o grande horror transcendente é a solidão, fora o enjaulamento em si próprio. Depois que chegamos a essa idade, nós agora daremos ou aceitaremos qualquer coisa, usaremos qualquer máscara para nos encaixar, ser parte-de, não estar Sós, nós os jovens. As artes dos EU são o nosso guia para a inclusão. Um modo-de-usar. Elas nos mostram como construir máscaras de tédio e de ironia cínica ainda jovens, quando o rosto é maleável o suficiente para assumir a forma daquilo que vier a usar. E aí ele se prende ao rosto, o cinismo cansado que nos salva do sentimentalismo brega e do simplismo não sofisticado. Sentimento é igual a simplismo neste continente (ao menos desde a Reconfiguração). [...] Hal, que é vazio mas não é besta, teoriza privadamente que o que passa pela transcendência descolada do sentimentalismo é na verdade algum tipo de medo de ser realmente humano, já que ser realmente humano (ao menos como ele conceitualiza essa ideia) é provavelmente ser inevitavelmente sentimental, simplista, pró-brega e patético de modo geral, é ser de alguma maneira básica e interior para sempre infantil, um tipo de bebê de aparência meio estranha que se arrasta anacliticamente pelo mapa, com grandes olhos úmidos e uma pele macia de sapo, crânio enorme, baba gosmenta. Uma das coisas realmente americanas no Hal, provavelmente, é como ele despreza o que na verdade gera a sua solidão: esse horrendo eu interno, incontinente de sentimentos e necessidades, que lamenta e se contorce logo abaixo da máscara vazia e descolada, a anedonia.

I give you today this simple principle of social progress - adopt a neighborhood, make the problems of that neighborhood your own problems and work to solve them in any manner possible. See your neighborhood as your very own family and act upon that sense of responsibility and eventually the whole world will have enough individuals to take care of all the problems of all the neighborhoods in the world.

Wake up my friend - my would-be patriot of the planet and wake everyone else up. Be the alarm to the world, for it is almost mid-day in progress. The sooner the humans wake up, the more time they'll have to celebrate together their beautiful existence as an advanced species. And if they don't wake up and keep sleeping, then by the time they wake up, it'll be a billion times harder than now to even talk of harmony, let alone see that harmony in action.

Helene Hanff, an aspiring playwright who had been put to work in the Theatre Guild press office, remembered trying to generate some effective publicity for Away We Go! “This was, they told us, the damndest musical ever thought up for a sophisticated Broadway audience,” Hanff wrote. “It was so pure you could put it on at a church social. It opened with a middle-aged farm woman sitting alone on a bare stage churning butter, and from then on it got cleaner.”16 It was the kind of Americana that Larry Hart distrusted. But at the New Haven tryout he tried to keep an open mind. Of the songs in Away We Go!’s first act, five of them—“Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” “Many a New Day,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” and “Out of My Dreams”—were destined to become instant classics, with “All Er Nuthin’” and “Oklahoma!” delighting the audience in the second act. But Larry wasn’t so delighted. He might have regarded “We know we belong to the land” as a professionally crafted line, as resonant to recent immigrants as to Mayflower descendants; but “The land we belong to is grand”?

The difference between a dictator and a true leader, is in intention. Given enough resources anybody can manipulate the minds of the masses and become their chosen authority, for the masses rarely look past the veil of the candidate's charm. And this is more evident today than ever, as a psychologically unfit misogynistic bully has swayed his way into the oval office with nothing but charm and charisma. So, basically we live in a society where a bully can become the authority of a great nation, the history of which is filled with true leaders who were the forerunners of humanitarian glory and real progress - these leaders were not simply the leaders of a country, or a party, but they were and still remain in the heart of the civilized humans as the leaders of humanity. They were the torch-bearers of egalitarianism and their light spread across the globe and touched countless lives with the warmth of humaneness. They lived among the masses but they didn't let the prejudices of the masses become their own, let alone infect the masses with more prejudices, unlike today's so-called leadership in America. They made America truly a great nation, by turning it into a symbol of liberty and acceptance, and today that very greatness is at stake, as the primitive evils of prejudices and discriminations have once again begun to creep into its backbone, through the words and actions of its very so-called leader. This is not a threat to democracy, for democracy itself at our current evolutionary stage, is a threat to our progress, rather it is a threat to the heritage of every single act of kindness, reasoning and acceptance ever committed in the history of humanity. The masses are existentially allowed to talk nonsense and advocate prejudices, but when an authority of the masses begins to talk nonsense and advocate prejudice and bigotry, it is an existential crisis for not just those masses but all humans around the world, with implications of catastrophic proportions. A leader is to take away prejudices from the psychological edifice of a country - a leader is to uplift a country, that is, a people, while warming their minds with the gentle flames of love, acceptance and reasoning. In fact, that's the only kind of true leadership there is, rest are just uncivilized tribalism that brings along more and more conflicts in the heart of the people within a country as well as outside of it.

DOCTEUR JOUVE AND MÍSTER MAC TITULAR Aquí está el extraño caso que conmocionó al país, los crímenes más terribles de Mister Mac en París. NOTICIA El docteur Jouve nació en el corazón de Europa, cosa que se traslucía en sus modos y en su ropa. De niño fue algo precoz, si bien su primera cita no fue una cuestión de amor sino, más bien, erudita. Por la mañana se tomaba un tostón de Thomas Mann, un vaso de Joyce de frutas y un milhojas de Renan. Llamó a su perro Lacan, llamó a su gato Goethe, el benjamín era Walter y su esposa La Feyette. Tenía un chale en la Pleyáde una casa en la Montaigne y un Nietzsche en el cementerio con un busto de Verlaine. Cuando estaba en la Camus su esposa era Simenon porque le cogía un Sófocles si él quería un Fenelón. Como estaba Debussy, ella se sentía sola, por eso empezó un diario y al final se sentió Zola. Los años van Maupassant, se va quedando Calvino, se siente un poco Stravinski, y muy poco cervantino. Pero el docteur Jouve esconde un secreto terrorífico tras las botellas de Evian que inundan su frigorífico. Tiene oculta entre el burdeos, en gruyère y el gorgonzola, una pócima secreta que se llama coca cola. Cada vez que se la bebe se le altera el mecanismo y se transforma en un monstruo de contumaz consumismo. Se arranca entre convulsiones la americana pana, los pantalones a cuadros y la bufanda de lana. Luego se pone sus levis, sus adidas y su custo y sale con ganas de consumir con sumo gasto. De este modo transformando docteur Jouve en míster Mac se va directo de compras sin pasar por el FNAC. De golpe adora a los USA compras nikis de la NASA le pone Pamela Anderson y su cultura de masas. Después de haberse comprado un doble de Britney Spears, va a depilarse la espalda pues no es un lobo en París. Tiene una serie de Friends que invita siempre a su House para mirar la MTV y en los highlights pone pause. Por la mañana volvía a ser el gran europeo que viste ropa de Sartre y es -gracias a Dios- ateo. Era tan grande su Ovidio que desde una estantería <<¡Qué vedo!>>, exclamaba Góngora y <<¡Te Virgilio!>>, Marías. Pero una noche quemó su nutrida biblioteca, y no se salvó del fuego ni el penúltimo planeta. Otra noche mató a un hombre que parecía Balzac y luego entró en un McDonalds y se pidió un big mac. Por estar leyendo un libro de un tal Jünger Habermás dicen que a un colega suyo nadie lo volvió a-ver-más. Con su Northface y sus RayBan y su jerga angloparlante Míster Mac se llevó a muchos al infierno por peDantes. CIERRE No hace falta que escojáis entre Pamela y Balzac que todos somos a ratos docteur Jouve y míster Mac.