Children of the Days by Eduardo Galeano Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eduardo Galeano
also lost her life. She died in poverty, poor even among the poor, and was buried in a common grave.
Nearly two centuries later, the Argentine government, now led by a woman, promoted her to the rank of general, âin homage to her womanly bravery.â
August 14
T HE M OSQUITO M ANIAC
In 1881 Cuban physician Carlos Finlay demonstrated that yellow fever, also known as black vomit, was transmitted by a certain female mosquito. At the same time, he unveiled a vaccine that could eradicate the disease.
Carlos, known in the neighborhood as âthe Mosquito Maniac,â spoke of his discovery before the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of Havana.
It took twenty years for the rest of the world to find out.
During those twenty years, while prestigious scientists in prestigious places followed false leads, yellow fever continued its deadly ways.
August 15
T HE J EWEL AND THE C ROWN
Winston Churchill proclaimed:
âIt is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi . . . this malignant subversive fanatic . . . The truth is that Gandhiism and all it stands for will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with and finally crushed. It is no use trying to satisfy a tiger by feeding him catsâ meat . . . We have no intention of casting away the most truly bright and precious jewel in the Crown of the King, which more than all our other Dominions and Dependencies constitutes the glory and strength of the British Empire.â
Fifteen years later, the jewel abandoned the crown. On this day in 1947, India won its independence.
The hard road to freedom began in 1930 when Mahatma Gandhi, skinny and half-naked, reached a beach on the Indian Ocean.
It was the salt march. They were only a few when the march began, but a multitude by the time they got there. Each of them picked up a pinch of salt from the beach and brought it to his mouth, and thus broke the British law that forbade Indians from consuming salt from their own country.
August 16
S UICIDE S EEDS
For about three hundred and sixty million years, plants have been producing fertile seeds that generate new plants and new seeds, and never have they ever charged anyone for the favor.
But in 1998 a patent gave its blessing to the company Delta and Pine to produce and sell sterile seeds, which meant new seeds had to be purchased for every planting. In the middle of August of the year 2006, Monsanto, blessed be thy name, bought out Delta and Pine and also its patent.
Thus Monsanto consolidated its universal power: sterile seeds, known as âsuicide seedsâ or âterminator seeds,â form part of a very lucrative line that also obliges farmers to buy herbicides, pesticides and other poisons from the genetically modified pharmacy.
At Easter in the year 2010, a few months after the earthquake, Haiti received a grand gift from Monsanto: sixty thousand bags of seed produced by the chemical industry. Farmers gathered to receive the offering, and they burned every sack in an immense bonfire.
August 17
D ANGEROUS W OMAN
Mae West, sinning flesh, voracious vampiress, was born in 1893.
In 1927 she and her entire entourage went to jail for having put on stage at a Broadway theater an invitation to pleasure, subtly titled Sex .
When she finished serving time for her âcrime of public obscenity,â she decided to move from Broadway to Hollywood, from stage to screen, believing that the kingdom of freedom was about to arrive.
But in 1930, to ward off government censorship, Hollywood invented its own certificate of moral correctness, which for thirty-eight years determined which movies could open and which could not.
The Hays Code sought to keep the movies free of nudity, suggestive dances, lustful kissing, adultery, homosexuality and other perversions that undermine the sanctity of marriage and family. Not even Tarzanâs films escaped unscathed and Betty Boop had to put on a long skirt. Naturally, Mae West kept getting into
Nearly two centuries later, the Argentine government, now led by a woman, promoted her to the rank of general, âin homage to her womanly bravery.â
August 14
T HE M OSQUITO M ANIAC
In 1881 Cuban physician Carlos Finlay demonstrated that yellow fever, also known as black vomit, was transmitted by a certain female mosquito. At the same time, he unveiled a vaccine that could eradicate the disease.
Carlos, known in the neighborhood as âthe Mosquito Maniac,â spoke of his discovery before the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of Havana.
It took twenty years for the rest of the world to find out.
During those twenty years, while prestigious scientists in prestigious places followed false leads, yellow fever continued its deadly ways.
August 15
T HE J EWEL AND THE C ROWN
Winston Churchill proclaimed:
âIt is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi . . . this malignant subversive fanatic . . . The truth is that Gandhiism and all it stands for will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with and finally crushed. It is no use trying to satisfy a tiger by feeding him catsâ meat . . . We have no intention of casting away the most truly bright and precious jewel in the Crown of the King, which more than all our other Dominions and Dependencies constitutes the glory and strength of the British Empire.â
Fifteen years later, the jewel abandoned the crown. On this day in 1947, India won its independence.
The hard road to freedom began in 1930 when Mahatma Gandhi, skinny and half-naked, reached a beach on the Indian Ocean.
It was the salt march. They were only a few when the march began, but a multitude by the time they got there. Each of them picked up a pinch of salt from the beach and brought it to his mouth, and thus broke the British law that forbade Indians from consuming salt from their own country.
August 16
S UICIDE S EEDS
For about three hundred and sixty million years, plants have been producing fertile seeds that generate new plants and new seeds, and never have they ever charged anyone for the favor.
But in 1998 a patent gave its blessing to the company Delta and Pine to produce and sell sterile seeds, which meant new seeds had to be purchased for every planting. In the middle of August of the year 2006, Monsanto, blessed be thy name, bought out Delta and Pine and also its patent.
Thus Monsanto consolidated its universal power: sterile seeds, known as âsuicide seedsâ or âterminator seeds,â form part of a very lucrative line that also obliges farmers to buy herbicides, pesticides and other poisons from the genetically modified pharmacy.
At Easter in the year 2010, a few months after the earthquake, Haiti received a grand gift from Monsanto: sixty thousand bags of seed produced by the chemical industry. Farmers gathered to receive the offering, and they burned every sack in an immense bonfire.
August 17
D ANGEROUS W OMAN
Mae West, sinning flesh, voracious vampiress, was born in 1893.
In 1927 she and her entire entourage went to jail for having put on stage at a Broadway theater an invitation to pleasure, subtly titled Sex .
When she finished serving time for her âcrime of public obscenity,â she decided to move from Broadway to Hollywood, from stage to screen, believing that the kingdom of freedom was about to arrive.
But in 1930, to ward off government censorship, Hollywood invented its own certificate of moral correctness, which for thirty-eight years determined which movies could open and which could not.
The Hays Code sought to keep the movies free of nudity, suggestive dances, lustful kissing, adultery, homosexuality and other perversions that undermine the sanctity of marriage and family. Not even Tarzanâs films escaped unscathed and Betty Boop had to put on a long skirt. Naturally, Mae West kept getting into