Old Nick

This will be a short one, but my heart quickened yesterday when I heard a story on NPR about my beloved Niccolo Machiavelli, who has a bit of a PR problem. It turns out that The Prince, one of my all time favorites, turns 500 this year. I blogged about him a bit here, as you can find if you search the box in the upper left.

I've often thought that anyone interested in fighting for social justice should be issued three books. In no particular order, they are the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu; the Art of War by Sun Tzu; and The Prince (with his Discourses included as an appendix).

I was lucky enough to have visited Italy two years ago, and we spent a couple of days in Florence. The Spousal Unit took a picture of me kneeling reverently at his tomb in the Basilica of  Santa Croce. I was only partly joking...