Word: backgrounder
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...Sleep” is concerned with recounting the author’s more memorable experiences. Everett, who has spent much of the past 30 years living among and studying the Pirahã, relates a number of vignettes about his time with the people. He gives some colorful background about how he started this work—he began as a missionary, trying to translate the Bible for the Pirahã. He tells us with off-putting honesty about his family’s near-fatal brush with malaria, and how his own ignorance almost killed them. He divulges touching...
Palin, Sarah •Huckabee's envy of • turkeys are slaughtered in background as TV interview is merrily given...
Much of the world senses a connection with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. The feeling appears mutual. Obama has repeatedly said that his background (childhood in Indonesia, father from Kenya) enables him to better understand other nations and cultures. He will need that understanding, especially in Asia, where the U.S. is fighting a war in Afghanistan, battling terrorism in Pakistan and learning to cope with rising powers China and India, among other challenges. Here's Obama's main Asia agenda, and what he should do about...
...Science and International Affairs and chaired the school’s Middle East Initiative. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a former dean of the Kennedy School and founder of the Middle East Initiative, expressed strong support for White’s appointment. “John White has terrific background for this task...and he is a man of impeccable judgement,” said Nye, himself a former official in the Clinton Administration Defense Department and Carter Administration State Department. Both Sewall and White join a growing pantheon of Obama advisors with Harvard connections. Among his other advisers...
Consider the debate over abortion. The majority of those who are pro-life come from a religious background, and often simply cite God and the sacred nature of all creatures in their arguments against abortion. For the secular contingent, these arguments are meaningless, and thus unpersuasive. Instead of just opposing the pro-life rhetoric, those who are pro-choice often displace their frustration and resentment onto religion itself, and its interference in political matters. In this way, animosity towards opposing views in the political realm is transferred onto God and religion...