VLVL2: More is Less (Bush/Orwell sidenote)

[Tim Strzechowski]

>
> Bush: Quality of Intelligence Is 'Darn Good'
>
> [...] "I think I get is darn good intelligence and the
> speeches I have given are backed by good
> intelligence," Bush said. [...]
>
> <http://www.latimes.com/la-071403bush_wr,0,3342823.story>
>
>
>
> "It has become a commonplace, circa 2003, for
> government employees to be paid more than most of the
> rest of us to debase history, trivialise truth and
> annihilate the past on a daily basis."
> -Thomas Pynchon, Foreword to _1984_
>


Interestingly, in a later edition of this story elsewhere, the quote was
changed to:

"I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence. And the speeches
I have given were backed by good intelligence."

and, even later, removed altogether, which brings to mind:

"Winston dialed 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the
appropriate issues of the _Times_, which slid out of the pneumatic tube
after only a few minutes' delay.  The messages he had received referred to
articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought
necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. [...] As
soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his
speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of the _Times_ and pushed
them into the pneumatic tube.  Then, with a movement which was as nearly as
possible unconscious, he crumbled up the original message and any notes that
he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by
the flames" (Centennial Edition of _1984_, pp. 39-40).


Okay, back to _Vineland_, already in progress . . .