Word: forthings
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...century demonology. Unfortunately for Wagener, fate continues to be unkind. His book drags him from the mercy of oblivion to play the part of history's fool. The Hitler he intended to re-create is not a tragic hero but a monumental bore. Gaseous generalizations and crackpot theories pour forth Like beer at an Oktoberfest. He thrills to something called the Odic force, "power rays" that flow from healthy bodies. He invokes Einstein's mathematics to justify his own mystical yearnings and "inner vibrations." He attempts to cross socialism with Darwin. He sees Jews as both "economic liberalists...
...seems a shame to inhibit a good ranter. But ranting is not always entertaining. Often it is embarrassing, even shaming. Sometimes, if it issues forth from a politician or religious zealot with ambitions, it becomes sinister. The U.S. has a fairly rich tradition of ranters, from Thomas Paine to Joseph McCarthy to Spiro Agnew (whose ranting was actually a satire on the form) to Louis Farrakhan. A citizen named Peter Muggins caught the essense of the rant in an intense if repetitious letter to Abraham Lincoln: "God damn your god damned old hellfired god damned soul to hell...
...have to speak about the real anger among black people, anger that can become mindless. You see what they can do--burning people and so forth--and you want almost to abandon them. And then, at the same time, they still have an incredible sense of humor. You say something and they laugh. And even now there is no generalized hatred of whites. There is still a fantastic fund of goodwill. You would think that blacks would be saying that the best kind of white man is a dead white man. But you cannot sense any hostility toward whites...
Without warning, the fickle thermostat that governs Middle East diplomacy seemed to click from freeze to thaw last week. Conciliatory messages about the prospects for peace floated back and forth between the leaders of Israel and Jordan. Top-ranking officials of Syria, Jordan and Egypt met in various locales to focus their efforts on uncharacteristic unity rather than on their sometimes murderous differences. Even members of Yasser Arafat's Tunis-based Palestine Liberation Organization seemed to be caught up in the wave of regional fence mending as they tried to woo the support of members of rival P.L.O. factions...
...speech, the Israeli leader took yet another anti-P.L.O. tack. He sidestepped Arafat entirely and appealed instead to the Palestinian people to join the peace talks. Said Peres: "Come forth and recognize the reality of the state of Israel. Let us face each other across the negotiating table...