Word: desert
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Rolling out over the desert floor...
Still, fans of Macondo will recognize the magic and hyperbole. For example, as the ultimate outrage the Americans confiscate the sea in partial payment of the national debt: they survey it, roll it up and ship it home to water the Arizona desert, leaving an endless lunar plain...
Gaddafi dreamed up the idea for the congress during a five-month solitary retreat to the desert in 1974. It is the product of what he calls the Third Universal Theory (the other two being capitalism and Communism). As outlined in his single-chapter Green Book, the theory rejects democratic representation in favor of direct participation by the masses. Municipalities, trade unions and professional groups establish committees, which in turn choose delegates to the congress "by consensus." The congress convenes at Gaddafi's whim...
...advantages on the home front. His personal asceticism-he lives in army barracks and rides around Tripoli in a humble white Peugeot -keeps a lid on the nouveau riche excesses that have plagued Saudi Arabia. Some observers are worried about the immigration of Libyans from the desert to the cities. Says one Western diplomat: "These people are desert nomads. There's danger that they'll become disoriented by urban life and indolent with their riches. Gaddafi is trying to combat this with a religious, revolutionary fervor-with unknown success...
...jolly monotony of life in the Sussex country ("Leonard caught two moles this morning"). Deeper feelings blurt through only in a sentence here and there ("Nothing except painting and writing is really interesting nothing can be quite so important as child bearing"). Such revelations are surrounded like desert islands by a sea of gossip: "Lord Esher has forbidden Brett to live with Gertler . . . Fame has come to me with her arms full: Lady Colefax has invited me to tea ... There's Kitty Maxse falling over the bannister and killing herself...