Hugo Ch

Writes the New York Times: “At a news conference after his spirited address to the United Nations on Wednesday, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela expressed one regret: not having met that icon of the American left, the linguist Noam Chomsky, before his death.

“Yesterday, a call to Mr. Chomsky’s house found him very much alive. In fact, he was struggling through ‘10,000 e-mails’ he had received since the remarks by Mr. Chávez, who urged Americans to read one of Mr. Chomsky’s books instead of watching Superman and Batman movies, which he said ‘make people stupid.’

“At 77, Mr. Chomsky has joined the exclusive club of luminaries, like the actor Abe Vigoda and Mark Twain, who were reported dead before their time, only to contradict the reports by continuing to breathe.

“’I continue to work and write,’ he said, speaking from his house in Lexington, Mass.“Mr. Chávez, while addressing world leaders at the United Nations, flagged Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, which Mr. Chomsky published in 2003, as a must-read. Mr. Chomsky said he was glad that Mr. Chávez liked his book, but he would not describe himself as flattered.

“’We should look at ourselves through our own eyes and not other people’s eyes,’ he said.

“Mr. Chomsky said he had taken no offense at Mr. Chávez’s remarks about his being dead. In fact, Mr. Chávez’s promotion of the book propelled it yesterday into Amazon’s top 10 best sellers.” READ THE REST.

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9:54 am on September 22, 2006