Word: chieftains
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...troubles began five years ago when Mobutu, an autocrat who always carries a traditional tribal chieftain's stick decorated with carved figures of birds and snakes, decreed an ambitious industrialization program. Instead of investing in agriculture-which would have increased food supplies and given many more Zaïrians jobs-Mobutu put $1 billion, much of it borrowed, into projects aimed at a vast expansion of copper exports. He gambled that increasing demand would keep copper prices rising-and he lost. During the world recession, copper prices plunged by 62%, and Zaïre's copper revenues shrank...
Died. James Aloysius Farley, 88, Franklin D. Roosevelt's astute political strategist and fixer; in Manhattan. Farley was a consummate politician of the old ward-heeling school, a big bluff, outgoing operator who belonged to every fraternal organization from the Elks to the Eagles, knew every local Democratic chieftain from his native New York to California, and could win a new ally or stroke an old one with a warm note signed "Jim" in his trademark Irish green ink. He left a prospering building-materials business for politics, "the noblest of careers," becoming New York State Democratic Secretary...
There is a certain irony in that statement, since Jumblatt first came to power as the hereditary feudal chieftain of Lebanon's 300,000 Druzes, an esoteric branch of Islam that emerged in the 11th century. Other curious paradoxes mark his career. He is both a dedicated socialist and a millionaire. Despite his fidelity to Druze beliefs, he was educated at Roman Catholic schools, and studied law and philosophy at the Sorbonne. He knew and was deeply influenced by Jesuit Theologian-Anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, quotes Thomas Aquinas frequently, and is respected as an authority on the mysticism...
...movie is sentimental, without apology, but hard-edged too. The sight of Peachy's booty sliding down a mountainside recalls the gold dust in Sierra Madre blowing away in the Mexican wind. Huston includes many of the visual asides and unguarded gestures - like a village chieftain preparing for a beheading by sharpening his sword on a stone wall - that have always given his work such rich texture. Caine and Connery make a splendid couple of cronies, full of bluff and swagger...
...have galned a grudging respect for Sean Connery, the shelk/kidnapper. He, you see, is one of the race of truly great men (the other, says Roosevelt, is J.P. Morgan), and this transcends cultural differences. In this case the cultural differences involved are the fact that Connery's chieftain is a vicious sadist who carves men in two without blinking or thinking twice. But the only think Bergen's malden can fault him for is being a kidnaper of women and children. If only he were more sexist, about his violent behavior, then he'd be fine. So, the Americans, seeing...