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The Writer's Almanac from Friday, May 3, 2013
The Writer's Almanac from Friday, May 3, 2013"Smoke" by Faith Shearin, from The Empty House. © Word Press, 2008. ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013 It's the birthday of the man who wrote, "A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise": Niccolò Machiavelli, born in Florence (1469). He had an early career in politics when Italy wasn't a unified country, but rather a collection of allied city-states. It was an unstable time, and he lost his post when the government was overthrown by the Medici family. He wrote The Prince in 1513 as an instruction manual on obtaining and holding onto power, in hopes that he could impress the powerful Medicis and earn a political position. In his treatise, he wrote that morality was irrelevant when it came to running a state. He didn't advocate evil for its own sake, and believed rulers should stick to the good whenever possible. But he also said they should be willing to perform evil acts when it became necessary to hold onto their power and maintain the security of the state. Machiavelli's attempt to impress the Medicis backfired, and they may never have even read The Prince until after his death. His name became associated with cutthroat tactics and violence, and he never held another government job. Today is the birthday of the photojournalist Jacob Riis, born in Ribe, Denmark (1849). He moved to New York in 1870. He got a job as a police reporter, working the night shift among the crowded tenements of poor immigrants, and he set out to improve their conditions. When flash photography was invented in 1887, he took photographs of the slums of New York and wrote companion essays to form a book, How the Other Half Lives (1890), and it helped bring about housing reforms. It's the birthday of Israeli poet and novelist Yehuda Amichai, born Ludwig Pfeuffer in Würzburg, Germany, in 1924. He moved to Palestine in 1936 and later became an Israeli citizen. He was one of the first poets to write in colloquial Hebrew. He wrote: "A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, / to laugh and cry with the same eyes, / with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them, / to make love in war and war in love." Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® BRISK VERSE by Garrison Keillor, a collection of original invigorating verse. Read it to yourself or aloud to friends, family, or passersby. If you are a paid subscriber to The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, thank you! Your financial support is used to maintain these newsletters, websites, and archive. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber and would like to become one, support can be made through our garrisonkeillor.com store, by check to Prairie Home Productions, P.O. Box 2090, Minneapolis, MN 55402, or by clicking the SUBSCRIBE button. This financial support is not tax deductible.
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