Word: scions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Jacques Derrida had been born a Kennedy, he might have come close to matching Ludwig Wittgenstein's curious combination of affluence and intellect. Wittgenstein was both a philosopher of towering importance and the scion of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Europe. He was also a scarily intense guy. On Oct. 25, 1946, he attended a Cambridge University discussion group at which Karl Popper, another major thinker, was the guest speaker. The evening ended in bedlam when Wittgenstein threatened Popper with a poker...
...vision of worldwide jihad is one that al-Zawahiri has imparted steadily to bin Laden since 1985, when they first worked together on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Back then, bin Laden, the scion of a rich Saudi family, was helping finance Arab volunteers in the Afghan war. Al-Zawahiri was working in field hospitals treating Afghan and Arab fighters. He was also, however, already the effective head of Al Jihad, the secretive Egyptian terrorist group bent on overthrowing the government of Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak. And al-Zawahiri was becoming further convinced that establishing Islamic rule throughout...
Since the death in July of Faisal Husseini, the revered Palestinian figurehead of East Jerusalem, Nusseibeh has gradually assumed that leadership role. The scion of a family that came to Jerusalem with the Caliph Omar 1,300 years ago, Nusseibeh, 52, stands out among the city?s remaining political leaders. He carries intellectual heft as the head of Al-Quds University and wields political clout as the organizer of Jerusalem?s 1987-93 intifadeh, which helped spur Israeli leaders to negotiate with the Palestinians. Nusseibeh is using his position to push a dovish line at a time when extremists have...
...beginning was 1979, when Miyazaki graduated from Tokyo's Elite Gakushuin University. A scion of the family that founded Miyazaki Airplane, which manufactured parts for the Zero fighter, he studied economics and political science but preferred reading Moby Dick and Tom Sawyer. After graduation he tossed convention aside by joining an animation production company, where he met his lifelong colleague and sometime creative collaborator, Isao Takahata. They struck out on their own in 1985 with Studio Ghibli?named by Miyazaki, an aircraft buff, after a vintage Italian plane...
...Saudis had supported Islamic political groups throughout the Middle East for decades, but the training of thousands of young Wahhabis was their first real taste of jihad. Among the recruits was a 21-year-old business administration graduate of King Abdul Aziz University named Osama bin Laden, a scion of a Jidda construction clan that made a fortune building the kingdom's infrastructure...