Word: paragons
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...Francois Mitterrand; the authors Gunter Grass and Nadine Gordimer; Chai Ling and Li Lu, leaders of the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square -- an astonishing collection of Nobel prizewinners, professors, rectors, saints. A man could not make his way through the SAS Scandinavia Hotel in Oslo without ricocheting off one paragon or another. Such saturations of virtue and celebrity gave me a jolt of anxiety: this is a perfect target for a bomb. But the choice of Oslo was canny. Norway has its immunities...
...paragon of this type, perhaps, is Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54. As Harvard's top attorney and all-around troubleshooter, Steiner does much of Bok's dirty work. Whether Bok is assailed by the slings and arrows of student activists, fractious alumni, or unionizing employees, Steiner is often sent out to absorb the worst of the fire...
Bert and Ernie: Who could ask for a more fitting pair of roommates? They are a paragon of Harvard middle-class diversity--short, tall, red, yellow, round head, pointy head, etc. Despite their profound differences, they lived together in perfect harmony...
...matters even more bluntly: "This is one of the worst credit reports I've seen," he declared. A repossessed car, about $70,000 in tax liens, a bankruptcy adjustment plan and scads of debts unpaid. "That can't be me," I protested, explaining that I was a paragon of fiscal responsibility. He was unpersuaded...
Sometimes the image of the heroic victim holds up. Other times, however, the paragon of virtue is revealed -- as was Charles Stuart -- to be a very flawed human being. At which point the press, like an avenging ex-lover, typically executes an about-face and attacks with self-righteous fury, as if to say, "How dare you misrepresent yourself...