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...immediately put in a place a quasi-Taliban like regime. Now that was also not started by our intervention. What we have done is isolate the hardcore of the Taliban we did not create it and by doing that we believe we have radically weakened it. That does not mean there is no threat of terrorism now. There are too many forces around who are interested in terrorism for that to be the case including Eritrea. But the sort of mass upsurge in Talibanization that was occurring in Somalia has been curtailed...
...ecovillages were just isolated, survivalist lifeboats amid a sea of rising temperatures--the Branch Davidian compounds of the green movement--they wouldn't mean much. But Walker, a veteran community organizer and activist, is determined to spread the word. She has forged links with Ithaca College and the surrounding area, turning EVI into a living laboratory. At nearby Cornell University, EVI residents teach courses on environmental collectives, and villagers have become accustomed to camera-toting visitors peeking through unlocked front doors...
...each other, do a lot of role playing, sidestep, shilly-shally and engage in all manner of vagueness and innuendo. We do this and expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for the plain truth, for people to say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal...
...people just say what they mean? The reason is that conversational partners are not modems downloading information into each other's brains. People are very, very touchy about their relationships. Whenever you speak to someone, you are presuming the two of you have a certain degree of familiarity--which your words might alter. So every sentence has to do two things at once: convey a message and continue to negotiate that relationship...
...relationships, however, that the linguistic dance can be its most elaborate. In an episode of Seinfeld, George is asked by his date if he would like to come up for coffee. He declines, explaining that caffeine keeps him up at night. Later he slaps his forehead: "'Coffee' doesn't mean coffee! 'Coffee' means sex!" The moment is funny, but it's also a reminder of just how carefully romantic partners must always tread. Make too blatant a request, as in Tootsie, and the hearer is offended; too subtle, as in Seinfeld, and it can go over the hearer's head...