Word: geniality
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Never the curmudgeon of myth, Rockefeller had a droll, genial personality that masked supreme cunning and formidable self-control. It is certainly true that he was not the least bit squeamish about tough tactics. He colluded with railroads to gain preferential freight rates, secretly owned rivals, bribed state legislators and engaged in industrial espionage. From Cleveland, he rolled up one refining center after another until his control was absolute. He was still in his 30s, the boy wonder of American business. At the same time, he was a devout Baptist with a ministerial air, who professed to have no less...
When most people think of Pete Rozelle, if they think at all of Pete Rozelle, they probably recall a genial fellow with a balding pate and the ready smile of a car salesman who popped up at the end of the Super Bowl. Rozelle was the commissioner of the National Football League, of course, but what did that really mean? The players played, the coaches coached, the owners owned, the fans stomped and hollered, but what the hell does a commissioner do? Commission...
Starr's pining for the quiet life was part of his attempt to appear inoffensive, just a purveyor of evidence who is eager to retreat from Washington's partisan wars. And to the extent that he remained genial and G-rated throughout most of the day, mentioning the words sex and sexual only four times in his opening remarks and prefacing his comments deferentially with "you may disagree with me," or "I want to be fair," he succeeded. But presenting himself as the Mister Rogers of the Washington legal elite did not aid Starr in his bigger task--persuading anyone...
There are adults who, through choice or parental servitude, have learned to love the TV show. It seems to understand the baby imperatives (either suck on a bottle or break out of the playpen and scope out the great wide world) while treating the grownup figures with the same genial ribbing the kids get. Tommy the explorer and Chuckie, his friend with the orange shock top and a chronically fretful nature, are attractive opposites; three-year-old Angelica is a finely drawn priss. The animation is distinctive and supple, suggesting Max Fleischer and the Modernist Zagreb school. Who thought...
...would be a pretty thing to think that a gentle, genial spirit like Guido's could effectively resist totalitarianism at its most terrible. But it cannot--unless, of course, you rewrite the past and in the process travesty tragedy. The witnesses to the Holocaust--its living victims--inevitably grow fewer every year. The voices that would deny it ever took place remain strident. The newer generations hurry heedlessly into the future. In this climate, turning even a small corner of this century's central horror into feel-good popular entertainment is abhorrent. Sentimentality is a kind of fascism too, robbing...