1/ From “Near-Extinct Birds of the Cen­tral Cordillera,” a short story in Ben Fountain’s Brief Encoun­ters with Che Guevara:

Some evenings Alberto joined them, usu­ally when one of his inter­views was being broad­cast; he’d settle onto the steps with a mug of tea and listen to him­self lec­tur­ing the coun­try on his­tor­i­cal inevitabil­ity or the Boli­var­ian strug­gle or the ven­emous strate­gies of the World Bank. After one such broad­cast he turned to Blair.

“So, Joan Blair, what do you think of our position?”

“Well,” Blair said in his most formal Span­ish, “of course I sup­port these things as gen­eral prin­ci­ples–an end to poverty, an equi­table edu­ca­tion system, elec­tions where every­one is free to participate.” The offi­cers mur­mured patron­iz­ingly and winked at each other; amid the stren­u­ous effort of artic­u­lat­ing him­self, Blair barely took notice. “But frankly I think you’re being far too timid in your approach. If you really want to change soci­ety you’re going to have to start think­ing in more rad­i­cal terms.”

The group endured sev­eral moments of intense silence, until Alberto cleared his throad. “For exam­ple, Joan Blair?”

“Well, you’re always going on about agrar­ian reform, but face it, you’re just evad­ing the real issue. If you really want to solve the land prob­lem you’re going to have to get away from the cow. They’re too big, they over­load the whole ecosys­tem. What we have to do is forget the cow and switch over to a diet of mush­rooms and insects.”

“Mushrooms and insects?” Lauro cried. “You think I’m risk­ing my ass out here for mush­rooms and insects?”

2/ Lydia Gue­vara, 24-year-old grand­daugh­ter of Che, speak­ing about her upcom­ing PETA campaign:

PETA’s strug­gle for the ani­mals was one of the rea­sons that I became veg­e­tar­ian. What’s more, the [veg­e­tar­ian] lifestyle has become a true rev­o­lu­tion that is attract­ing more and more people all the time, and which imag­ines an alter­na­tive that’s health­ier for the planet and for humanity.