George Orwell in Boston and Brazil

The Persuasion of Power

The dam
the Boston Associates built
ten miles below the great mill city of Lowell
was an engineering marvel
for its day.
And the mills themselves downriver
seemed a miracle of brick
that grew from nothing.

I wrote a thesis once on this Lawrence Massachusetts
hoping to illustrate the opposition
to creation of a grand mill town
in eighteen-forty-five.
But there was none.
It seems that water power springs
from something more innate to humankind
than just mere water.

~Son Rivers 2005

Todays Footnotes

none; The Boston Globe: "Amazon highway is route to strife in Brazil; Satellite surveillance data released in May indicated that August 2003 to August 2004 10,000 square miles of rain forest destroyed -- an area the size of Massachusetts. Seventy percent of carbon emissions in the country are caused by deforestation and tree burning, not by industry, according to the Brazilian environmental institute IMAZON. (para) Yet many poor residents of Pará say they can't worry about climate change; they need a modern highway to survive. (para) On a paved section of road 70 miles south of Santarém, farmer Antonio de Assis Alves, 54, dreams of the day the entire road is asphalt. ''We used to have to leave here by bus at 2 a.m. to reach Santarém by 5 p.m. in the rainy season," he said. ''Now in two hours we can travel to the city to sell our produce. It would be great if they would pave it all the way south to open more opportunities for us poor people."" (link via [again] Gristmill)

more; pages turned: Power is not a means; "We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power."