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POPSNational Writing Day Now there's the computer and the internet. In the digital age, anyone with a laptop, a wi-fi card, and a place to sit at Starbucks can put material into cyberspace. The digital revolution means everyone's an author, every day is National Writing Day. And this sudden democratizing of the writing process generates its own set of complaints: * it's wrong to give so many people access to authorship -- after all, most people won't be very good at, and some people are going to write things that we don't agree with * computers make writing too easy -- something so important should only come with effort -- no pain, no gain -- maybe we should increase the entrance fees? * we need to control, license, censor what's on the 'net: after all, the web is full of lies, misinformation, nonsense, pornography, fraud, Nigerian money scams, and hate, not to mention all those pictures of little cats But despite the complaints, writers everywhere are grabbing their keyboards...
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POPSChinua Achebe: A hero returns
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity...". The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats. "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Achebe was once described by Nelson Mandela as "the writer in whose presence prison walls fell down". "Oral storytelling was important when I was writing," says Achebe, "it may not be important when the next generation is writing," "Obviously I believe in the importance of stories, but whether oral, or written, or televised, I cannot lay down the law. Achebe snubbed Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, earlier this week by refusing to accept a national honour. (2004) He said there was a dangerous state of affairs in his home country, with not enough being done in terms of develo
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