Word: ante
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Holding his champagne glass high, the baritone sang a warm and impassioned aria to the health of his mistress-ant. He had scarcely finished when the restaurant proprietor brushed the mistress-ant from tablecloth to floor and stepped on it. The baritone dropped dead, the brasses blazed, and the audience swung into one of the liveliest musical brawls to erupt in Germany in years...
...occasion was a performance of Composer Peter Ronnefeld's four-act opera, The Ant. Spectators at the Düsseldorf Opera seemed to find no middle ground; they were either enraged or entranced by the generally cacophonous score and by the frankly libidinous libretto that provided space for an orgiastic ballet, a striptease and a recitative recounting of the early sexual exploits of a couple of convicts. Composer Ronnefeld, 26, who conducted the orchestra, was greeted by a caterwauling of penny whistles from the top balcony. ("Idiots up there!" shouted pro-Ronnefeld forces in other parts of the house...
...bombardier beetle is an inconspicuous insect that ranges much of the world with calm and self-assurance-and for jood reason. When attacked by a ferocious ant, its natural enemy, the bombardier beetle (Brachinus) merely stands its ground, pushes a flexible tube from its rear end and points it at the enemy. With a small but audible bang, a cloud of acrid vapor envelops the ant, reducing it to paralysis or trembling confusion. Until recently, the bombardier beetle's efficient defensive weapon was pretty much of a mystery. Entomologists thought that it simply squirted out a liquid that exploded...
...troops earmarked for the revolt-torn African colony of Angola were diverted to home duty instead. From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic-whipped northwestern frontier, police mounted a vast network of roadblocks known as "Operation Stop," ostensibly to crack down on auto thieves. Actual reason for the emergency: Strongman António de Oliveira Salazar's obsessive fear that maverick Henrique Galvâo, who stole the Santa Maria and world headlines in an eleven-day protest against the regime last January, plans a coup in Portugal itself...
...ranged from monarchists to socialists and old-guard liberals, disenchanted doctors and lawyers to army and navy officers. The opposition platform, which the government labeled "unconstitutional," called for democratic rights, economic progress and an enlightened colonial policy. But the opposition's main target was 72-year-old António de Oliveira Salazar, for as one candidate exclaimed: "The government's only hope is that Salazar is immortal. Like Hitler and Mussolini, this regime is holding out to the bitter moment when all crashes about...