Word: alienment
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Klingon? That's right, Klingon -- the alien tongue spoken in Star Trek movies and TV shows by bellicose fellows with the permanently furrowed brows. It sounds a bit like Japanese, a bit like Yiddish, with a lot of choking sounds and rough, saliva-spraying sibilants. (A handkerchief is recommended for novice speakers.) The idiom of a warrior culture, Klingon doesn't have words for "nice" or "pretty" or even "hello" -- the standard greeting is "What do you want?" (nuqneH?). But if you want to say "Surrender or die!" and sound like you mean it, Klingon...
...about the underclass almost always entrap both creators and audiences in moral ambiguity. No matter how determined not to condescend, artists and spectators all but inevitably feel an anthropological distance from their subjects. This holds especially true in the theater, a medium the underclass is apt to avoid as alien and unaffordable. Certainly, few playgoers at Aven'U Boys, a violent and vivid series of vignettes set in Brooklyn, New York, that debuted off-Broadway last week, appear to share the despondent, nihilistic subliteracy of the title trio of Italian Americans in their late teens (played, with terrifying conviction...
Actually, the IRS has long been lenient with those who voluntarily offer to pay overdue taxes. According to a policy statement issued last December, "the vast majority of nonfilers need only be concerned about filing and paying what they owe." Moreover, anyone who employs an illegal alien can pay Social Security taxes through a special irs account, and the agency says it does not automatically report such filings to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. But there is a catch: the IRS naturally notifies the Social Security Administration, and that outfit does share information with the immigration office...
They had better not. After the President's political advisers determined that Americans are too dumb to understand the difference between Zoe Baird, who knowingly violated the law by employing two illegal aliens and paying them off the books, and Kimba Wood, who legally employed an alien and filed all the required taxes, they discovered that -- oops! -- they had inadvertently created a new hiring policy. Worse, its effect looked suspiciously like sex discrimination. So, compounding the error, the Administration decided to formalize its accidental policy and apply it to men as well as women. Henceforth, the Administration announced, all candidates...
Burned once by his hasty pick of Zoe Baird, President Clinton awaited results of a full background check before announcing his near certain choice for U.S. Attorney General: New York Federal Judge Kimba Wood. Surprise! On Friday what should appear but another illegal-alien baby-sitter. Wood explained that when she hired the woman from Trinidad in 1986, it was not unlawful. "I made all required filings and payments," said Wood, and the baby-sitter became a legal resident in 1987. No matter. With a push from a jittery White House, Wood withdrew her name. (See related story on page...