Meanwhile Creon, as head of state, embodies all the certainty, arrogance and myopia of inflexible authority.
It is particularly telling that whereas in the past, law enforcement strove to provide a sense of security, trust, and comfort, the impression conveyed today is one of power, dominance and inflexible authority.
I enjoyed the evening without ever feeling, as I did with Julius Caesar, that the act of putting on a play about rebellion itself posed a threat to an inflexible prison authority.
Blaming a clerical slip between KPMG and his assistant, he calls California authorities "inflexible" for recently upholding a $24,280 penalty: "I'm a good taxpayer.
The most extreme and inflexible advocate of papal authority, Boniface VIII, initiated a struggle with the French king, Philip IV, over Philip's attempts to tax and judge the clergy.
One M.T.A. official suggested that the union was stressing a negative interpretation to make the authority appear inflexible and help solidify support among moderate union members for a walkout should it come down to that.
Efforts to address food safety, it says, are "hampered by inconsistent and inflexible oversight and enforcement authorities, inefficient resource use and ineffective coordination".
Americans are searching for churches -- and temples, synagogues, and mosques -- that are not caught up in political intrigue, rigid rules and prohibitions, institutional maintenance, unresponsive authorities, and inflexible dogma but instead offer pathways of life-giving spiritual experience, connection, meaning, vocation, and doing justice in the world.
At his own news conference at the Grand Hyatt, Gary Dellaverson, the M.T.A.'s chief negotiator, denied that the authority was being inflexible, saying it had made proposals on health coverage and the disciplinary process that addressed the union's concerns.
And, with many local authorities locked into inflexible contracts of 10, 15 and even 25 years with the private sector for huge chunks of their activity, it is likely to be frontline direct services, along with the staff who deliver them and the communities who rely on them, who feel the real pain in the future.
Employers and educational authorities were usually inflexible, and constrained trial participants' ability to attend clinic visits.
