Semiotic Man Ink

Happy Birthday to Umberto Eco today.

Some excellent quotes from his work here (and check out the one on terrorism from 1978!), but in the light of US-VISIT, I thought this terribly appropo, from The Name of the Rose:

For what I saw at the abbey then (and will now recount) caused me to think that often inquisitors create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where these do not exist, but also that inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred for the judges. Truly, a circle conceived by the Devil. God preserve us.

Well said, Professor. Many happy returns.