Instead of the public-tech visionary, it gives us Jobs backstage, as he prepares for three of his famous product launches: in 1984, 1988 and 1997.
Instead of apocalyptic visionaries, the Mayans, like the Hopis before them, are simply the latest in a long list of cultures on whom we've projected our own Western apocalyptic expectations, which are in overdrive in these tumultuous times.
It also compels innovators to submit dependable and consistent projects instead of just visionary conjectures.
So what happened is that Obama, instead of setting a visionary course on healthcare, took the best bureaucratic input from the greatest bureaucratic minds of the era, and solidified them into a plan.
According to a PowerPoint presentation that the New York Civil Liberties Union downloaded from the Jamrs Web site last year, Latinos are culturally "hard wired differently": they are "emotional" and not "intellectual"; "intuitive" instead of "analytical"; and "visionary" rather than "accuracy-driven".
Within the White House, Mr. Woodward writes, many of those involved in the negotiations argued that Mr. Boehner "did not come close to steering his own ship": "Instead of being a visionary trying to make a grand bargain, Boehner had, almost all alone, crawled out on a limb and watched as Eric Cantor and the Tea Party sawed it off".
But what of the visionary behind the dining room itself?
A portrait of the visionary designer of Central Park.
The alliance was inspired by Alexander, perhaps under the influence of the visionary Barbara Juliane von Krüdener.
Ah, the loneliness of the visionary.
