Short takes

Short takes, meaning takes a short time to tell -- but some have big meanings and/or consequences.

1.  President Obama announced today that enrollment in the Affordable Care Act has now reached the 8 million mark, and that the percentage of younger enrollees in the past month jumped, making 35% of overall enrollees under the age of 35.  This is what's needed to make the plan work.    Imagine how much higher the enrollement would be if everyone had cooperated instead of trying to kill it.

2.  Sec. of State John Kerry has just met with the Russian foreign minister and representatives of Ukraine and the European Union.   After seven hours of negotiations, they have an agreement that should ease tensions.   All sides agree to halt violence, as well as intimination and provocative actions.  Armed militia groups will be disarmed and control of buildings seized by pro-Russian separatists will be returned to the legal authorities.  In exchange, further sanctions against Russia will be put on hold.

3.  Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) got it wrong.   He said that 20 million jobs were created after President Ronald Reagen cut taxes in the 1980s.   In fact, 16.1 million jobs were added during the Reagen presidency, contrasted with 22.9 million added during the Bill Clinton presidency -- which raised taxes.  Give a conservative the talking point that cutting taxes creates jobs, and he'll believe it despite all evidence to the contrary.   Watch for Paul to continue plying this falsehood. 

4.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died at the age 87 following a long illness.   Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, Marquez most celebrated novel is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which begins with the memorable opening line: "Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Captain Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

There are many things that can be said about his fiction, which won both critical and popular acclaim -- such as his effective use of magical realism and his creation of a fictional world in which Latin Americans could recognize themselves, their passions and their superstitions.  But, for me, Garcia Marquez first and foremost is the master of the opening line -- the kind that compels you to read on.

Another favorite is from his short story, "Maria dos Prazeres."  It begins, "The man from the undertaking establishment was so prompt that Maria dos Prazeres was still in her bathrobe, with her hair in curlers, and she just had time to put a rose behind her ear to keep from looking as unattractive as she felt."

Don't you want to know why the man from the undertaking establishment was coming to call so early in the morning, and why it mattered to her how she looked to him?   The story is even more fascinating:   Maria is an aging prostitute, with no family or friends to mourn her after she's gone.   So she buys a cemetery plot, then trains her little dog to go and sit by the future grave and weep real tears.   Hooked?   Well, you gotta read it in his own words.

Ralph