Iceberg: Machiavelli and more

pg 47

"Our Machiavelli and his merry band of little helpers have obviously been here before us."

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (Mach-ee-uh-velli], 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. A founder of modern political science, he was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic.

He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language.

He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince, after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence.

Machiavelli’s best-known book, "Il Principe," contains a number of maxims concerning politics, but rather than the more traditional subject of a hereditary prince, it concentrates on the possibility of a "new prince." To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefully maintain the socio-political institutions to which the people are accustomed; whereas a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling, since he must first stabilize his new-found power in order to build an enduring political structure. He believed that social benefits of stability and security could be achieved in the face of moral corruption. Aside from that, Machiavelli believed that public and private morality had to be separate in order to rule. To do this required that the prince be concerned not only with reputation but that he be also willing to act immorally. As a political scientist, Machiavelli emphasizes the occasional need for the methodical exercise of brute force, deceit, and so on.

Scholars often note that Machiavelli glorifies instrumentality in statebuilding - an approach embodied by the saying that "the ends justify the means." Violence may be necessary for the successful transfer of power and introduction of new legal institutions. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals, to coerce resistant populations, and to purge previous rulers who will inevitably attempt to regain their power. Machiavelli has become infamous for this political advice, ensuring that he would be remembered in history as an adjective, "Machiavellian."

Notwithstanding some mitigating themes, the Catholic Church banned The Prince, registering it to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, and humanists also viewed the book negatively — among them, Erasmus of Rotterdam. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism — thus, The Prince is a manual to acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, Machiavelli insisted that an imaginary ideal society is not the model for a prince to orient himself by.

Concerning the differences and similarities in Machiavelli's advice to ruthless and tyrannical princes in The Prince and his more republican exhortations in Discourses on Livy, many have concluded that The Prince although written in the form of advice for a monarchical prince, contains arguments for the superiority of republican regimes, similar to those found in the Discourses. In the 18th century the work was even called a satire, for example by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

More recently, commentators such as Leo Strauss and Harvey Mansfield have agreed that the Prince can be read as having a deliberate comical irony.[citation needed] Other commentators have not seen the irony as deliberate comedy, but most commentators agree that the Prince is in any case republican to some extent.

Antonio Gramsci argued that Machiavelli's audience for this work was not even the ruling class but the common people because the rulers already knew these methods through their education. The Merry Men are the group of outlaws who followed Robin Hood, according to English folklore. An early use of the phrase "merry men" occurs in the oldest known Robin Hood ballad, "Robin Hood and the Monk", which survives in a manuscript completed around 1450. The word "merry" in this and other ballads is probably used in the archaic sense meaning "companion or follower of an… outlaw". The early ballads give specific names to only three of Robin's companions, Little John, Much the Miller's Son, and William Scarlock or Scathelock, the Will Scarlet of later traditions. Joining them are between 20 and "seven score" outlawed yeomen.

The most prominent of the Merry Men is Robin's second-in-command, Little John. He appears in the earliest ballads, and is mentioned in even earlier sources, such as Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle of around 1420 and Walter Bower's expansion of the Scotichronicon, completed around 1440. Later ballads name additional Merry Men, some of whom appear in only one or two ballads, while others, like the minstrel Alan-a-Dale and the jovial Friar Tuck, became fully attached to the legend. Several of the Robin Hood ballads tell the story of how individual Merry Men join the group; this is frequently accomplished by defeating Robin in a duel.

"They most certainly found a way to enter the derelict."

In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict describe specific kinds of wreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage.

Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purposefully cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore. Lagan (also called ligan) is cargo that is lying on the bottom of the ocean, sometimes marked by a buoy, which can be reclaimed. Derelict is cargo that is also on the bottom of the ocean, but which no one has any hope of reclaiming.

But there was nothing he could do but watch Pitt hurtle toward him like a bobsled.

Although sledding on snow or ice had been popular in many northern countries, bobsleighing is a relatively modern sport. It originates (around 1870) from two crestas (skeleton sleds) being attached together with a board and a steering mechanism being attached to the front cresta. The beginnings of the Bobsleigh were humble, starting when English tourists were enticed to stay over the winter in the mineral spa town of St. Moritz, Switzerland by the successful marketing of hotelier Caspar Badrutt. Badrutt successfully 'sold' the idea of 'winter resorting' to some of his English regulars as he was annoyed with a four-month long season for the rooms, food, alcohol and activities he sold. A year or two later some of his more adventurous English guests began adapting boys' delivery sleds for recreation and began colliding with pedestrians whilst speeding down the village's lanes and alleys and roads.

The name comes from participants bobbing back and forth in an ineffective attempt to increase their speed.

This had both short and long term outcomes: in the short term the guests began to scheme about and invent 'steering means' for the sleds, which became the luge, bobsleighs (bobsleds), and head-first skeleton. Long term, after a couple of more years of happy pedestrian peril, Badrutt built a special track for their activities—the world's first natural ice half-pipe track in about 1870. It is still in operation today and has served as a host track during two Winter Olympics. The track is one of the few natural weather tracks in the world - it does not use artificial refrigeration. The satisfied guests eventually enabled him to build the Palace Hotel, while holding onto the popular Krup Hotel (which catered to different clientele) and brought competition in as winter tourism in alpine locales became very popular.

The first informal races were run on snow-covered roads. The opening of formal competition was in 1884 at St. Moritz. It's not known how much the original track evolved in the early years as the three sports matured and stabilized. The first club was formed in 1897, and the first purpose-built track solely for bobsleds was opened in 1902 outside of St Moritz. Over the years, bobsleigh tracks evolved from straight runs to twisting and turning tracks. The original wooden sleds were replaced by streamlined fiberglass and metal ones.

The Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT) was founded in 1923. Men's four man bobsleigh appeared in the first ever Winter Olympic Games in 1924, and men's two man bobsleigh event was added in 1932. Bobsleigh was not included in the 1960 Winter Olympics, but has been in every Winter Olympics since. Women's bobsleigh competition began in the US in 1983 with two demonstration races in Lake Placid, New York, one held in February and the 2nd held during the World Cup races in March 1983. Women's two woman bobsleigh made its Olympic debut at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Bobsleigh is also contested at American, European, and World Cup championships.

Switzerland and Germany have been the most successful bobsleighing nations measured by overall success in European, World, World Cup, and Olympic championships. The Swiss have won more medals than any other nation, and since the 1990s Germans have been dominant in international competition. Italy, Austria, USA and Canada also have strong bobsleigh traditions.