[deputac]

Although I do not know much about her personally, from what I have read since September 11th, this was a woman of conviction and a great writer. I read her book, the Rage and the Pride, shortly after the September 11th attacks and was taken aback to see somebody tackle Islam the way that she had in this book. It should have been a big wake-up call to Europe. Too bad they wasted the last years of her life prosecuting her for hate crimes.

RIP.

[goldstategop]

From what I've read, she struck me as one of those people who had a lot to say and who lived life not just the way dilettantes live it in books but by encounters with history. She interviewed all of the famous, notorious and influential figures who shaped the history of our world in the past century. She could be abrasive at times but you can say of Oriana, she was always truthful with her audience. She lived her life with purpose, integrity and fearlessness. I think she would like that for her epitaph. And the way she fought through her final illness has made us admire her more. We mourn her but we also know she had a good death where she grew up and will buried in her native land. Few people have given the world a better portrait of itself and given an account of the currents that beset it than the now late Oriana Fallaci.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )