Denzel Washington, NYTimes.
Paul Theroux traveled in China in 1986 and 1987 for his book “Riding the Iron Rooster” published in 1988. He described police assaults on pro-democracy demonstrators that he witnessed. The book was dismissed by some reviewers “as alarmist and Sinophobic.” The Tiananment Square massacre in 1989 made it seem prescient. “… All I had done as a traveler was record what I saw: Writing the truth is prophetic,” Theroux adds in his letter to the NYTimes. He concludes as follows:
I have mentioned this in lectures I have given, in many Western cities as well as in Hong Kong, and each time I raise the subject, uttering the words “Tiananmen Square,” two or three Chinese people — sometimes more — rise and rush to the exits, as if I’d yelled “fire.”
The first time it occurred I was puzzled. When it continued to happen, I was told that all Chinese people connected to the government — which includes business people and academics — are under instructions to respond to any mention of the massacre by turning their backs on the speaker and fleeing the room.
(“Paul Theroux: Truth and Tiananmen [Letter],” NYTimes, 6-7-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
EthicalDative 
The Un-Rosie Side
Montlaur painted this self-portrait in 1969… Credit The National WWII Museum/Estate of Guy de Montlaur.
Twenty-five-year-old Guy de Montlaur was a heroic French commando in Normandy on D-Day. Having studied before that for a promising art career, he evoked his war-time experience on canvas until his death in 1977 at 58. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans has collected his paintings in an exhibit called “In Memory of What I Cannot Say.”
“On the Road Near Sallenelles, a Friend,” 1969. Credit The National WWII Museum/Estate of Guy de Montlaur.
The exhibit includes a 1946 documentary film about what it termed “battle neurosis.” Directed by John Huston, its title was “Let There Be Light.” The Army kept it classified for 75 years, releasing it in 1981.
(Dave Philipps, “He Couldn’t Talk About What He Saw in World War II. So He Painted It,” NYTimes, 6-12-19)
(c) 2019 JMN