Word: ax
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Beethoven's Leonore Overture and Piano Concerto No. 4 (performed by Emanuel Ax), in late April and early...
...power of Congress and its individual members goes to a larger truth. With power distributed between three branches of government, and between Washington and the states, the U.S. has a distinctly fragmented political system, one that has many pressure points available for those with an ax to grind or a proposal to advance. (Think health-care reform.) By comparison with other democracies, that can make for a messy system of government, in which you can never be quite sure how things will get done, or what players hold strong hands. Moreover, because the U.S. is so powerful, its national system...
...real villains, if that's the word, are never seen: they're the bosses who haven't the nerve to ax their employees face to face. Still, a movie about a guy who fires people, released at a time when at least a tenth of the workforce is out of work, is utterly nervy. And wonderful. Up in the Air is not primarily an issue movie, banging home its thesis with reductive characters and heavy melodrama. It's a romantic comedy, as Ryan finds a soul mate - if either of them has a soul - in the sultry Alex (Vera Farmiga...
...second-to-last row of Roxboro Baptist, the Whitfields try to listen to the sermon, but Brian's mind wanders. Last autumn, Debbie warned Brian that the ax might fall. She grew up in Flint, Mich., the granddaughter of a man who participated in the landmark 1936-37 sit-down strike at GM's Fisher body plant that established industrial-labor-organizing rights in America. But she saw her father and uncle go down with the automakers. "When they shut down the Fisher plant [in 1987], everything within a two-to-three-block radius closed down: bars, restaurants, gas stations...
While homeowners celebrated, city, county and school district officials sat in stunned disbelief. There were predictions of drastic cuts to education and social services. But the ax did not fall as Sacramento, flush with a multibillion-dollar surplus, bailed out local governments and the schools. But the state rescue was accompanied by a loss of local control. As a result of Proposition 13, school districts, county governments and cities were forced to compete with state priorities for a slice of the state budget...