The times are too difficult and the crisis too severe to indulge in schadenfreude. Looking at it in perspective, the fact that there would be a financial crisis was perfectly predictable: its general nature, if not its magnitude. Markets are always inefficient.

Colombia is potentially a very wealthy country. It has tremendous resources, but its wealth is highly concentrated. Most of the population lives in misery, which has led to violent confrontation throughout the century.

The "prophets" were what we would call dissident intellectuals. They provided critical geopolitical analysis, condemned the crimes of the powerful, called for justice and mercy for those who needed help, etc. I wouldn't personally endorse everything they said, any more than I would for critics of power and its crimes today. But rather generally I think they played an honorable role - and suffered accordingly.

Actually, my first article, it wasn't about the anarchists; it was about the fall of Barcelona and the spread of fascism over Europe, which was frightening. But a couple of years later I became interested in the anarchist movement.

The government of Rwanda, which is a US client, is intervening massively, and Uganda to an extent. It's almost an international war in Africa. Well, how many people know about this?

The truth of the matter is that about 99 percent of teaching is making the students feel interestedin the material. Then the other 1 percent has to do with your methods. And that's not just true of languages. It's true of every subject.

No one seriously doubts that if Piraha children are brought up in Boston they'll be speaking Boston English, that is, that the capacities are present, unlike other animals, as far as is known. There's no challenge to the theory - not mine, but everyone's - that the human language faculty provides the means for generation of an infinite array of structured expressions.