Sleepy//Insomnia monostich

In the forest,

night opens slow-ly      like a   y a w n   .   .    .     .       .

[Evelyn Waugh, reporting from Brazil, 1932.]

Pampas glimpses

The country was dead flat

dead flat and featureless

dead       flat

dead

flat       . . .   . . .   . . .

And:

heaps of bones,    picked white by the ants,

by the ants

by the ants       ants

ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants

ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants

ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants ants

[Evelyn Waugh, reporting from Brazil, 1932;

the original lines have been massaged  by our crack team of accredited editors.]

Further Statistics You Hadn’t Expected

(A continuation of a feature begun here.)

(1)  In which country were 3000 people, mostly women and children, massacred in the last week alone?  (And was this fact mentioned in any of the news broadcasts you heard?)

(2)  During the period from 2003-2009,  which country presented the most striking contrast with the Bush years in America, as regards the income gap between rich and poor ?

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Answers:

(1)  The new-hatched statelet of "South Sudan".
The stats cited above are from a broadcast on the Franco-Maghrebi station

http://www.medi1.com/infos/journaux/journaux.php

There is also an account here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/world/africa/in-south-sudan-massacre-of-3000-is-reported.html?scp=2&sq=sudan&st=cse

[Update:  The figures have since been revised downwards.]

(2) Brazil !
“In Brazil, unemployment remains at a historic low of 5.2 percent. Wages have also climbed for those at the lowest rung of the job market, with the income of poor Brazilians growing seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians from 2003 to 2009.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/world/americas/brazils-boom-absorbs-haitis-poor-for-now.html?ref=global-home