Word: causticity
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...pioneer immigrant directors -- Maurice Tourneur from France, the Germans Ernst Lubitsch and F.W. Murnau -- imported civilized modes of fantasy, comedy and folklore. But the new exiles had darker stories to tell, and through them Hollywood found its caustic maturity. Here were artists with an outsider's perspective and, suddenly, an insider's clout; they could celebrate the temple of American success while keeping an eye on the cracks in its facade. The industry, or at least that part of it that handed out awards, was grateful: eleven of the first 20 Oscars for best direction went to immigrants, from Frank...
Lodge became President Eisenhower's United Nations Ambassador, serving longer in that post (7 1/2 years) than anyone before or since. At the U.N., the dashing diplomat is best remembered for his caustic oratory against the Soviet Union. In 1960, during the debate over the downing of an American U-2 intelligence plane over the Soviet Union, Lodge displayed in the Security Council a wooden plaque bearing the seal of the U.S. The plaque, which had hung for 15 years in the U.S. embassy in Moscow, turned out to be bugged. Later that year Lodge became Richard Nixon's running...
...better the problems afflicting their North American neighbor: coca abuse has begun to spread across South America. The greatest culprit is a brown, pennies-cheap cigarette made of an addictive low-grade coca paste. Often known as brutos, the cigarettes contain impurities that have not been processed out, including caustic soda, sulfuric acid and kerosene. The cheap high, once favored only by teenage street kids, has now hooked a significant cross-section of society...
...extraordinarily intricate, a cross between tear gas and a tommy gun. When the beetle senses danger, it internally mixes enzymes contained in one body chamber with concentrated solutions of some rather harmless compounds, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinones, confined to a second chamber. This generates a noxious spray of caustic benzoquinones, which explodes from its body at a boiling 212 degreesF. What is more, the fluid is pumped through twin rear nozzles, which can be rotated, like a B-17's gun turret, to hit a hungry ant or frog with bull's-eye accuracy. When Rue learned about the bombardier...
...part of "a series of calculated maneuvers to soften the image of Mr. Conservative into Mr. Conciliation." Buchanan has been even more suspicious of his colleagues in the press: as a White House speechwriter from 1969 to 1974, he crafted some of Vice President Spiro Agnew's most caustic attacks on the news media. In a column last year Buchanan described the nation's major news organizations as "the polemical and publicity arm of American liberalism...