Word: madman
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...want to stir up a lot of people, voice strong opinions on education. Specifically, wade into the topic of government funding of private schools. By encompassing children, religion and ideology, as well as concepts of fairness, entitlement and sacrifice, it pushes buttons like a madman. Which is why politicians have tended to tread carefully around...
...showed off this manipulative prowess: “In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat... And I faced the kind of decision...no president would ask for, but must be prepared to make: Do I forget the lessons of September 11 and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend our country...
...benevolent old man and not mention the Holocaust or the millions of people who became victims of the war - this is a real danger." Downfall producer Bernd Eichinger, who also wrote the screenplay, argues that a bigger danger was Germany's habit of seeing Hitler as a one-dimensional madman - because it lets other Germans off the hook. "He turned almost the whole population of the country into his followers," says Eichinger. "I believe that in every one of us there is something very, very dangerous. Every human being has a side that is bestiality. It was very important...
...literature at least, never dismiss the lunatics. They're often the voices of reason. The Chinese learned that lesson in 1918 with Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman. This short story, which told of a world filled with bloodthirsty cannibals, was an attack on imperialists and China's own feudal system?both accused of devouring the masses. So astute was the critique that the story's madman became a revolutionary hero of sorts, and Lu Xun came to be heralded as the father of modern Chinese literature. In Ran Chen's novel A Private Life, set in Beijing...
...perils of China's giddy embrace of capitalism. Chen's main character proves that it's often the most scared, the most hurt, the most rejected who can show the lemming-like masses where they're headed. And in this case, the cliff looks dangerously close. Lu Xun's madman ends his famous diary with the plea: "Save the children." Though times have changed, the warning from A Private Life is much the same...