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Susan Sontag has passed away.

She spoke quite passionately at Vassar two and a half years ago. Her books, On Photography and Regarding the Pain of Others, as well as a certain refusal to slide down a dangerous and irresponsible slope after the likes of Baudrillard, was a source of inspiration for many. When I go into a video store I still consult a rather tattered piece of paper containing an excerpt from an interview she once gave, in which she fondly lists her favorite films and directors. The recent tragedy--shortly an entirely predictable consequence of global warming, already a result of inadequate safety measures, and WTO policies of perpetual poverty and debt--must surely have struck her, of all people, particularly hard.

Link updated. And here's another. And another. There is a word for the Bush administration, and it is Stingy. Also cheap, cheeseparing, chintzy, churlish, close, close-fisted, costive, covetous, curmudgeonly, extortionate, grasping, greedy, grudging, ignoble, illiberal, ironfisted, mean, mingy, miserly, narrow, near, niggard, parsimonious, pennywise, penurious, petty, pinchpenny, rapacious, Scotch, scrimping, scurvy, selfish, skimping, sordid, tightfisted, uncharitable, ungenerous, ungiving, carnivorous, craving, desirous, devouring, edacious, esurient, gluttonous, gobbling, gormandizing, grabby, grasping, grudging, gulping, guzzling, hoggish, hungry, impatient, insatiable, insatiate, intemperate, itchy, miserly, niggardly, omnivorous, parsimonious, penny-pinching, penurious, piggish, prehensile, rapacious, ravening, ravenous, selfish, stingy, surfeiting, swinish, tight, tight-fisted, voracious...