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...LAST SIGH by Luis Buñuel Translated by Abigail Israel Knopf; 256 pages...
Revolutionaries fall into two main types: the romantic and the quasi-religious zealot. Danton, as envisioned by Wajda and Writer Jean-Claude Carrière (Buñuel's sometime collaborator) and brilliantly portrayed by Gérard Depardieu, is the former. Lazy, sensual and, above all, egocentric, he believes that he need do nothing but raise his famed orator's voice in order to bring the people to the counterrevolutionary barricades. Convinced of his own star qualities, he neglects to look back to see if anyone is actually following him or, despite warnings, to take practical steps...
...much of the nation's breadbasket has turned to toast, the news is decidedly mixed. According to the Government, the drought is not yet as bad, overall, as 1980's savage hot spell. And there is more palpable consolation for farmers: the shrunken harvests (perhaps 4.5 billion bu. of corn, vs. 8.4 billion bu. in 1982) have helped reduce enormous surpluses, thus pushing some recent cash prices higher than they had been in nearly a decade-74% above last year's dismal levels. And last week a bit of rain did fall from Topeka to Terre Haute...
...than half their crops to the drought. In west Texas, where it is always arid, farmers and ranchers are enduring the second year of drought; rainfall during the past year (4.83 in.) has been the skimpiest since 1892. There in Schleicher County, farmers during a decent season coaxed 26 bu. of wheat or one bale of cotton from each cultivated acre. This year, despite getting a bit more rain than the rest of the region, they expect their fields to yield only 6 bu. of wheat per acre, or a scant tenth of a bale of cotton...
...billion bu. of corn that are expected to be lost to the drought are in addition to the 2.2 billion bu. not planted as part of the Government's payment-in-kind (PIK) program, which provides subsidies to farmers for keeping their fields fallow. Analysts estimate that the corn yield will be down by 25%, or $4.5 billion worth. In the short term this may mean lower prices for meat as ranchers rush their herds to slaughter rather than continuing to fatten them. But in the long run it could mean significantly higher prices for both meat and grain...