2009年9月27日 星期日

William Safire, Political Columnist and Oracle of Language, Dies at 79

先生有恩於我
在一篇文章中解決 hanching chung 提出的問題


William Safire, Political Columnist and Oracle of Language, Dies at 79

George Tames/The New York Times

William Safire in 1984. More Photos >


Published: September 27, 2009

William Safire, a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times who also wrote novels, books on politics and a Malaprop’s treasury of articles on language, died at a hospice in Rockville, Md., on Sunday. He was 79.

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Share your thoughts on William Safire. What were some of your favorite columns?

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Martin Tolchin, a friend of the family.

There may be many sides in a genteel debate, but in the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: There was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”

He was a college dropout and proud of it, a public relations go-getter who set up the famous Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate” in Moscow, and a White House wordsmith in the tumultuous era of war in Vietnam, Nixon’s visit to China and the gathering storm of the Watergate scandal, which drove the president from office.

Then, from 1973 to 2005, Mr. Safire wrote his twice-weekly “Essay” for the Op-Ed page of The Times, a forceful conservative voice in the liberal chorus. Unlike most Washington columnists who offer judgments with Olympian detachment, Mr. Safire was a pugnacious contrarian who did much of his own reporting, called people liars in print and laced his opinions with outrageous wordplay.

Critics initially dismissed him as an apologist for the disgraced Nixon coterie. But he won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and for 32 years tenaciously attacked and defended foreign and domestic policies, and the foibles, of seven administrations. Along the way, he incurred enmity and admiration, and made a lot of powerful people squirm.

Mr. Safire also wrote four novels, including “Full Disclosure” (Doubleday, 1977), a best-seller about succession issues after a president is blinded in an assassination attempt, and nonfiction that included “The New Language of Politics” (Random House, 1968), and “Before the Fall” (Doubleday, 1975), a memoir of his White House years.

And from 1979 until earlier this month, he wrote “On Language,” a New York Times Magazine column that explored written and oral trends, plumbed the origins and meanings of words and phrases, and drew a devoted following, including a stable of correspondents he called his Lexicographic Irregulars.

The columns, many collected in books, made him an unofficial arbiter of usage and one of the most widely read writers on language. It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like “the president’s populism” and “the first lady’s momulism,” written during the Carter presidency.

There were columns on blogosphere blargon, tarnation-heck euphemisms, dastardly subjunctives and even Barack and Michelle Obama’s fist bumps. And there were Safire “rules for writers”: Remember to never split an infinitive. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. Avoid clichés like the plague. And don’t overuse exclamation marks!!

Behind the fun, readers said, was a talented linguist with an addiction to alliterative allusions. There was a consensus, too, that his Op-Ed essays, mostly written in Washington and syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, were the work of a sophisticated analyst with voluminous contacts and insights into the way things worked in Washington.

Mr. Safire called himself a pundit — the word, with its implication of self-appointed expertise, might have been coined for him — and his politics “libertarian conservative,” which he defined as individual freedom and minimal government. He denounced the Bush administration’s U.S.A. Patriot Act as an intrusion on civil liberties, for example, but supported the war in Iraq.

He was hardly the image of a button-down Times man: The shoes needed a shine, the gray hair a trim. Back in the days of suits, his jacket was rumpled, the shirt collar open, the tie askew. He was tall but bent — a man walking into the wind. He slouched and banged a keyboard, talked as fast as any newyawka and looked a bit gloomy, like a man with a toothache coming on.

His last Op-Ed column was “Never Retire.” He then became chairman of the Dana Foundation, which supports research in neuroscience, immunology and brain disorders. In 2005, he testified at a Senate hearing in favor of a law to shield reporters from prosecutors’ demands to disclose sources and other information. In 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush. From 1995 to 2004, he was a member of the board that awards the Pulitzer Prizes.

William Safir was born on Dec. 17, 1929, in New York City, the youngest of three sons of Oliver C. and Ida Panish Safir. (The “e” was added to clarify pronunciation.) He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and attended Syracuse University, but quit after his second year in 1949 to take a job with Tex McCrary, a columnist for The New York Herald Tribune who hosted radio and television shows; the young legman interviewed Mae West and other celebrities.

In 1951, Mr. Safire was a correspondent for WNBC-TV in Europe and the Middle East, and jumped into politics in 1952 by organizing an Eisenhower-for-President rally at Madison Square Garden. He was in the Army from 1952 to 1954, and for a time was a reporter for the Armed Forces Network in Europe. In Naples he interviewed both Ingrid Bergman and Lucky Luciano within a few hours of each other.

In 1959, working in public relations, he was in Moscow to promote an American products exhibition and managed to steer Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev into the “kitchen debate” on capitalism versus communism. He took the photograph that became an icon of the encounter. Nixon was delighted, and hired Mr. Safire for his 1960 campaign for the presidency against John F. Kennedy.

Starting his own public relations firm in 1961, Mr. Safire worked in Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller’s 1964 presidential race and on John V. Lindsay’s 1965 campaign for mayor of New York. Mr. Safire also wrote his first book, “The Relations Explosion” (Macmillan, 1963).

In 1962, he married the former Helene Belmar Julius, a model, pianist and jewelry designer. The couple had two children, Mark and Annabel. His wife and children survive him, as does a granddaughter, Lily Safire.

In 1968, he sold his agency, became a special assistant to President Nixon and joined a White House speechwriting team that included Patrick J. Buchanan and Raymond K. Price Jr. Mr. Safire wrote many of Nixon’s speeches on the economy and Vietnam, and in 1970 coined the “nattering nabobs” and “hysterical hypochondriacs” phrases for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew.

After Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of The Times, hired Mr. Safire, one critic said it was like setting a hawk loose among doves. As Watergate broke, Mr. Safire supported Nixon, but retreated somewhat after learning that he, like others in the White House, had been secretly taped.

Mr. Safire won his Pulitzer Prize for columns that accused President Jimmy Carter’s budget director, Bert Lance, of shady financial dealings. Mr. Lance resigned, but was acquitted in a trial. He then befriended his accuser.

Years later, Mr. Safire called Hillary Clinton a “congenital liar” in print. Mrs. Clinton said she was offended only for her mother’s sake. But a White House aide said that Bill Clinton, “if he were not the president, would have delivered a more forceful response on the bridge of Mr. Safire’s nose.”

Mr. Safire was delighted, especially with the proper use of the conditional.

2009年9月13日 星期日

“When you think of artists today like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, who have armies of assistants virtually creating their work, does it really matter?” Mr. Elderfield said. “I don’t think it does. In de Kooning’s case, we know his hand is in all his work.”


army
(är') pronunciation
n., pl., -mies.
    1. A large body of people organized and trained for land warfare.
    2. often Army The entire military land forces of a country.
    3. A tactical and administrative military unit consisting of a headquarters, two or more corps, and auxiliary forces.
  1. A large group of people organized for a specific cause: the construction army that built the Panama Canal.
  2. A multitude; a host: An army of waiters served at the banquet. See synonyms at multitude.

[Middle English armee, from Old French, from Medieval Latin armāta, from Latin, feminine past participle of armāre, to arm, from arma, arms.]



2009/2?


About Stephen Sackur
en Sackur in the HardTalk studio
HARDtalk is broadcast on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News

Stephen Sackur, HARDtalk's presenter, has been a journalist with BBC News since 1986.

Before taking over on the BBC News 24 and BBC World flagship current affairs interview programme, he had been based in Brussels for three years as the BBC's Europe Correspondent.

Prior to this, Stephen was the BBC's Washington Correspondent from July 1997.

He has interviewed Presidents George W Bush and Bill Clinton, covered the 2000 US Presidential Elections, the Clinton scandal and impeachment trial.

Stephen has also been the BBC Middle East Correspondent in both Cairo (from 1992 to 1995) and Jerusalem (from 1995 to 1997), covering the peace process, the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the emergence of the Palestinian Authority under the late Yasser Arafat.

Stephen was appointed as a BBC Foreign Correspondent in 1990.

He was part of the BBC's team of correspondents covering the Gulf War, spending eight weeks with the British Army when the conflict began.

Stephen filming the programme introduction in Moscow
Stephen filming the programme introduction in Moscow

He was the first correspondent to break the story of the mass killing on the Basra road out of Kuwait City, marking the end of the war. He wrote a book about his experiences - On The Basra Road - named as one of the Books of the Year by The Spectator magazine.

He travelled back to Iraq just after the downfall of Saddam Hussein and filed the first television reports on Iraq's mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of victims of Saddam's regime.

Born in Lincolnshire, Stephen was educated at both Cambridge and Harvard universities.

He is married with three children.

2009年9月11日 星期五

伊拉克記者柴迪

丟鞋記者 下週出獄住豪宅
去年底向美國前總統布希丟鞋的伊拉克記者柴迪,下週即將出獄,電視台老闆為他蓋了一棟豪宅,獎賞他為公司打開知名度。圖為柴迪的姪女三日站在他的海報旁邊。(法新社)

〔編譯陳成良/綜合十一日外電報導〕鞋襲美國前總統布希的伊拉克記者柴迪服刑九個月後,即將於十四日出獄。為慶祝他獲釋,柴迪的老闆已經為他準備好一棟豪宅,不少女人也表示樂意嫁給他。

去年十二月,在布希訪問伊拉克並召開記者會時,柴迪將兩隻鞋子連續砸向布希,一炮而紅。今年三月被法院以襲擊外國元首罪判刑三年。但由於他沒有前科,上訴法院將他改為一年,他在服刑期間表現良好獲減刑三個月。

三 十歲的單身漢柴迪因砸鞋「義舉」成為伊拉克乃至阿拉伯世界的英雄,多個伊拉克政黨邀他加入,但都遭到婉拒。卡達一位親王表示願意幫柴迪付一輩子的醫療保險 費,沙烏地一名商人出價千萬美元要買那雙已被伊拉克政府扣押的鞋子。約旦河西岸一位部族領袖卓達說,他準備將家族中的年輕女子搭配金銀珠寶,送到伊拉克成 為柴迪的新娘。卓達透露,一堆巴勒斯坦女孩想嫁給柴迪,「任他挑選」。

婉拒加入政黨 許多女人想嫁他

柴 迪任職的Al-Baghdadia電視台原本沒有什麼名氣,現在因為柴迪而聲名大噪,電視台老闆在他入獄期間薪水照付,還為他在伊拉克高級住宅區蓋好了一 棟兩層樓豪宅,讓柴迪一家人不用住破舊公寓。不過柴迪的哥哥達格漢說,柴迪自知他以後的採訪工作會遭到伊拉克政府刁難與抵制,因此可能會辭去記者工作,並 投身人道組織或為婦女及孤兒爭取權益。

不過Al-Baghdadia電視台的經理莎亞在開羅表示,她確定柴迪會重返工作崗位,該電視台在約旦、埃及與敘利亞都有辦公室,柴迪可以選擇在海外繼續為該台效力。

然而,並非所有伊拉克人都認同他的行為。巴格達一名雜貨店老闆說:「他應該在牢裡多待一點時間,學習如何尊重客人。」

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