Like the three ceremonial functions based on the Constitutions, these informal chief of state activities emphasize the president's role as the leader of the nation, but many of them also serve to humanize the president and symbolically bridge the gap between the president and the people.

I promiscuously fell in a conversation once, with an elderly colored man on the topics of education, and of the great prevalency of ignorance among us: Said he, I know that our people are very ignorant but my son has a good education: he can write as well as any white man, and I assure you that no one can fool him, etc.

For months the Japanese spoke of national-security adviser Henry Kissinger as a ninja—the magician of Japanese legends who performs supernatural acts and practices sorcery.

In the hands of the few power can be called oppression, repression, exploitation or authoritarianism. Meanwhile movements for freedom, emancipation, liberation, human rights and democracy have a common idea at their heart. That idea is Counterpower.