Reputation Era Quotes

It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it... Is the jealousy of power, and the envy of superiority, so strong in all men, that no considerations of public or private utility are sufficient to engage their submission to rules for their own happiness? Or is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice? — … There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. As Copley painted Chatham, West, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery; as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries composed their verse, and Belknap and Ramzay history; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouse his planetarium; as Boylston practised inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine exposed the mistakes of Raynal, and Jefferson those of Buffon, so unphilosophically borrowed from the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains those despicable dreams of de Pauw — neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or sub-committees, considered legislation in any other light than ordinary arts and sciences, only as of more importance. Called without expectation, and compelled without previous inclination, though undoubtedly at the best period of time both for England and America, to erect suddenly new systems of laws for their future government, they adopted the method of a wise architect, in erecting a new palace for the residence of his sovereign. They determined to consult Vitruvius, Palladio, and all other writers of reputation in the art; to examine the most celebrated buildings, whether they remain entire or in ruins; compare these with the principles of writers; and enquire how far both the theories and models were founded in nature, or created by fancy: and, when this should be done, as far as their circumstances would allow, to adopt the advantages, and reject the inconveniences, of all. Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. [Preface to 'A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America', 1787]

She’s in her healed girlie era and we love that for her. I just personally am not there and more in my Reputation era.

It was a Victorian pile, sprouting turrets and gargoyles with wild abandon, the extravagant creation of a tycoon who’d made a fortune in an earlier and more confident era.

Camillo’s reputation was resurrected in the twentieth century thanks to the efforts of the historian Frances Yates, who helped reconstruct the theater’s blueprints in her book The Art of Memory, and the Italian literature professor Lina Bolzoni, who has helped explain how Camillo’s theater was more than just the work of a nut job, but actually the apotheosis of an entire era’s ideas about memory.

Yet it’s surely no coincidence that hobbies have acquired this embarrassing reputation in an era so committed to using time instrumentally. In an age of instrumentalization, the hobbyist is a subversive: he insists that some things are worth doing for themselves alone, despite offering no payoffs in terms of productivity or profit. The derision we heap upon the avid stamp collector or train spotter might really be a kind of defense mechanism, to spare us from confronting the possibility that they’re truly happy in a way that the rest of us—pursuing our telic lives, ceaselessly in search of future fulfillment—are not.

Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.

All in all, everything seems to be back to the way it was before, but with one important exception. You've changed. You're wary now. You walk into work as if entering a minefield. In every conversation, in every meeting, you're careful to watch your every word. Every casual encounter in the hallway becomes a potential confrontation. Every time you meet a co-worker's eyes, you wonder if they are well-disposed or a secret enemy seeking to destroy your job, your career, and your life. You walk on eggshells, and you learn to stop sharing your opinion with anyone about anything, unless it is about something safely innocuous, like sports. What you don't realize is that you've just survived your first SJW attack. And you're luckier than most. You still have your job, you still have your reputation, and you still have your friends and family. Tens of thousands of people are not so lucky. In the universities, in the churches, in the corporations, in the professional associations, in the editorial offices, in the game studios, and just about everywhere else you can imagine, free speech and free thought are under siege by a group of fanatics as self-righteous as Savonarola, as ruthless as Stalin, as ambitious as Napoleon, and as crazy as Caligula. They are the Social Justice Warriors, the SJWs, the self-appointed thought police who have been running amok throughout the West since the dawn of the politically correct era in the 1990s.

It was my first time back in Pakistan since 9/11, and I found a country very different from the one I remembered. Any love or admiration for America was gone. In its place was an irrational paranoia that passed for savvy political consciousness. Looking back at that trip, I see now the broad outlines of the same dilemmas that would lead America into the era of Trump: seething anger; open hostility to strangers and those with views opposing one’s own; a contempt for news delivered by allegedly reputable sources; an embrace of reactionary moral posturing; civic and governmental corruption that no longer needed hiding; and married to all this, the ever-hastening redistribution of wealth to those who had it at the continued expense of those who didn’t.

Despite its reputation for individualism and unbridled capitalism, the United States has a history rich in cooperation and communalism. From the colonial era to the present—and among the indigenous population for millennia—local communities have engaged in self-help, democracy, and cooperation. Indeed, the “individualistic” tradition might more accurately be called the “self-help” tradition, where “self” is defined not only in terms of the individual but in terms of the community (be it family, township, religious community, etc.). Americans are traditionally hostile to overarching authorities separate from the community with which they identify, a hostility expressed in the age-old resentment towards both government and big business. The stereotype, based on fact, is that Americans would rather solve problems on their own than rely on political and economic power-structures to do so. The following brief survey of the history substantiates this claim. While my focus is on worker cooperatives, I will not ignore the many and varied experiments in other forms of cooperation and communalism. Certain themes and lessons can be gleaned from the history. The most obvious is that a profound tension has existed, constantly erupting into conflict, between the democratic, anti-authoritarian impulses of ordinary Americans and the tendency of economic and political power-structures to grow extensively and intensively, to concentrate themselves in ever-larger and more centralized units that reach as far down into society as possible. Power inherently tries to control as much as it can: it has an intrinsic tendency toward totalitarianism, ideally letting nothing, even the most trivial social interactions, escape its oversight. Bentham’s Panopticon is the perfect emblem of the logic of power. Other social forces, notably people’s strivings for freedom and democracy, typically keep this totalitarian tendency in check. In fact, the history of cooperation and communalism is a case-study in the profound truth that people are instinctively averse to the modes of cutthroat competition, crass greed, authoritarianism, hierarchy, and dehumanization that characterize modern capitalism. Far from capitalism’s being a straightforward expression of human nature, as apologists proclaim, it is more like the very antithesis of human nature, which is evidently drawn to such things as free self-expression, spontaneous “play,”131 cooperation and friendly competition, compassion, love. The work of Marxist historians like E. P. Thompson shows how people have had to be disciplined, their desires repressed, in order for the capitalist system to seem even remotely natural: centuries of indoctrination, state violence, incarceration of “undesirables,” the bureaucratization of everyday life, have been necessary to partially accustom people to the mechanical rhythms of industrial capitalism and the commodification of the human personality.132 And of course resistance continues constantly, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. “Wage-slavery,” as workers in the nineteenth century called it, is a monstrous assault on human dignity, which is why even today, after so much indoctrination, people still hate being subordinated to a “boss” and rebel against it whenever they can.

When the time comes, & I hope it comes soon, to bury this era of moral rot & the defiling of our communal, social, & democratic norms, the perfect epitaph for the gravestone of this age of unreason should be Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's already infamous quote: "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing... as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” Grassley's vision of America, quite frankly, is one I do not recognize. I thought the heart of this great nation was not limited to the ranks of the plutocrats who are whisked through life in chauffeured cars & private jets, whose often inherited riches are passed along to children, many of whom no sacrifice or service is asked. I do not begrudge wealth, but it must come with a humility that money never is completely free of luck. And more importantly, wealth can never be a measure of worth. I have seen the waitress working the overnight shift at a diner to give her children a better life, & yes maybe even take them to a movie once in awhile - and in her, I see America. I have seen the public school teachers spending extra time with students who need help & who get no extra pay for their efforts, & in them I see America. I have seen parents sitting around kitchen tables with stacks of pressing bills & wondering if they can afford a Christmas gift for their children, & in them I see America. I have seen the young diplomat in a distant foreign capital & the young soldier in a battlefield foxhole, & in them I see America. I have seen the brilliant graduates of the best law schools who forgo the riches of a corporate firm for the often thankless slog of a district attorney or public defender's office, & in them I see America. I have seen the librarian reshelving books, the firefighter, police officer, & paramedic in service in trying times, the social worker helping the elderly & infirm, the youth sports coaches, the PTA presidents, & in them I see America. I have seen the immigrants working a cash register at a gas station or trimming hedges in the frost of an early fall morning, or driving a cab through rush hour traffic to make better lives for their families, & in them I see America. I have seen the science students unlocking the mysteries of life late at night in university laboratories for little or no pay, & in them I see America. I have seen the families struggling with a cancer diagnosis, or dementia in a parent or spouse. Amid the struggles of mortality & dignity, in them I see America. These, & so many other Americans, have every bit as much claim to a government working for them as the lobbyists & moneyed classes. And yet, the power brokers in Washington today seem deaf to these voices. It is a national disgrace of historic proportions. And finally, what is so wrong about those who must worry about the cost of a drink with friends, or a date, or a little entertainment, to rephrase Senator Grassley's demeaning phrasings? Those who can't afford not to worry about food, shelter, healthcare, education for their children, & all the other costs of modern life, surely they too deserve to be able to spend some of their “darn pennies” on the simple joys of life. Never mind that almost every reputable economist has called this tax bill a sham of handouts for the rich at the expense of the vast majority of Americans & the future economic health of this nation. Never mind that it is filled with loopholes written by lobbyists. Never mind that the wealthiest already speak with the loudest voices in Washington, & always have. Grassley’s comments open a window to the soul of the current national Republican Party & it it is not pretty. This is not a view of America that I think President Ronald Reagan let alone President Dwight Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt would have recognized. This is unadulterated cynicism & a version of top-down class warfare run amok. ~Facebook 12/4/17

There can be no reputable person in Kaliyug (current era of moral and spiritual decline). Reputation is completely gone in Kaliyug. And yet, there is competition for reputation!

under oath he revealed the course was designed by taking holes from the courses he found on a PlayStation-era Tiger Woods video game. This resulted in Loudoun County being sued by Pebble Beach, Cog Hill and St. Andrews, not only for stealing from their courses, but for doing it so poorly that it damaged the original courses’ reputations.

Double or Nothing endured because of the nimble ad-libbing of its hosts and because, over the years, the show gained a reputation for double entendres and unexpected embarrassment. By far the most sensational of these came to be known as the “waitress episode,” which was so shocking to audiences of that innocent late 1940s era that its content could not even be hinted in the press (reporter Shirley Gordon mentioned it in Radio Life years later without ever telling her readers what she was talking about). While interviewing a waitress, O’Keefe asked if she’d had any experiences she could share on the radio. Yes, she said, she once had a friend, male, who had had some psychological problems. She didn’t know what she could do for him, but a mutual friend had suggested that he “get a good-looking girl like you and take her home and just have a big screwing party.” O’Keefe hustled her through the quiz fast, but the damage was done: the show had been carried live to the East Coast, and CBS was inundated with angry calls. The network ordered all its West Coast affiliates (which had transcribed the show for broadcast in a later timeslot) to cancel it and destroy the transcriptions. Obviously, at least one was saved: the show exists on tape, a nice curiosity piece.

Pliny was persuaded to explore a peculiar cloud formation that appeared to be coming from the summit of the local mountain, Vesuvius. He was duly rowed ashore, visited a local village to calm the panicked inhabitants—and was promptly caught up in a massive eruption. He died of asphyxiation by volcanic gases on August 24, leaving behind him a vast reputation and, as memorial, a single word in the lexicon of modern vulcanology, Plinian. A Plinian eruption is now defined as an almighty, explosive eruption that all but destroys the entire volcano from which it emanates. And the most devastating Plinian event of the modern era occurred 1,804 years, almost to the day, after Pliny the Elder’s death: at Krakatoa.)

Known as “Leni,” Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl was born on August 22, 1902. During the Third Reich she was known throughout Germany as a close friend and confidant of the Adolf Hitler. Recognized as a strong swimmer and talented artist, she studied dancing as a child and performed across Europe until an injury ended her dancing career. During the 1920’s Riefenstahl was inspired to become an actress and starred in five motion pictures produced in Germany. By 1932 she directed her own film “Das Blaue Licht.” With the advent of the Hitler era she directed “Triumph des Willens” anf “Olympia” which became recognized as the most innovative and effective propaganda films ever made. Many people who knew of her relationship with Hitler insisted that they had an affair, although she persistently denied this. However, her relationship with Adolf Hitler tarnished her reputation and haunted her after the war. She was arrested and charged with being a Nazi sympathizer, but it was never proven that she was involved with any war crimes. Convinced that she had been infatuated and involved with the Führer, her reputation and career became totally destroyed. Her former friends shunned her and her brother, who was her last remaining relative, was killed in action on the “Eastern Front.” Seeing a bleak future “Leni” Riefenstahl left Germany, to live amongst the Nuba people in Africa. During this time Riefenstahl met and began a close friendship with Horst Kettner, who assisted her with her acknowledged brilliant photography. They became an item from the time she was 60 years old and he was 20. Together they wrote and produced photo books about the Nuba tribes and later filmed marine life. At that time she was one of the world's oldest scuba divers and underwater photographer. Leni Riefenstahl died of cancer on September 8, 2003 at her home in Pöcking, Germany and was laid to rest at the Munich Waldfriedhof.

Todo era cuestiòn de ver el futuro, de saber verlo con claridad y deshacernos por un instante de nuestra propensiòn al engaño, al engaño de los otros y de nosotros mismos, a las mil mentiras que nos decimos sobre lo que puede pasarnos. Es necesario mentirnos, claro, porque nadie puede soportar demasiada clarividencia.

In life you will face a lot of Circuses. You will pay for your failures. But, if you persevere, if you let those failures teach you and strengthen you, then you will be prepared to handle life’s toughest moments. July 1983 was one of those tough moments. As I stood before the commanding officer, I thought my career as a Navy SEAL was over. I had just been relieved of my SEAL squadron, fired for trying to change the way my squadron was organized, trained, and conducted missions. There were some magnificent officers and enlisted men in the organization, some of the most professional warriors I had ever been around. However, much of the culture was still rooted in the Vietnam era, and I thought it was time for a change. As I was to find out, change is never easy, particularly for the person in charge. Fortunately, even though I was fired, my commanding officer allowed me to transfer to another SEAL Team, but my reputation as a SEAL officer was severely damaged. Everywhere I went, other officers and enlisted men knew I had failed, and every day there were whispers and subtle reminders that maybe I wasn’t up to the task of being a SEAL. At that point in my career I had two options: quit and move on to civilian life, which seemed like the logical choice in light of my recent Officer Fitness Report, or weather the storm and prove to others and myself that I was a good SEAL officer. I chose the latter. Soon after being fired, I was given a second chance, an opportunity to deploy overseas as the Officer in Charge of a SEAL platoon. Most of the time on that overseas deployment we were in remote locations, isolated and on our own. I took advantage of the opportunity to show that I could still lead. When you live in close quarters with twelve SEALs there isn’t anywhere to hide. They know if you are giving 100 percent on the morning workout. They see when you are first in line to jump out of the airplane and last in line to get the chow. They watch you clean your weapon, check your radio, read the intelligence, and prepare your mission briefs. They know when you have worked all night preparing for tomorrow’s training. As month after month of the overseas deployment wore on, I used my previous failure as motivation to outwork, outhustle, and outperform everyone in the platoon. I sometimes fell short of being the best, but I never fell short of giving it my best. In time, I regained the respect of my men. Several years later I was selected to command a SEAL Team of my own. Eventually I would go on to command all the SEALs on the West Coast.

It is now clear that the kōan about Mahakasyapa's receiving the flower after Sakyamuni's wordless sermon, as well as slogans like "special transmission outside the teaching" and "no reliance on words and letters"—originally separate items that came to be linked in a famous Zen motto attributed to Bodhidharma—were created in the Sung dynasty. First making their appearance in eleventh-century transmissions of the lamp texts, including the Chingte chuan-teng lu (1004) and the T'ien-sheng kuang-teng lu (1036), these rhetorical devices were designed to support the autonomous identity of Zen in an era of competition with neo-Confucianism and are not to be regarded as accurate expressions of the period they are said to represent. A close examination of sources reveals that Tang masters with a reputation for irreverence and blasphemy were often quite conservative in their approach to doctrine by citing (rather than rejecting) Mahayana sutras in support of teachings that were not so distinct from, and were actually very much in accord with, contemporary Buddhist schools.

I lift toward him like a charmed snake...

First, we have the reputation of dwarfs as guardians of hidden treasures. Connect that to the fact that dwarfs inhabit tumuli, tombs from which archaeologists have unearthed a wealth of grave goods,45 and we will have a plausible explanation that reinforces two clues: the most recent tombs were topped by a memorial stone, and it may have been at the foot of that stone that the people of that era saw dwarfs. The second supporting detail is that tumuli were used for group burials, which could provide a good explanation why the texts situate dwarf populations beneath the mounds.

During the nineties a new culture had developed, one in which firms focused on the bottom line—today’s profits, not long-run profits—and took quick and decisive actions when they faced problems. Firms that kept on workers when they were no longer needed were viewed as softhearted and softheaded. “Chain-saw Al” Dunlap, Sunbeam’s CEO, who got a reputation for axing workers and cutting costs with a new ruthlessness, may have been an extreme case, but he was emblematic of the new culture. Fire workers as soon as it is clear that you don’t need them. You can always hire them back again later. Firm loyalty—either of workers to their firm or the firm to its workers—were values of a bygone era. This meant that employment fell far more quickly as the economy went into the downturn.

The Country Ambassador versus the Country Manager Some companies experiment with an interesting profile: a country chairperson who is a weak overlay over the business and largely plays an ambassadorial role. However, statesmanship and ambassadors are best left to the realm of diplomacy. These roles are a legacy of an era that no longer exists. GE tried the model over the past decade with limited success and finally abandoned it. A ceremonial role, with no accountability for the business and the responsibility only for engaging government, industry associations, and other CEOs, is usually not effective. Everyone—employees, customers, business partners, government officials—will quickly see this role for what it is and dismiss the person as lightweight. This does disservice to the incumbent and the role. The ambassadorial country manager who smells opportunity, but is powerless to act, can become intensely frustrated. Increasingly, the connections among strategy and execution, business, reputation, and regulation are tightening, so an artificial separation of these functions is suboptimal. Bringing accountability for these together in a single leader is vital for growing competent and well-rounded business leaders, who are capable of even being the CEO someday. If the business does require wise counsel, access, and influence and a senior public face, a strong advisory board headed by an iconic leader who serves as a nonexecutive chairperson may be a more prudent approach. We followed this model at Microsoft India with considerable success; the approach is gaining popularity at companies like Coca-Cola, Schneider Electric, and JCB.

Luxor has long had a reputation as the Sin City of Egypt. Archaeologists from Johns Hopkins University, presently working in the local Temple of Mut, have shown how sex and booze were key aspects of rites carried out by the locals to appease the pharaonic-era gods.

Ironically, the modern era of molecular biology, and all the extraordinary DNA technology that it entails, arguably began with a physicist, specifically with the publication of Erwin Schrödinger’s book What is Life? in 1944. Schrödinger made two key points: first, that life somehow resists the universal tendency to decay, the increase in entropy (disorder) that is stipulated by the second law of thermodynamics; and second, that the trick to life’s local evasion of entropy lies in the genes. He proposed that the genetic material is an ‘aperiodic’ crystal, which does not have a strictly repeating structure, hence could act as a ‘code-script’ – reputedly the first use of the term in the biological literature. Schrödinger himself assumed, along with most biologists at the time, that the quasicrystal in question must be a protein; but within a frenzied decade, Crick and Watson had inferred the crystal structure of DNA itself.

His reputation is based largely on his thirty-seven-volume Natural History, an immense masterpiece in which, among countless other delights, is the first use of the word from which we derive today’s encyclopedia. It was during the late summer of A.D. 79, while pursuing his official task of investigating piracy in the Bay of Naples, that Pliny was persuaded to explore a peculiar cloud formation that appeared to be coming from the summit of the local mountain, Vesuvius. He was duly rowed ashore, visited a local village to calm the panicked inhabitants—and was promptly caught up in a massive eruption. He died of asphyxiation by volcanic gases on August 24, leaving behind him a vast reputation and, as memorial, a single word in the lexicon of modern vulcanology, Plinian. A Plinian eruption is now defined as an almighty, explosive eruption that all but destroys the entire volcano from which it emanates. And the most devastating Plinian event of the modern era occurred 1,804 years, almost to the day, after Pliny the Elder’s death: at Krakatoa.) Pepper has a confused reputation.

In 1964, the best-named gay activist of the era, Guy Strait, self-published an article entitled ‘What Is a Gay Bar’ (and laid out with the headline in French—‘Qu’est-ce Que C’est? Gay Bar’). According to Strait, while homosexual men had long sniffed out hotel lobbies, public squares, dive bars and gentleman’s clubs with a tacit reputation, a true gay bar was something different. His first rule for a gay bar was its ‘freedom of speech’—the use of idioms and unguarded sex talk. (Anyone who wanted to be schooled could order Strait’s own Lavender Lexicon: A Dictionary of Gay Terms and Phrases for two dollars.) Strait contended that while a cruisy hangout could fly under the radar, a gay bar might be forced to shut down based on the conversations. ‘Gay bars are not the best pickup spots,’ he wrote, ‘but they are the safest; they are not the worst thing that has happened to society and may well be one of the best.

As the profession of social work evolved, it became a common practice to describe unmarried mothers in psychiatric terms. The unmarried mother was no longer viewed as having “bad blood,” but instead as a criminal needing correction or as a “girl” needing “a cure” for her neurosis. In other words, the mother as sick, but her soon-to-be-born baby was not. Once unmarried mothers were no longer viewed as having genetic deficiencies - the “bad blood” that could be passed on to their children - their babies became highly adoptable. Hastings Hornell Hart, an ordained pastor with a national reputation in penology and prison reform, described the standard procedure for admitting an unmarried mother to a maternity home and referring to her and the home’s “inmates” as “homeless and wayward white girls and women” who came from any part of the United States, who required physical examinations to detect the presence of venereal disease, who could be used to do the chores and thus save money for the institution, which was maintained  for the care of “inmates” by public monies from the District Board of Charities (Hart, 1924).

Musashi, being the second son of Tahara Iesada, was given up for adoption to Miyamoto (Shinmen) Munisai. In this way, one person at least from the Tahara line would retain samurai status, something that was a matter of pride. It was a logical arrangement considering the tangled strands of the Akamatsu bloodline connecting them all in one way or another.24 Thus, Munisai’s background is as obscure as Musashi’s and most information about him also appears in contradictory texts written long after he died. Many still argue over whether he was a Hirata or a Hirao. Nonetheless, it is evident from what can be pieced together that Munisai was an accomplished martial artist known for his courage in battle. He reputedly took the heads of seven enemy warriors in one battle with a jūmonji-yari (crossed pike). As recorded in the Shinmen-kaki, “When Muni advanced with his yari [lance], seven warriors among the enemy sought to strike Muni down with their yari, but he skillfully took hold of their yari, running down as many as three warriors, taking their heads and giving chase to the remainder, thereby defeating the Kusakari forces.”25 He created a style of swordsmanship utilizing two swords in unison, which he named Tōri-ryū.26 Such was Munisai’s renown in battle that he was invited to demonstrate his skill in front of the last Muromachi-era shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru. Pitted against the shogun’s personal instructor, Yoshioka Kenpō, Munisai won two of the three bouts. This impressed the shogun, who then bestowed on Munisai the lofty designation Hinoshita Musō (“Peerless Under the Sun”). It is unknown when Munisai died, but it was most certainly after Musashi’s duel with Kojirō for reasons outlined below. Musashi clearly learned his trade under the wing of a formidable warrior.

In the same year, Musashi adopted another son, but this time it was a blood relative. Iori was the second son of Tahara Hisamitsu, Musashi’s older brother by four years, and he was retained to serve the Akashi daimyō, Ogasawara Tadazane. With his newly adopted son gainfully employed, Musashi became a “guest” of Tadazane and moved to Akashi. Iori was clearly a gifted young man, and five years later, at the age of twenty, was promoted to the distinguished position of “elder” of the domain. As a guest in the Honda house in Himeji and then the Ogasawara house, Musashi cultivated his artistic expression. He started studying Zen, painting, sculpture and even landscape design, and fraternized with distinguished artists and scholars such as Hayashi Razan. He had a free hand to do as he liked, and he liked to be creative. Having just emerged from an era of incessant warfare, proficiency in the more refined arts had become once again a desirable attribute in high society. It was during this period that Musashi realized how the various arts had much in common in terms of the search for perfection. He understood that the arts and occupations were “Ways” in their own right, by no means inferior to the Way of the warrior. This attitude differs from writings by other warriors, which are typically underpinned by hints of exclusivity, even arrogance, toward those not in “Club Samurai.” That said, the ideal of bunbu ryōdō (the two ways of brush and sword in accord) had long been a mainstay of samurai culture. Samurai literature from the fourteenth century onwards exhibits a concern for balancing martial aptitude with the refinement in the genteel arts and civility; namely an equilibrium between bu (martial) and bun (letters or the arts). For example, Shiba Yoshimasa’s Chikubasho (1383) admonishes the ruling class to pay attention to matters of propriety, self-cultivation, and attention to detail. “If a man has attained ability in the arts, it is possible to ascertain the depth of his mind, and the demeanor of his clan can be ascertained. In this world, honour and reputation are valued above all else. Thus, a man is able to accrue standing in society by virtue of competence in the arts and so should try to excel in them too, regardless of whether he has ability or not… It goes without saying that a man should be dexterous in military pursuits using the bow and arrow…” This was easier said than done in times of constant social turmoil and the chaos of war, but is exactly what Musashi turned his attention to as he entered the twilight years of his life. His pursuit for perfection in both military arts and other artistic Ways is perhaps why he is so revered to this day.

Looking back at that trip, I see now the broad outlines of the same dilemmas that would lead America into the era of Trump: seething anger; open hostility to strangers and those with views opposing one’s own; a contempt for news delivered by allegedly reputable sources; an embrace of reactionary moral posturing; civic and governmental corruption that no longer needed hiding; and married to all this, the ever-hastening redistribution of wealth to those who had it at the continued expense of those who didn’t.

The whole thing was a lavishly funded laboratory experiment in the Reagan-era unfettered pro-business principles that the Clinton administration was validating. Harvard, with its liberal reputation, added to the validation. Simultaneously across Asia and Latin America, similar experiments were being launched. Unfortunately, the grotesque virus that resulted did not stay sealed inside the post-Soviet laboratory.

Although the earliest English translations of Giovanni Verga’s narrative writings had already appeared in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was not until after his death that his reputation as one of the foremost novelists and short-story writers of the modern era was given fresh impetus in the English-speaking world. The writer who championed Verga’s cause was D. H. Lawrence, whose own translation of Verga’s novel, Mastro-don Gesualdo, was first published in New York in 1923, and in London two years later.

El olvido era lo único democrático en Colombia: los cubría todos, a los buenos y a los malos, a los asesinos y a los héroes como la nieve en el cuento de Joyce, cayendo sobre todos por igual.

Sofonisba, so that you can protect yourself and your reputation. First, never contradict your betters. Avoid possessing any unflattering information about them unless you can utilize it. And don’t explain yourself to your inferiors. When your image is secure, your freedom will be too.” In addition to the hospitality and the duchess’ advice on court behavior, Sofonisba devoured the court’s spectacular art collection. With Master Clovio she toured the palace collection, which contained works by the best artists of the era. She stopped in front of a portrait of

According to Gallup, public approval of unions was the highest in 1936, the year the question was first asked, and in 1959, but it began to trend downward in the mid-1960s. The era of declining support was one in which one of the country’s most visible unions, the United Auto Workers, was staking its reputation on backing civil rights, supporting the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of 1963 and using its political clout to press the Democratic Party for civil rights.

The Russiagate era has so degraded journalism that even once “reputable” outlets are now only about as right as politicians, which is to say barely ever, and then only by accident.