Word: affront
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Klaus Barbie's trial ((WORLD, May 25)) is an affront to the memories of the millions who perished at the hands of the Nazis. His contemptuous refusal to face the people he tortured makes a mockery of the dignified treatment and justice now being given him. After all, how many of the Nazis' victims were tried as humanely as Barbie...
Among the afflictions of old age, Alzheimer's is a particular affront. The degenerative mental condition, which affects some 2 million people in the U.S., robs its victims of their dignity and renders them helpless. They become confused, lose track of time and are eventually unable to recognize spouses and other loved ones. Physiologically, Alzheimer's manifests itself in the form of abnormal protein deposits in the brain. But the reason these insidious tangles and plaques build up remains unknown...
First, it is an affront to those whose ancestors really were slaves and who still suffer the effects of that injustice. To compare the position of those who enter this country, often illegally, to find work, with the position of those who were forcibly brought here to be traded and sold like cattle, is not a comparison at all but an absurd rhetorical juxtaposition...
Foreign intrusion has frequently spurred student reaction. When Japan presented the Chinese government with its "21 demands" in 1915, which included the ceding of the northeastern province of Shandong to Tokyo, thousands of Chinese students studying abroad returned home to protest what they saw as a humiliating affront to the country's sovereignty. Reports that Britain, France and Italy had agreed at Versailles to support Japanese claims to Shandong sparked a demonstration of some 5,000 students in Peking on May 4, 1919, and protests at more than a dozen universities across the country. Mao Tse-tung later labeled...
...film with the shadowless clarity of postcards and Polaroids. The Narrator's convertible streaks down the highway like a big red Road Runner, and the Laziest Woman in the World (Swoosie Kurtz) vegetates in a tidy mansion surrounded by the bleak glamour of the Texas plains -- civilization's affront to parched nature. Byrne's framing of the actors, like his sense of humor, is just off center and right on target. It gives all the performers (especially Goodman, who becomes tomorrow's star with his endearing turn as Louis) plenty of room to expand their characters from stereotypes into...