Word: optimist
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Samurai v. Optimist. One of Toland's most effective devices is to flash from the misery of a hopeless battlefield to the wild unrealism of cables from Washington that demanded impossible resistance in high-flown language designed to impress world opinion. Commanders themselves could be dispiritingly callous: MacArthur, arriving safe in Australia as his troops made their last stand in Bataan, declared airily: "That's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die-and the difference is just an eyelash." Too often, the difference was between the dedicated professionalism of the samurai...
...Optimist. Seattle's Boeing gained an advantage over its rivals because it first sold its 707 as a tanker to the Air Force, and got most of its bugs fixed in doing so. (Flight-testing the DC-8 took 2,284 hours at costs of up to $10,000 an hour.) But Boeing earned its advantage by gambling $18 million to build a prototype for the Air Force to look at before it bought. With 40% of the world jet market, Boeing has so far sold 439 of its 707s, its medium-range 720s and its short-range 727s...
Pete Seeger is an admitted idealist. He also says that he is an "incorrigible optimist." These qualities won't win grades in Government courses, nor will they win victories in international relations, but Seeger provides a cogent reminder that politics are meaningless without purpose. Idealism is not the opposite of realism. It is an essential part of realism...
...himself: "I am an optimist...
Mort's mother, on the other hand, is an intractable optimist. On this trampolin Mort was raised, an only child, soaking up skepticism and idealism, respect for creativity and contempt for show business. His father's retreat to the tobacco shop in Montreal was soon followed by a new retreat to a government clerkship in Washington, and eventually by his return to Los Angeles, this time as a clerk for the FBI. From 2½ little Mort liked to stand behind the radio and shout through it his own version of the news. At eight he hung around...