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EVDebs said:
...Hence the necessity for ordinary men (and women) to form secret societies ...

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...and in so doing become extraordinary men, because they're actually acting, no longer content to remain spectators. Unless of course those organizations turn out to be little more than forums for the disgruntled to whine to one another about the injustices of the world without actually doing anything about it

And yet when it seems that virtually every U.S. President has been a Freemason, and that many have been members of other secret societies (e.g. the Skull and Bones, etc.), it's hard to see those kinds of organizations as havens for subversive thinkers. They seem instead to be breeding grounds for the power elite--the ruling class. They were a "revolutionary brotherhood" at a time when they opposed the ruling class of their day, but after the revolution was won and they became the ruling class, they were simply a "brotherhood."

It seems likely that these secret societies undergo the same sort of corruption over time that democracies do, such that what started as a pure idea centuries ago has by now become so perverted that it represents the very opposite of what it originally stood for. Revolution turns the wheel, and the cycle begins anew, putting new people into power and creating a new set of subversives and revolutionaries that need to form new secret societies.

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ash said:
Mr. George Bush senior is one of the board members in this co.

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EVDebs said:
From DailyKos

"... The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is George Bush Senior. ..."

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Snopes.com wrote:
Although the text of the petition states that former U.S. president George Bush is a (board) member of the Barrick Gold Corporation, this does not appear to be the case. George H. W. Bush (who served as President of the United States of America from 1989-1993 and is the father of the current U.S. president, George W. Bush) was Honorary Chairman of Barrick's International Advisory Board from 1995 to 1999. He is not now listed as a member of the corporation's Board of Directors.

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EVDebs said, regarding the works of Eco and Marquez:
I'm beginning to think these novels have ulterior motives. How else to explain their popularity otherwise ? They get hyped and I have to ask "why ?"

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I'm not sure I'd call these writers or their works "popular"--at least not in the sense of "popular fiction." Their books appeal to a particular niche of intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals who either fancy themselves capable of grasping the rich meanings and veiled references these scholarly writers provide--or they want others to think they can Yes, there's some intellectual vanity at work here--books written by intellectuals to impress other intellectuals, who in turn like to cite the books they've read, as if having read (and understood) them were the proof of having solved some particularly challenging puzzle. If there's an "ulterior motive" behind their niche popularity, I think it's simply that books like these make both the author and the reader "look clever."

Something like Name of the Rose or Foucault's Pendulum is definitely not light reading--it's like a very rich dessert that can't be gulped down in the same way a pop-fiction novel like The DaVinci Code can. Where the reader of The DaVinci Code has everything spoon-fed to him by the author--every puzzle is solved for the reader, every historical reference explained within a page or two--more "scholarly" writers prefer to leave some research as an exercise for the reader. Eco will allude to historical events with the expectation that the reader either already knows the significance of those events, or will be willing to do a bit of digging to find out.

I find Eco's books very rewarding, but largely because of how much I end up learning in the course of pursuing his references--there's a learning adventure that takes place outside the covers of the novel. His books are very slow reads as a result--a chapter or two at a time before I have to resort to Google or an encyclopaedia. Those historical references effectively expand the story, helping the reader to understand why things are the way they are today, based on past events. They help define the characters and their personalities, explaining why they do what they do, and why they react as they do.

If I tried to read that sort of novel from cover to cover in one sitting, I'd feel like I was cheating myself (like speed-eating that rich dessert), since I'd be skimming over many of the references the author has gone to the trouble of providing. I might still understand the essential gist of the plot, but I doubt I would appreciate all that the author was trying to tell me--the "flavour" would be missing, and I'd come away with a general sense of dissatisfaction.

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