Word: merchantable
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...congratulate a mother on her just-baptised baby boy. The grandfather recounts the glory of Alexander the Great to his grandchildren, while huddled round a fire. But there are more sinister details as well. A money lender fondles Apostolis to determine what degree he will overcharge him. A Turkish merchant, terrified of Apostolis’s physical power, nevertheless professes to be unable to pay back his debt. Ottoman soldiers storm into town and viciously arrest a man for tax evasion...
...There are many theories as to why China curtailed its maritime aspirations in the mid-15th century. The simplest is that the Confucians prevailed. The imperial bureaucracy sought to contain the expansionary ambitions of its sailors and the increasing power of its merchant class: Confucian ideology venerates authority and agrarian ways, not innovation and trade. "Barbarian" nations were thought to offer little of value to China. Other factors contributed: the renovation of the north-south Grand Canal, for one, facilitated grain transport and other internal commerce in gentle inland waters, obviating the need for an ocean route...
...Thaksin grew up not far from that hotel, in Sankampaeng, near Chiang Mai, the second of 10 siblings. His father, a Chinese merchant who tried his hand at jobs ranging from bus driving to running a movie theater, was a modest success who would eventually rise to serve in parliament. Thaksin has steadily propagated the myth that he grew up impoverished. His aunt, Chansom Shinawatra, 78, however, shrugs when asked about the Shinawatra family circumstances: "We did well." Well enough, according to some of Thaksin's childhood friends, for the strapping, big-eared boy to own the only bicycle...
...salotto buono, "good drawing room," was held together largely through the shrewd deals put together by Enrico Cuccia, the legendary head of Mediobanca who died last year. As a result of rather Byzantine legislation, Mediobanca was Italy's only merchant bank for decades, which meant virtually no big deals were done without Cuccia. But by the late 1990s, the Cuccia-Agnelli alliance began falling apart. Mediobanca sided with Colaninno when he and his wealthy backers made their move for Telecom Italia. It was a direct challenge to the Agnellis, who had installed their own man to run the former state...
Cherry Jones, one of our best stage actresses, is surprisingly subdued as Shaw's Salvation Army idealist, and David Warner, in his U.S. stage debut, is too suave and nonthreatening as her arms-merchant father, the capitalist who alters her dreams. Still, even if the Roundabout Theatre's new production of Shaw's great comedy lacks some pizazz, it can't douse the fire of a dramatist out to bust open the sentimentality and conventional wisdom that infected both society and the stage. We could use a new Shaw today; until he (or she) comes along, the old one will...