Word: despotes
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...bookish-looking man, he is known among musicians as a conductor long on native talent but short on patience. He is a stickler for punctuality, keeps a collection of 15 clocks ticking in perfect unison in the bedroom of his Vienna apartment. At rehearsals, he can be a demanding despot, responding to mistakes by roaring "Wot! Wot! Wot!" But his dictatorial ways are all in service of the music. He feels, for example, that an opera like Der Rosenkavalier must be performed at least 20 times before conductor and orchestra are worthy of it. Having conducted it 120 times himself...
...picture of Nkrumah's statue [March 11] is a powerful commentary on the "eternal" influence of leaders. Shelley's 1817 poem "Ozymandias" describes a similar despot upon whose statue was engraved: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!" And, as with the Ghanaian, "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away...
...whitewash in TIME's apologia, nor all the paint on the cover will make me believe Franco is not a despot...
...have moved in to exploit Switzerland's free-and-easy financial codes, Munoz specialized in buying into Swiss banks and bringing to them huge sums of capital fleeing from Latin America and Spain. In 1962 he landed quite a client: Ramfis Trujillo, playboy son of the assassinated Dominican despot. Though at least one big Swiss bank had found Trujillo's millions too hot to handle, Munoz channeled the funds into two banks that he controlled, the Swiss Savings & Credit Bank of St. Gallen and the Geneva Commerce & Credit Bank. To invest the Trujillo hoard without attracting attention, Munoz...
...Dessalines died by an assassin's bullet within three years. His successor, Henri Christophe, cared little for charters?black or white. He proclaimed himself King, set up a ludicrous aristocracy (including such titles as the Duke of Marmelade and Count of Limonade), and ruled as a merciless despot until 1820, when his officers revolted, and he committed suicide by firing a silver bullet into his brain...