Word: generous
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Being the editor of a high-profile fashion magazine has its rewards: an impressive salary, a generous clothing allowance and at least two trips to Paris and Milan. But there are drawbacks as well: gossip columnists feast on your every hem length and heel height; sycophantic employees copy your wardrobe; and photographers with prodigious egos must be flattered and indulged. And then there is the pitfall of having your earnest editorial pursuits overshadowed by the more tabloid-friendly stories of where you stand on sable or mink and with whom you are allegedly...
...here is H.L. Mencken's generous assessment of Henry James: "an idiot and a Boston idiot to boot, than which there is nothing lower in this world." And William Allen White's gracious description of Mencken: "With a pig's eyes that never look up, with a pig's snout that loves muck, with a pig's brain that knows only the sty, and a pig's squeal that cries only when he is hurt, he sometimes opens his pig's mouth, tusked and ugly, and lets out the voice of God, railing at the whitewash that covers the manure...
Have you rediscovered a gentle, generous sense of humor? Have you recovered an appreciation of irony? Have you reacquired the ability to praise? So much of what passes for intellectual activity in our time is the carping of the jealous or the embittered. One of our poets, W.H. Auden, wrote an elegy to another, W.B. Yeats, in which he sought to "teach the free man how to praise." I hope you've learned...
...Cuban trade embargo he says what self-styled truth tellers like Bill Bradley don't: "It's stupid. Fidel's outlasted eight Presidents. Is it an ego thing? Do we have to wait for him to die?" He's the rare non-Democratic Governor who gives Clinton generous credit for the economy. Try getting George W. Bush to do that...
...difficult to acquire. Prospective residents must spend years in long meetings with architects, bureaucrats and neighborhood groups. They must be willing to put up thousands in advance for units that cost slightly more than mainstream condos. (One-bedroom Southside flats went for $87,000, though the city provided generous loans to the cash poor. Homeowners' dues range from $100 to $150 a month.) And the endless meetings continue after everyone moves in. Instead of delegating to a board of directors or voting, Southside residents, like most cohousers, make every decision by consensus. Also, gossip runs rampant. "There have been three...