Dictator

Dictator (pronounced dik-tey-ter)

(1) A person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who (at least ostensibly) has absolute control (ie effectively not restricted by a constitution, laws, recognized opposition, etc) in a government (and officially without hereditary succession); applied particularly to those exercising tyrannical rule.

(2) In republican ancient Rome, a person vested by the senate with supreme authority during a crisis, the regular magistracy being subordinated to him until the crisis was met (typically by conducting a war).

(3) A person who makes pronouncements, as on conduct, fashion etc, which are regarded as authoritative.

(4) A person who dictates text to someone or some sort or mechanical or electronic recording device.

(5) In Ancient Rome (during certain periods), an elected chief magistrate.

1350–1400: From the Middle English dictatour, from the Old French dictator, from the Latin dictātor (genitive dictātōris), (Roman chief magistrate with absolute authority) the construct being dictā(re) (inflection of dictō (I repeat, say often; I dictate (to someone for writing))), frequentative of dicere (to say, speak); I compose, express in writing; I prescribe, recommend, order, dictate)) frequentative of dicere (to say, speak)" (from the primitive Indo-European root deik- (to show (also "solemnly to pronounce") (and related to dīcō (say, speak) + -tor (from the Proto-Italic -tōr, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr from -tor-s; the suffix added to the fourth principal part of a verb to create a third-declension masculine form of an agent noun).  The feminine forms were dictatress or dictatrix, both probably now obsolete except in historic reference or as a jocular form; the old alternative spelling dictatour is obsolete.  Some European languages (including Dutch and Romanian) were like English and borrowed directly the Latin spelling while others used variations including Catalan (dictador), French (dictateur) Italian (dittatore), Piedmontese (ditator), Polish (dyktator), Portuguese (ditador), Russian (дикта́тор (diktátor)), Sicilian (dittaturi), Spanish (dictador) and German (Diktator).  The feminine forms dictatoress & dictatrix are now rare.  Dictator, dictatoress & distatorship are nouns, dictatory is a noun & adjective, dictatorial, dictatorlike & dictatorless are adjectives and dictatorially is an adverb;the noun plural is dictators.

The noun dictatorship (office or term of a (Roman) dictator) came into use in the 1610s to describe the historically specific terms of office the Roman Senate sometimes granted individuals in extraordinary and reprehensible circumstances while the now familiar general sense of "a ruler exercising absolute authority" evolved by the late seventeenth century.  The noun dictator had already proceeded along this path, the historical sense being first used in English circa 1600, the extension to “one who has absolute power or authority" (in any context and not just political power) noted by the 1690s.  The nasty and not infrequently genocidal nature of some of the dictators of the twentieth century and beyond certainly influenced the understanding of the word which, as late as the 1800s could be used neutrally, effectively as a synonym for president.  The adjective dictatorial (pertaining to a dictator; absolute, unlimited), dating from 1901 evolved also to enjoy use outside of descriptors of absolute government and by 1704 had acquired the general sense of "imperious, overbearing", usefully (and often applied as required to husbands, mothers-in-law, parish priests etc); the related form was the adverb dictatorially.  In that vein, to convey the notion of "pertaining to a dictator" there had been dictatorian (1640s) & dictator-like (1580s).  Etymologists insist historic duality of implication in "dictatorial" ((1) a disposition to rule & (2) a sharp insistence upon having one's orders accepted or carried out) has survived in modern use but instances of the former are now less common.

1929 Studebaker Dictator Royal Coupe with rumble seat and "artillery wheels" in the style made famous on Bugatti's roadsters and race-cars.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) was of course the dictator who has for almost a century loomed over the word and “Hitler” was used figuratively for "a dictator" from as early as 1934, a use persisting despite there being no shortage of dictatorial tyrants in the years since his assumption of power.  One amusing variation emerged in England in the early years of World War II (1939-1945), a “little Hitler” being someone appointed to a minor post (archetypically an air-raid warden (someone employed to walk the streets during a “black-out” telling folk to extinguish their lights)) and, cloaked in this brief, unaccustomed authority, soon intoxicated by their power.  In the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran (1979-), the regime encouraged a similar put-down aimed at opponents, the US being شيطان بزرگ (Shaytân-e Bozorg (the great Satan)) and Israel شیطان کوچک, (Shaytân-e Kuchak (the little Satan)) and it’s a worse slight even than it sounds because “great” is not the perfect translation, the idea of the great Satan being one of derision rather than awe.  When ayatollahs are in a bad mood (it does happen), sometimes the UK is also described as a “little Satan”.

Lindsay Lohan, glad to see a dictator go.

Lindsay Lohan never forgave dictator Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020; president of Egypt 1981-2011) for shouting at Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001).  When told in 2011 he’d fallen from power as one of the victims of the Arab Spring, she responded: “Cool.”  When told it was brought about by a military coup she replied: “Gross!”  Lindsay Lohan doesn’t approve of coups d'état and believes soldiers should "stay in the barracks", allowing due constitutional process to be followed.   

Because of the evil of Hitler and his many spiritual successors in this century and the last, dictator really doesn’t cry out for synonyms but autocrat, despot, tyrant, absolutist, authoritarian, oppressor & totalitarian all tend in the direction.  Associatively however, the noun generalissimo (supreme military commander), dating from the 1620s and a borrowing of the Italian generalissimo (superlative of generale, from a sense development similar to the French général), can in some cases be applied to dictators because in the twentieth century the title was granted (ie self-conferred) to the dictators comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) and Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975).  Despite that roll-call, it has never come into use as a general term for "in the manner of dictator", possibly because historically it's too specific (to the military context) and has just too many syllables to be catchy slang.

1935 Studebaker Dictator phaeton (left) & 1936 Studebaker Dictator sedan (right).

The Studebaker Dictator was produced between 1927-1937, the naming scheme using titles from government service to indicate a model’s place in the hierarchy, the Dictator replacing the Standard Six as the entry-level model, the progressively more expensive models being the Commander and President.  Other manufacturers have adopted the concept idea, Opal in Germany once merging admiralty and political ranks, offering the Kapitän, Commodore, Admiral & Diplomat.

Some of the opposition to crooked Hillary Clinton's (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) presidential campaign in 2016 accused her of wanting to turn the US into a dictatorship.  Given that she couldn't manage even to keep her husband "on the porch", fears crooked Hillary might in the Oval Office morph into dictatorial Hillary may have been hyperbolic but the meme makers any responded with agitprop.

To many it will seem strange a US manufacturer would, as late as 1937, call one of its cars the Dictator but in 1927 the Nazis were years from power and Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943), was far from the tainted character he would later become, public perception of his rule still in the moment of admiring him for “making the trains run on time”.  Whether any improvement in punctuality was noted by many Italians is dubious but the Duce would anyway have been pleased at least one train arrived in good time.  Because the image of a mass-movement black-shirted supporters taking to the streets to overthrow an old, corrupt government was just the sort of propaganda dictators adore, the 1922 "March on Rome" became part of fascist mythology but although a good "photo opportunity", Mussolini joined the march only for it's final stage; he caught the Naples-Rome train.  Studebaker anyway had always explained the name as suggesting “a fine car at a moderate price” that would “dictate the standards” in the vital mid-priced field.  That was fair enough but with the benefit of post-Nazi hindsight, when the option of a straight-eight engine was offered as an upgrade from the straight-six, Studebaker probably would not to have used the marketing slogan “a brilliant example of excess power”.  By 1937, the use of excess power by the Third Reich’s dictator was becoming obvious and Studebaker quietly dropped the Dictator name for 1938, re-positioning the Commander as the base model, the cars exported to the Europe, the UK and the British Empire having early been renamed Director.  Of those changes, probably just about everyone except Henry Ford (1863-1947) approved.  Briefly, Studebaker had also offered the Chancellor but, presumably because it wasn’t a title that much resonated in the American imagination, it was short-lived (only in the catalogue for the 1927 season); that was a stroke of luck for Studebaker because Hitler took over the Reich Chancellery in January 1933 and had the Chancellor remained in production, it too would have faced the linguistic cull for 1938.  

So Studebaker’s tale is an example of how the shifting meaning of words can influence many things.  Still, if in 1937 any association with Hitler had become distasteful for a US corporation, even by 1940, some two years after the Nazi’s most publicized pogrom against the Jews (Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)), Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) released his satirical comedy The Great Dictator which parodied both dictators (Hitler and Mussolini), his argument being that however controversial it might be, “…Hitler must be laughed at."  He later admitted that had he known in 1940 what would later be understood, he’d never have produced the film.  When in 1940 Lord Halifax (Edward Wood, 1881–1959) arrived in Washington DC to take up his appointment as UK’s ambassador, he was taken to lunch by a group of Republican senators and told they regarded Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) as “a worse dictator than Hitler or Mussolini” so Studebaker clearly made the right decision.

Studebaker US6 truck in Red Army use, configured as mobile Katyusha rocket launcher, circa 1943.  Under Lend-Lease arrangements, some 152,000 US6's were supplied during Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Comrade Stalin’s favorite cars by the 1930s were the big Packards but he acknowledged the importance of Studebaker trucks supplied by the US under Lend-Lease and the company also greatly benefited; like many US corporations, some of its golden years came during World War II (1939-1945) when industrial capacity was given over to government contracts fulfilling military demand.  A variety of materiel was produced but Studebaker’s most notable contribution to the war effort was the versatile US6 (G630 in the government purchasing system) 2½ (short) ton 6x6 trucks, over 150,000 of which were supplied to the Soviet Union.  Built in many configurations, the most memorable adaptation by the Red Army was as a mobile platform for the BM-31-12 (nickname: Andryusha) Katyusha rocket launcher, known to the enemy as “Stalin’s organs” because of the distinctive sound; before drones emerged as the preferred front-line weapon, the Russian army widely deployed such rockets in the “special military operation” (invasion) against Ukraine.  The US6 proved popular with Red Army troops who judged it superior to the locally-made ZIS-5 & GAZ-AA and better even than the captured German trucks with Maybach engines which (belying the German reputation for “good beer, good engines, good sausages”), were prone to overheating under extreme loads, unlike the Studebakers that never boiled.

Tough, durable and easy to repair, it was the WS6 that made possible the movement of the Red Army at the scale and speed achieved by 1943-1944 and it proved equally adept at handing the both the muddy and freezing conditions that became notorious on the Eastern Front; affectionately the troops nicknamed the things “Studer”.  The tale circulated that comrade Stalin even wrote a letter of appreciation to Studebaker, mentioning how important the US6 had been to the Red Army; that turned out to be apocryphal but in the Studebaker archives there are documents from Soviet officials expressing their satisfaction with the machines.  The flow of information between across the Iron Curtain was once highly restricted and one Soviet diplomat, arriving in the US in the late 1960s, expressed surprise Studebaker was no longer in business.  Brought up on the legends of the part the WS6 had played in Great Patriotic War, he'd assumed the company would still be a fixture in US manufacturing.  Of course, if corporate comings & goings in Detroit (actually South Bend, Indiana, where Studebakers were built, a place that wouldn’t again make the international headlines until 2020 when Pete Buttigieg (b 1982; US secretary of transportation 2021-2025), who served as mayor from 2012 to 2020 sought the Democratic presidential nomination), were a mystery to Russians, the Kremlin was just as opaque, even to experienced diplomats.  Probably no figure in the twentieth century was as dominating a dictator as comrade Stalin but even at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) there were senior figures in the US State Department and the UK’s Foreign Office who believed the one Russians knew as their vozhd (from the Russian вождь (vožd) (chieftain, leader) was a figure whose freedom of action was constrained by “hard liners in Moscow”.

The Hijab Police

Of the many “morality police” forces that have existed in countries with a majority Islamic population, the best known was Afghanistan's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice which actually pre-dated the Taliban takeover in 1996 but they certainly deployed it with an enthusiasm which went much beyond it functioning as “burka police” and in one form or another, it actually operated for most of the (first) post-Taliban era.  When the Taliban regained power in 2021, immediately they created the "Ministry of Invitation, Guidance and Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" and, in a nice touch, allocated as its headquarters the building formerly used by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

The institution is infamous also in Iran.  In the West, it’s usually referred to as the “morality police” and among women the sardonic slang is “hijab police” but technically, the instrument of the Islamic Republic of Iran which enforces, inter alia, the laws governing the wearing of the hijab is گشت ارشاد (Gašt-e Eršād (Guidance Patrol)).  On 16 September 2022, the hijab police arrested Mahsa Amini (2001-2022) because she was wearing her hijab in “an un-Islamic way”.  While in custody, Ms Amini suffered a medical event, dying two days later without recovering consciousness, the hijab police claiming the cause of death was heart failure, induced by pre-existing conditions.  Her family dispute this, saying the evidence suggests she was severely beaten and many witnesses have confirmed she was tortured in the back of a van before arriving at a hijab police office.

Handy guide for the hijab police.  Not only must hijab must be worn correctly but clothing must also be (1) not brightly colored, (2) not patterned with extravagant designs or shapes and (3) be loose enough that the shape of the body is not discernible.

Her death triggered waves of protests in Iran, which, on the basis of footage seen in the West, seem dominated by school girls and young women; that's not unique in the context of political protest but is historically unusual.  With protest signs and banners rendered in TikTok-friendly English, the headline issue is of course the matter of the hijab and whether women should be beaten to death for letting a lock of hair slip from beneath but the protesters are making clear they're there to highlight corruption (noting the poverty of most while the clerical elite have become very rich), the structure of the state, the economy and the very question of whether the republic should be an Islamic theocracy.  The ayatollahs are no doubt well aware that the standard calculation in political science is that if 3½% of the population can be mobilized to revolt, regimes can be toppled and most recently, the Afghan Taliban did it with a fraction of that.  For many reasons, Afghanistan may be a special case and the Iranian state, on paper, is much better equipped to suppress internal dissent but then the security apparatuses around Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi (circa 1942–2011; Libyan dictator 1969-2011) both looked impregnable until the volume of the protesters reached critical mass.  These things are however hard to judge from afar, Bashar al-Assad (b 1965; ophthalmologist and Syria dictator 2000-2024) looked vulnerable long before Gaddafi and Mubarak fell yet he sat as dictator in Damascus for another 14 years.  The ayatollahs of course watched things with concern but so did individuals in the Kremlin, aware their security apparatus proved inadequate to execute the battle plan of the "special military action" in Ukraine and observed, in a nice echo of the 1979 revolution, the protesters in Tehran again chanting the cry once spat against the Shah: “Death to the Dictator!”.

Pheasant

Pheasant (pronounced fez-uhnt)

(1) Any of various long-tailed gallinaceous birds of the family Phasianidae, especially Phasianus colchicus (ring-necked pheasant), having a brightly-coloured plumage in the male: native to Asia but now widely dispersed.

(2) Any of various other gallinaceous birds of the family Phasianidae, including the quails and partridges

(3) Any of several other gallinaceous birds, especially the ruffed grouse.

(4) The meat of such a bird, served as food.

1250–1300: From the Middle English fesaunt & fesant, from the Anglo-French fesaunt, from the Old French fesan, from the Latin phāsiānus, from the Ancient Greek φᾱσιανός (phāsiānós órnis) (Phasian bird; bird of the river Φᾶσις (Phâsis (in Colchis in the Caucauses were the birds existed in prolific number)), named after the River Phasis, in which flows into the Black Sea at Colchis in the Caucauses.  It replaced the native Old English wōrhana, a variant of mōrhana.  The ph- from the Greek was restored in English by the late fourteenth century while the wholly unetymological -t exists because of confusion with –ant (a suffix of nouns, formed from present participle of verbs in first Latin conjugation (ancient, pageant, tyrant, peasant; also talaunt, a former Middle English variant of talon, etc.).  The Latin was the source also of the Spanish faisan, the Portuguese feisão, the German Fasan and the Russian bazhantu; the Welsh was ffesant and the Cornish fesont.  In England, Pheasant was used as surname from the mid-twelfth century (and assumed occupational (pheasant farmer)).  The form in the Medieval Latin was fasianus.  A pheasantry is a place for keeping and rearing pheasants and the most common collective noun for a group of pheasants is bevy (less commonly a bouquet (when flushed), or nye.  Pheasant & pheasantry are nouns, pheasantless & pheasantlike are adjectives; the noun plural is pheasants.

Flawless food's oven roasted pheasant with herb butter.

Ingredients:

1 x 700 gram pheasant

30 grams of butter

1 teaspoon of garlic puree

1 teaspoon of Dried Thyme

Salt & Pepper

1 small Onion (red, brown or white)

1 small apple or citrus fruit (optional in lieu of onion)

6 Stuffing balls (optional)

Preparation:

Remove pheasant and butter from refrigerator approximately 40 minutes before cooking (allows butter to soften and pheasant to attain room temperature).

Preheat oven to 210℃ (fan) / 230℃ conventional.

Pat dry pheasant using paper towel.

Place softened butter, garlic puree and dried thyme; mash together with fork.

Rub garlic and herb butter blend all over pheasant including inside body cavity.

Chop onion in half and place inside the body cavity (the fruit can be used for a slightly sweeter effect (the placement is mainly to keep the flesh moist).

Generously season pheasant with salt & pepper, the place in oven roasting tray.

Roasting process:

Start cooking at the preheated temperature.

After ten (10) minutes cooking, lower heat to 180℃ (fan) / 200℃ (conventional) and cook for a further 40-50 minutes.  Note the timings are based on a 700 gram pheasant; a larger bird may need to be roasted for another 10-15 minutes.  If using a meat thermometer, internal temperature of pheasant should reach 64°C at the thickest part of the breast and thigh should reach 74 °C.

Add 6 Stuffing Balls to the tray if using, timing them according to their supplied instructions.

Serving:

Remove pheasant from oven, cover loosely with foil and allow it to rest for 20–30 minutes.  Skin should be a golden-brown.

Carve pheasant by cutting through both the legs, then slice down either side of the breastbone (first removing wishbone first will make that easier).

Serve as desired but traditional accompaniments include roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, Brussels sprouts, honey roast parsnips, stuffing balls and gravy.

The golden pheasants

Chrysolophus pictus (the golden pheasant or Chinese pheasant).

There are more than two dozen taxonomic species within the family Phasianidae (pheasants), one of which is the golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus, known also as the “Chinese pheasant”), a game bird native to the forests of mountainous areas of western China.  The plumage of the males is famously vibrant which makes it a favorite among bird watchers and photographers while the female is a duller-mottled brown plumage, something common among many avian species including the peacock (male) & peahen (female), the evolutionary advantage for the females being the fine camouflage it afforded against the forest floor.

Nazi Kreisleiter (District Leader) standard four pocket open collar tunic (circa 1940).  The party’s regulations about uniforms first appeared in 1920 and the details were often revised until things were standardized in 1939.

In the Third Reich (1933-1945) the term Goldfasane (golden pheasants) was a derisive nickname used of high-ranking members of the Nazi Party (and their wives), the name an allusion to (1) the golden hue of the fabric of the party uniform, (2) their tendency to appear well fed (al la a plump pheasant fattened for slaughter) at a time when much of the population was living under food rationing and (3) their ostentation and self-importance (likened to a colorful and strutting pheasant).  That brown became the "official" color of the party  wasn't a kind of proto-1970s fashion choice.  When Germany lost its African and tropical Pacific colonies after World War I (1914-1948), a huge stock of khaki uniforms and other kit became available as "army-surplus" and these the party purchased at low cost.  As time progressed and the uniforms came to be tailored, as a general principle, the more exalted the office, the more golden the shade of fabric used for the garb.  Even the party headquarters in Munich became known as the Braunes Haus (Brown House) and the symbolism of its destruction in 1943 by Allied bombing wasn't lost on the local population although the British, even then sensitive to criticism of "area bombing" of civilian targets, made little attempt to exploit the success for propaganda purposes.  On the site of the long-demolished Braunes Haus, the Bavarian government in 2015 opened the NS-Dokumentationszentrum (NSDOKU, the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism), a  museum with a focus on the history and consequences of the National Socialist (Nazi) regime and the role of Munich as its Hauptstadt der Bewegung (capital of the movement).  

Portrait of Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935).

The decoration is the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to both civilians and the military.  It was established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815)).  In the internal logic of French culture it was a wholly appropriate honor for a chef though to the south not all would have approved: Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) had expressed his disgust at the decadence of the modern Italian people, believing they had been seduced by French ways into “elevating cooking to the status of high art”, declaring he would never allow Italy to descend to the level of France, a country ruined by “alcohol, syphilis and journalism”.

The Brigade de cuisine (kitchen brigade) was a hierarchical organizational chart for commercial kitchens, codified from earlier practices by French chef, Georges-Auguste Escoffier who, following service in the French army, had refined and codified the the kitchen structure first documented in the fourteenth century.  The military-type chain-of-command became formalized but what was novel was what he dubbed the chef de partie system, an organizational model based on sections which were both geographically and functionally defined.  His design was intended to avoid duplication of effort and facilitate communication.  The economic realities of technological innovation, out-sourcing to external supply chains and the changing ratio of labour costs to revenue have meant even the largest modern kitchens now use a truncated version of the Escoffien system although the sectional chef de partie structure remains.  In the pre-modern era, Escoffier’s idealized structure was adopted only in the largest of exclusive establishments or the grandest of cruise liners and, like the Edwardian household, is a footnote in sociological, organizational and economic history.  In the late 1870s, after army service of some seven years, Monsieur Escoffier opened his own restaurant in Cannes.  It was called Le Faisan d'Or (The Golden Pheasant).

Kiji-shō (きじ章; Order of the Golden Pheasant).

There is also the Golden Pheasant Award (きじ章 (kiji-shō) or 金鳳賞 (Kinpōshō)), the highest award for adult leaders in the Scout Association of Japan and although it was first conferred in 1952, there’s no record of whether the earlier sardonic German slang was discussed when deciding on a name.  Officially awarded by the Chief Scout of Japan, recipients are chosen by a selection committee (an institution at which the Japanese excel) on the basis of their eminent achievement and meritorious service to the Association for a period of at least twenty years.  Most awards have been granted to Japanese citizens but the distinction may be granted to any member of a scout association affiliated with the WOSM (World Organization of the Scout Movement).  The (avian) golden pheasant has symbolic significance in Japanese culture where pheasants (particularly the green pheasant (Phasianus versicolor), Japan's national bird) have been revered for their grace and connection to nature; they convey an aura of prestige and distinction due to the majestic appearance.  The award consists of a medallion depicting a stylized golden pheasant, suspended from a white ribbon with two red stripes, worn around the neck.  The attendant uniform ribbon (worn above the left breast pocket), consists of two red stripes on a white background with a 5 mm golden device of the Japanese scout emblem.

Girl Scout icon Lindsay Lohan wearing an honorary Order of the Golden Pheasant.  (Digitally altered image from Flaunt Issue 195, November 2024, original photograph by the Morelli Brothers).

It is of course a great honor to join the exclusive club of those with a Golden Pheasant but the evidence does suggest it’s something of a kiss of political death for those statesmen (Golden Pheasants a male thing) so dubbed, their careers ending often not well.  Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) was awarded his in 1953 during a visit to Japan while VPOTUS, the brief ceremony conducted in Tokyo after his luncheon address to the America-Japan Society.  In 1974, Mr Nixon was forced to resign the presidency after revelations of his conduct during the Watergate Scandal.

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980; the last Shah of Iran 1941-1979) gained his Golden Pheasant in 1957.  In 1979 he was overthrown in the revolution which brought to power Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979-1989) and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.  Also honored in the same year was Sir Walter Nash (1882–1968; prime-minister of New Zealand 1957-1960); he lost the 1960 general election and never regained power.  A royal recipient was Constantine II (1940–2023; the last King of Greece 1964-1973) who was honored upon assuming the throne in 1964.  Constantine was forced into exile after a military putsch in 1967 (the so-called “Colonels' Coup”) with the monarchy abolished in 1973, something confirmed by two subsequent referenda (1973 & 1974).

Golden Pheasant aspirant: A Japanese scout pack leader (left) with his pack of cub scouts, circa 1964.

Gerald Ford (1913–2006; VPOTUS 1973-1974 and POTUS 1974-1977) was in 1974 created a Golden Pheasant (while VPOTUS) and he went on to lose the 1976 presidential election.  He did however have the satisfaction of knowing not only did the man who beat him (Jimmy Carter (1924-2024; POTUS 1977-1981)) never become a Golden Pheasant, but also turned out to be “a bit of a turkey”.  Paras Bir Bikram Shahdev (b 1971; last Crown Prince of Nepal, heir apparent to the throne 2001-2008) became a Golden Pheasant in 2005.  In 2001, there was what is a now uncommon act of regicide known as the Durbar Hatyakanda (Nepalese royal massacre) that was actually a family squabble, the assassin of nine members of the dynasty (including the king & queen) being Crown Prince Dipendra (1971-2001) who, by virtue of the constitutional arrangements, for three days reigned while in a coma before succumbing to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Subsequently, there was a peaceful transition to a republic and in 2008 the world’s last Hindu monarchy was abolished.  Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) was the last POTUS to become a recipient and his second term was tainted by Iran-Contragate affair.  Given the history, it may be the US State Department has instructed the ambassador to Tokyo quietly to inform the chief scout POTUSs would prefer not to become Golden Pheasants but a gift like a ceremonial woggle warmly would be received.

Mori san explains.

Yoshirō Mori san OGP (centre) meeting the official mascots (boy in blue, girl in pink) for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, Tokyo, 2018.  While serving as president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, an international human rights advocacy group awarded him a “gold medal” for sexism after he complained women members of the committee “...talked too much” due to their “strong sense of rivalry. If one says something, they all end up saying something.”  

Beating the drum: Sanae Takaichi san with drum kit.  In the Japan of 2026, a woman can become prime minister but can neither reign as empress nor receive an Order of the Golden Pheasant.

As Mori san's LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) colleagues know, women have little to say worth hearing but so depleted are the party's stocks of estimable men, in 2025 they had to endure the humiliation of Sanae Takaichi san (b 1961) taking the party presidency and thus becoming the nation's first female prime minister.  To add insult to injury, in 2026 she called an election and won a landslide victory, giving the LDP its highest ever count of seats in the Diet's lower house, meaning attention now turns to the next upper house election, pencilled in for mid-2028.  Upper house elections are no longer the sleepy non-news events of old because if Takaichi san can emulate her electorate success and deliver the LDP a companion two-thirds majority, the path to change the constitution is opened, something that will with great interest be watched from Beijing and the White House, both places with opinions on anything that might permit the JSDF (Japan Self Defence Forces, on paper a potent military force) to become more "adventurous".  With Takaichi san's victories, the LDP men know they have lost face but in July 2026 they had the satisfaction of succeeding in their conspiracy with the mandarins of the Imperial Household (of which the LDP is a kind of branch office) to ensure it remains impossible for a woman to sit on the Emperor's throne, a thought as much an affront to them as would be a female pope to the Roman Curia.  

Yoshirō Mori (森 喜朗, Mori Yoshirō san, b 1937; prime minister of Japan 2000-2001) actually anticipated the “curse of the Golden Pheasant”, leaving office after a gaff-prone two year term some time before he gained the award in 2003.  Mori san was notable for his consistently low approval ratings while prime-minister and most public opinion polls towards the end of his tenure hovered between 7-12% of Japanese voters having a positive view of his premiership.  Mori san had however been a fly-half (first five-eighth in New Zealand's quirky naming system) when playing for the prestigious Waseda University rugby team so for a while he just put his head down and ploughed-on.  That lasted until shortly after the publication of one poll reporting he had received a zero (0%) rating, believed to be the lowest suffered by any politician since polling became (more-or-less) scientific in the 1940s.  At breakfast, it can’t have been much fun for Mori san; he’d have just started to enjoy his gohan (steamed rice), misoshiru (miso soup) yakizakana (grilled fish), tsukemono (pickled vegetables), tamagoyaki (rolled omelette) and ryokucha (green tea), only to open the morning paper and find out nobody in the country liked him.  Shortly after that, he advised his LDP colleagues he would soon resign and they should conclude the (already well-advanced) plotting and scheming to find his successor.  Still, as a consolation, Mori san has his Golden Pheasant.

Pheasant wars: A golden pheasant and a Lady Amherst's pheasant contesting occupancy of a rock.

Pheasant Plucking

The pheasant features in a favorite schoolboy rhyme, said to have origins in an eighteenth century English village where it was composed by Elias, a wandering bard performing at one of the hamlet's “grand pheasant festivals”; he’d been much impressed by the efficient and rhythmic plucking of pheasants by champion pheasant plucker Tom Fletcher.  Whether or not that story is true isn’t known but it (and other variations) is a common tale.  In its modern form the tongue-twister appears usually as:

I'm not the pheasant plucker,
I'm only the pheasant plucker's son,
But I'll keep on plucking pheasants
'Till the pheasant plucker comes.

The verse was soon as much a part of the festivals as the pheasant plucking proper and was popular drinking game, those making a mistake during a recital having to drink a pint of ale before having another attempt.  The extended version read:

I'm not a pheasant plucker,
I'm a pheasant plucker's mate,
And I'm only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's late.
 
Plucking pheasants is a pleasure
when the pheasant plucker's near,
But when pheasants pluck at pheasants,
then the plucking's rather queer.
 
So, if I'm plucking pheasants,
where the pleasant pheasants roam,
I'll pluck enough for supper
till the pheasant plucker's home.
 
And when the pheasant plucker comes,
we'll pluck them side by side,
Through pleasant plains and pheasant fields
where pheasants love to hide.

Ultimatum

Ultimatum (pronounced uhl-tuh-mey-tuhm or uhl-tuh-mah-tuhm)

(1) A final, uncompromising demand or set of terms issued by a party to a dispute (used especially of governments and WAGs (wives & girlfriends)), the rejection of which may lead to a severance of relations, the imposition of sanctions, the use of force etc.

(2) A final proposal or statement of conditions; any final or peremptory demand, offer or proposal.

1731: From the New Latin, a specialized use of the Medieval Latin ultimatum (a final statement), noun use of neuter of Latin adjective ultimātus (last possible, final; ended, finished), past participle of ultimāre (to come to an end), from ultimus (extreme, last, furthest, farthest, final).  The Latin plural ultimata was used by the Romans as a noun in the sense of “what is farthest or most remote; the last, the end”.  In mid-1920s slang ultimatum described also “the buttocks” (a use which deserves to be revived).  In English, the plural form had an interesting trajectory.  Although the Anglo-Irish satirist & Anglican cleric Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) used “ultimatums”, that didn’t until the twentieth century convince the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) to displace ultimata as the recommended form.  In diplomacy (a world of “gray areas”), the comparative is “more ultimative”, the superlative “most ultimative”.  Ultimatum is a noun, ultimating & ultimated are verbs and ultimative is an adjective; the noun plural is ultimatums or ultimata. 

The first ultimatum would have been issued in prehistoric times and there have been many since.  History suggests a great many have been bluffs which can be a successful tactic if perceived as plausible but often the “bluff was called” and the ultimatum proved a hollow threat, thus the language of diplomacy including also the (sometimes darkly) satirical or humorous (1) penultimatum (plural penultimatums or penultimata) which describes a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, commonly expressed as an ultimatum in the hopes of compelling immediate compliance with demands, but that then is superseded by more negotiation instead of actual dire consequences and (2) antepenultimatum (plural antepenultimatums or antepenultimata) which describes a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, essentially a penultimatum, but even more tentative and more repeatedly abandoned in favour of subsequent ignominious compromises.  The trouble with unfulfilled ultimatums is that while rapidly they can lose their persuasive power (in a manner analogous with Aesop's Fable The boy who cried wolf), at some point a party issuing unenforced ultimatums may one day make good on their threats, the high stakes gambler Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and the rather dim-witted Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) both in September 1939 genuinely surprised when the Anglo-French ultimatum guaranteeing the sovereignty of Poland was honoured, the previous back-downs no longer a guide.  Of course, six year later, Polish sovereignty was sacrificed to political necessity but a war which began with the RAF (Royal Air Force dropping leaflets politely asking the Germans to stop what they were doing and ended with the USAAF (US Army Air Force) dropping A-bombs of Japanese cities had many unintended consequences.

CD cover art for Lindsay Lohan's Spirit in the Dark (2008) album.

For centuries, the word “ultimatum” seems to have been avoided by poets, librettists and lyricists.  Ultimatum is a Latinate “formal” word so perhaps not well-suited to love songs but beyond the register and tone, those studying structural linguistics note the prosody: It’s a four-syllable word with a stress pattern (ul-TIM-a-tum) difficult to “fit into” common meters and melodic phrasing.  That said, while there’s a semantic narrowness, the idea of the ultimatum (a final demand backed by consequences) is hardly rare in opera and poetry but it tends to be described or implied rather than labelled with the specific word.  However, one niche was found in the definitely modern genre of rap, hip-hop and such and that’s attributed to the material putting a premium on conflict, violence and the technique of rhyming on the final syllable.  Undaunted however was Kara DioGuardi (b 1970) who included “ultimatum” in the opening verse of the Lindsay Lohan song Stay (2008).  Its inclusion is a genuine rarity.

Verse 1 of Stay (2008) Kara DioGuardi, sung by by Lindsay Lohan.

Baby, take your coat off and your shoes and just relax
Let your body sink into these arms, that's where it's at
I'll open up a bottle and slip into something else
I hope tonight's the night that all these walls are gonna melt
'Cause when we're out, you're sending me mixed signals all the time
You want me, but you don't just wanna lay it on the line
So baby, here's your ultimatum, are you in or out?
All you have to do is wanna turn this all around, and...

If it was for poets a challenge to splice “ultimatum” into the body of a work, without any discordance it could be used as a title and Philip Larkin (1922-1985) choose it for his first published poem which appeared in The Listener on 28 November, 1940:

Ultimatum (1940) by Philip Larkin.

But we must build our walls, for what we are
Necessitates it, and we must construct
The ship to navigate behind them, there.
Hopeless to ignore, helpless instruct
For any term of time beyond the years
That warn us of the need for emigration:
Exploded the ancient saying: Life is yours.
For on our island is no railway station,
There are no tickets for the Vale of Peace,
No docks where trading ships and seagulls pass.
Remember stories you read when a boy
- The shipwrecked sailor gaining safety by
His knife, treetrunk, and lianas - for now
You must escape, or perish saying no.

Unknown previously, “ultimatum” did occasionally appear in twentieth century poetry, a product probably of the big, multi-theatre wars and the use in modern and experimental poetry of language which borrowed from abstract or formal vocabularies.  While the terrible first half of the twentieth century gave poets plenty of scope to explore the concept (it was an age of ultimatums), in print, it was done almost without mention of the word.

The issuing of ultimatums has shaped a number of turning points in history; variously they have proved decisive, stabilizing or catastrophic.  Probably the most infamous was the “July Ultimatum”, served on Serbia by Austria-Hungary after a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914; heir presumptive to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).  While such a procedure was orthodox politics, what was notable about what Vienna did in 1914 was to make demands it was certain Serbia would be unable to fulfil.  The Austrians hankered for war because they wanted permanently to put an end the “Serbian threat” and Berlin, anticipating a traditional, short, sharp, limited war of a few weeks, gave Vienna the infamous “German blank cheque” of support.  Belgrade accordingly turned to its traditional supporters in Moscow who agreed to offer military support; that came after the Kremlin had received confirmation from Paris that France would honor its treaty arrangement with Russia.  From all this came the outbreak of war in August 1914 by which time the British (for a variety of reasons) had become involved and by 1917 the US had become a belligerent; this was conflict which came to be called “The World War” before in the 1940s being renamed “World War I” (1914-1918).

Even in 1945, the phrase “unconditional surrender” (the origin an apparently chance remark (although subsequently he would cite a precedent from the US Civil War (1861-1865)) by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) at the Casablanca Conference (January 1943)) had been controversial because of the concern it had lengthened the war against Germany by dissuading (the probably chimerical) opposition forces within the country from staging a coup with a view to negotiating peace.  Despite that, at the Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945) the Allied powers (China, the UK & US, the Soviet Union not then at war with Japan) served Tokyo with the Potsdam Declaration demanding exactly that.  After the two A-bombs were dropped, the Japanese agreed to a surrender that fell a little short of being “unconditional” but the Americans decided to accept the offer, concluding having a “puppet emperor”.

Trump: The Art of the Deal (First Edition, 1987) by Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz.

One once improbable text in 2016 added to the reading lists of political analysts was Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987) by Donald J. Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) with Tony Schwartz (b 1952).  It’s a useful book because in it Mr Trump (or Mr Schwartz depending on one’s spin of choice) provided examples of negotiating techniques.  That book was about commerce, notably property deals, but it gave an insight into why Mr Trump later succeeded so well in reality TV, his understanding of the potency of mixing fact, threats, spectacle and blatant untruths underlining that second career.  He may not, while the book was being drafted, have been contemplating politics as a third career but he did find many of its techniques could be adapted to international diplomacy.  In that he proved an innovator but there are limitations to how well things translate.  One weapon in the arsenal is the ultimatum which can be used in real-estate deals with few consequences beyond the relatively few individuals concerned but in international relations, such things can have cascading global effects.

If within the White House there were any doubts the issuing of ultimatums might have consequences other than what was desired, the path of the conflict in the Middle East should have given them some interesting case studies.  What’s also interesting is whether in the White House the possible reactions to ultimatums were discussed prior to them being presented.  Giving the Ayatollahs 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face withering new airstrikes on Iran’s power generation infrastructure sounded decisive on Truth Social (which definitely is part of the modern calculation in such matters) but Tehran responded by threatening to target the energy and water desalination facilities in the neighboring Gulf states.  As threats go, it was a stark warning because those nations can rely on desalinated water for as much as 90% of their needs and have no practical alternative so it would have been an escalation with potentially devastating regional consequences.

Not a model easily translatable to Iran.  Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela 2013-2026, right) and his lawyer Barry Pollack (b 1964, left), US Federal Court, Manhattan, New York City, March 2026, illustration by Jane Rosenberg (b 1949).

Accordingly, prior to the deadline, Mr Trump announced he’d “temporarily” called of the strikes, claiming that was induced not by Tehran’s counter-threat but by “productive” talks with “the right people”.  He didn’t descent to specifics (something not unusual in back channel diplomacy) but did add the talks had revealed “major points of agreement” and “they want very much to make a deal, we'd like to make a deal, too.”  Apparently unimpressed, Iranian state media, claimed the president had backed down in the face of their threats and denied talks of any significance were taking place.  Again, in diplomacy of this kind, denials are standard procedure.  A few hours later, Mr Trump assured an audience the US was conducting “very, very good discussions” with Iran.  So it’s competing narratives and analysts made no attempt to try to work out how much truthfulness was coming from either side but more than one observed that if the president had realized he’d painted himself into a corner by delivering the ultimatum, revealing previously unannounced back-channel discussions was a quick and face-saving way to buy some time to hope plan A (missiles and bombs) works.  There was though from some sources the notion the mention of “the right people” may put in the mind of the regime the audacious kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela 2013-2026), an operation made possible by the cooperation of “the right people” in Caracas.  Some suspicion of one’s colleagues might be understandable given the extraordinary success achieved in assassinating leading figures in the Iranian political establishment and the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).

While it can be guaranteed US-Iran “talks” are taking place in some form, trying to predict the course of this conflict is difficult because there are relatively few models from the past which might provide something of indicative value.  Since the end of the Cold War, one endlessly repeated admonition issued by those in the Middle East to successive occupants of the White House has been not to do this or that because “you will open the gates of Hell”.  Many probably suspect that at some point in that last few years, those gates were at least pushed ajar but if things do escalate they could be torn from their hinges and the most worrying scenario is that US land forces will be deployed against Iran with the active cooperation of the Gulf States, something unthinkable as recently as a few weeks ago.  The theory supporting this is based on the notion that the attacks on Iran conducted over the past year have made irrevocable the Ayatollah’s determination to acquire an IND (independent nuclear deterrent), a quite rational response by any regime reviewing military matters since 1945.  Of course, ayatollahs with A-bombs would trigger a chain reaction because a number of states in the region would also demand their own IND with a genuinely autonomous launch capacity because, just as Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) felt compelled to acquire the capacity because he doubted “a US president would risk New York to save Paris” the same concerns would extend to the fate of Dubai and Riyadh.

The power behind the curtain: Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (b 1969; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 2026, left) looking at his father Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran 1989-2026).  Mojtaba Khamenei’s nickname is reputed to be “The power behind the robes”, an allusion to the power he exercised while his father was supreme leader (something like the role fulfilled by Lieutenant General Oskar von Hindenburg (1883–1960) while serving as ADC (aide-de-camp) Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; President of Germany 1925-1934).

What Mr Trump has done is to abandon the “power realist” approach to dealing with the Islamic Republic.  As explained by its high priest (Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977)), the approach was an acknowledgment that “solving” some problems was either impossible or so dangerous to attempt that the preferred approach was endlessly to “manage” things, thereby either maintaining the problem at an acceptable level or allowing it, over time, to “solve itself”.  Mr Trump probably genuinely believes there is not a problem on the planet he can’t solve by “making a deal”, achieved by a combination of threats, inducements, spectacle and ultimatums.  In some fields, such optimism is a virtue but when dealing with Ayatollahs with a nuclear weapons programme and the dream of a global caliphate under their interpretation of Shi'i Islam, it’s at least potentially dangerous.  One can argue about whether the ayatollahs had, prior to the last two rounds of attack, already decided to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon but now there can be no doubt.  No US president before Mr Trump would have dared do what’s been done in the last twelve months but now he’s in the position of not daring to stop because nothing short of regime change can now make things better; all alternatives are worse.  On paper, given the regime’s internal contradictions and the widespread dissatisfaction among the population, there should be paths to regime change without a land invasion but the Ayatollahs and IRGC appear still to possess a formidable defensive apparatus.  As the missile exchanges continue, Mr Trump has announced a ten-day extension to the deadline to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.  Whether this will come to be regarded as ultimatum 1.1 or 2.0 will be one of the footnotes when the histories of this conflict are written.