Word: criticism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...what of the filmmaker who didn't try to stick out so much as fit in; the man-for-hire who could saddle up to any studio assignment - even a work in progress - and mold it to perfection? In Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master, Baltimore Sun film critic Michael Sragow argues that Fleming - who directed The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind - was such a man, denied his rightful place in the cinematic pantheon...
...Blagojevich's performance on Friday was his penchant for quoting long passages of favorite writings from memory. Along with Kipling, another of his favorites was Teddy Roosevelt's "man in the arena" declaration, delivered in the Sorbonne in Paris in 1910. Its key passage: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs...
...Critic Lewis Mumford observed that traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past, which resonates in a country founded by generations of pilgrims willing to leave everything behind and start anew. I try to resist the traps that can make traditions toxic: the temptation to use them as cover for prejudice and cowardice and conformity, a refusal to change or stretch--"we'll do it this way because we always have...
...critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again ... who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly...
President-elect Obama's Cabinet appointments are sending a powerful signal that change is on the way. His choice to run Veterans Affairs, retired general Eric Shinseki, was a brave critic of the Iraq war and is a staunch advocate for wounded vets. His pick for Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Shawn Donovan, has presided over a huge expansion of affordable housing in New York City. And his nominee for Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu (announced Monday), is a Nobel-winning physicist who preaches the gospel of efficiency. It's hard to imagine a starker contrast with their counterparts...