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POPSWhy George Orwell wrote 1984 Orwell served in Burma as a member of The Indian Imperial police, saw poverty and failure, but the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Hitler, and the NAZIs, gave him a political direction, and his work after 1936, was to warn against the establishment of a totalitarian state. There is more at the site, with more background. Orwell died Seven months after 1984 was published, due to the effects of tuberculosis, and an allergic reaction to a new medication. While he was in Hospital, writing 1984 they took away his typewriter, but he continued to write longhand with a ballpoint pen, despite his failing health
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POPSSixty years since Orwell wrote 1984 4,000 words a day, seven days a week – mostly done propped up in bed.The effort produced excruciating pain and high temperatures. A week before he finished typing he was still unsure what to put on the title page: ‘I am hesitating between Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Last Man In Europe.’ Orwell died six months after publication, aged 46.
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POPSAt The Airport, You Better Smile... We now know the sound of George Orwell rolling in his grave. "Here's where it gets really absurd. Apparently, these Behavior Detection Officers work in pairs. One scenario is that an officer might move in to "help" a passenger retrieve their belongings after they've been screened. And then the officer will ask where the passenger is headed. If the passenger's reaction sets off alarm bells in the officer's well-trained mind, another officer will move in and detain them." "So while TSA employees are confiscating our scissors and water bottles, they're going to secretly be staring at us, looking for some telltale sign of terrorist intent in a grimace, a sigh, a crinkled nose? Who knows what? In the end, the Behavior Detection Officers are the ones who are really acting suspicious. Which is the truth of the matter anyway."
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POPSVery Sobering Images of the World Today Do not look at these if you are upset real easily, because they are awful, but they are real of what's going on round the world today. Still absolutely shocking though, it should't be going on anymore! Their is enough money in the world to stop this!
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POPSThe Unstoppable Coal Fire Blazing Beneath Pennsylvania In 1962, firemen in the Pennsylvanian mining town of Centralia successfully extinguished a minor blaze at a landfill dump – but little did they know a layer of coal just below the surface had ignited, creating a hidden and deadly inferno that raged undetected beneath the town for almost twenty years.
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POPSSTATUE OF LIBERTY PICTURES: Rare Views, Inside and Out The torch has been off-limits to visitors since the "Black Tom" explosion of July 30, 1916. Debris from the attack on U.S. ammunition supplies on nearby—and long since subsumed by landfill—Black Tom Island, New Jersey, pierced the statue. Another attack—the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001—prompted the full closure of Liberty Island, which was reopened a hundred days later. The Statue of Liberty would reopen in 2004, and the reopening of the crown will complete the process on the Fourth of July, 2009.
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POPSThe ten most influential video games ever Although the very first computer games were created in the early 1950s, the video game explosion really began a little over 30 years ago when mysterious bleeping cabinets with the legend ‘Space Invaders’ painted on them began appearing in the nation’s pubs. Since those crude beginnings the game industry has grown into a business to rival Hollywood, and, of course, has its own awards ceremony, the Golden Joysticks, to celebrate excellence in the field.
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