Word: commoner
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Barack Obama began his latest overseas trip on a mission to increase international cooperation, with a visit to Islam's holiest land, Saudi Arabia, and its most dynamic intellectual hub, Cairo. He ended it four days later at a monument to what such common purpose can achieve...
This universality has been on Obama's mind all week. In Cairo, he addressed the Muslim world in sweeping terms about the need to forge again a common purpose. "Human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests," he said. "Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail...
...Whether the guys in bromances are dating each other (I Love You, Man), going to bed with each other (Superbad) or marrying each other (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry), the common thread is the assumption by men of the traditional movie male and female roles. The women in The Hangover, with the fleeting exception of Heather Graham, who plays a hooker with a baby, are creatures either to ignore or flee from. Phil's wife makes no impression, Doug's bride-to-be is a briefly seen figure of increasing anxiety and Stu's longtime girlfriend is a shrew...
...duty for international intervention: if a nation commits, or is unable to prevent, massive human-rights abuses on its soil. Other, lesser African disasters do qualify for R2P intervention, in the form of large peacekeeping forces. The U.N. has authorized 26,000 troops for Darfur, where massacres are common and 2.5 million people need aid (and mostly receive it). It has also authorized another 20,000 for the Democratic Republic of Congo, where human-rights abuses are rife and millions are intermittently made refugees...
...share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings...