How apropos is Dickens' opening paragraph in _A Tale of Two Cities_ today? I
am inspired by tonight's _60 Minuets story on Sleeping Sickness in Sudan and
elsewhere in Africa. I think that JDG has a point when he says that the poor
in this country have relatively little to complain about when compared to the
poor in other parts of the world. This is in deep contrast of course to his
whining about a "confiscatory" 40% tax rate for the richest of Americans
(which they don't pay anyway, but they get a lot of mileage complaining about
it). Tell me, are there any humans in the history of the race that are better
off than the filthy rich people of our present age, especially in the U.S.?
And are there many, in a past rampant with human deprivation, that are worse
off than those in the sub-continent ravaged by disease and social upheaval?
Doug
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to
Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so
far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on
its being received, for good or evil, in the supurlative degree of comparison
only."
Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities, published 1859
