<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2963" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7> <DIV> Carl Remick writes: "The tone is indeed irritating.  And I find the author more interesting than the narrative -- " Well indeed the tone is set on purpose since Vargas Llosa's job is to put down anything the Latin left does. There is actually not much interesting about him . Just a case of blatant nepotism as his father Mario, who is not a "magic-realist" author , has a long standing career as Peru's major right winger and reprrsentantive of the US interests. On this basis he has managed to secure well paid positions for his son Alvaro as a hack in US think tanks just like his present cozy job at the Independent Institute in D.C. The Institute is just another Libertarian pro Neolib Globalization a la AEI or Hoover's. Finally ,Ortega is either  a major sellout case or a master Machiavello of severe proportions. We'll have to wait and see. Cristobal </DIV></BODY></HTML>