Word: backgrounders
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...audition, each winner posted an introductory video. Dressed in a kimono, Maki Takafuji, who lives in Kyoto, Japan, plays a brief marimba solo and talks about her music education. Jim Moffat, a horn player who works in technology marketing in the U.K., introduces himself with London Bridge in the background. Nina Perlove, a flutist from Cincinnati, Ohio, begins her video aspirationally, by playing the song "New York, New York." David France, a violinist who teaches at the Bermuda School of Music, greets viewers from a sandy beach...
Though it gets off to a slow start with an unusual background, once "Love Song for Seventeen Crips" moves to the Ratatat beat it evolves into a carefully crafted interweaving of electronics, piano, and the lyrics of Sara Bareilles' most prominent hit, "Love Song." Close attention to detail here...
...According to the SportsOneSource, a research firm that tracks the sporting-goods industry, firearms sales in large retail outlets are up 39% this year. Shops across the country are reporting ammunition shortages because stores can't meet demand for bullets. Data from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which the industry uses as a proxy for overall firearms sales, are also revealing. From November 2008 through March 2009, FBI background checks, which are required every time a federally licensed gun dealer makes a sale, rose 29.3% over the same period a year earlier. In November alone, checks...
...factors are fueling the rise. The first is political. It's no coincidence that a record number of background checks occurred in November, the month Barack Obama was elected President and the Democrats took control of Congress. People grew anxious that the Obama Administration would ban semiautomatic weapons, so they rushed to buy guns before legislation could be passed. In a December survey by the research firm Southwick Associates, nearly 80% of active hunters and target shooters said they believed firearm purchases would "become more difficult" under the new Administration and a Democratic Congress. "Everybody is waiting for when...
...farce. There is the beloved monarch, magnanimous and complacent. There is the moody crown prince. There is the prince's cousin, a playboy with a belly and a ponytail, who after years of silence professes alone to know the truth of his royal family's demise. And in the background are the Maoists, once guerrillas, now rulers, keen to spin this whole set piece to their political advantage...