- published: 26 Mar 2013
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Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.
Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945), which together have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author. His book Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, is widely acclaimed, as are his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture. In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Orwell's influence on popular and political culture endures, and several of his neologisms, along with the term Orwellian—a byword for totalitarian or manipulative social practices—have entered the vernacular.
Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.
Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.
According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.
Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.
She was the finest lookin' woman, that I've ever seen
Looked like she stepped right off the cover of a glamor magazine
I've never seen a girl like that in this country town
The facts are black and white when she threw her arms around me
I went crazy, we danced the hoochie-coochie
The tide was rollin' in, I was drownin' in a sea of romance
Then she popped the question in the back seat of my car
"If I let you love me would you let me call you, George"
I said, "Baby, baby, baby
(Baby, baby, baby)
Well, you can call me George Jetson, call me George Jones
I'll be your Georgie-Porgie, all night long"
How was I to know what I was in for
I had it rockin' and a rollin' for a while, by George
By, by, by, by George
We bought a blue refrigerator, satellite and DVDs
A cozy little couch and Motorola TV
She loved to watch those pretty boys with California style
Like a jealous Mickey Rooney, George Clooney drove her wild
And I went crazy
Well, she started growin' distant, I felt her discontent
I couldn't make her happy with what I bought or spent
Her heart grew as cold as the air in the Norge
On which she left a note that read, "Bye George"
And I said, "Baby, baby, baby", yeah
(Baby, baby, baby)
She called me George Jetson, she called me George Jones
I was her Georgie-Porgie, now she's gone
How was I to know what I was in for
I had it rockin' and a rollin' for a while, by George
By, by, by, by, by