Word: decal
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...only has Gliedman so far spent $100,000 to gussy up 330 vacant houses in various poor neighborhoods, at $6 per decal, he is now spending an additional $70,000 of federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to extend his good works through the most devastated areas of the South Bronx. This pleases the inhabitants and reduces vandalism, he says; it is also supposed to make a favorable impression on potential investors who might be driving past on the way to the suburbs...
Hunger, for example. If $6 will buy a decal of a flowerpot to make a gutted tenement look cheerily affluent, it could just as well buy a decal of a large filet mignon, surrounded by heaps of buttered carrots and peas and mashed potatoes. If that seems too indulgent, perhaps simply a decal of a steaming pot of stew. That should enable quite a few families to imagine themselves well...
Unemployment? Why not a decal of happy workers toiling at an assembly line or a cheerful payroll clerk handing out imaginary paychecks...
Once the Government has solved all these problems, a cynic might ask whether there was any purpose in having a Government at all. A decal of President Reagan reading a speech into a battery of microphones would serve just as well as a TV image of the real President reading a speech. Similar decals of Congress passing legislation or bureaucrats issuing regulations would create a reassuring illusion of Government not only hard at work but showing that it cares...
...attractive performers move at a sprightly pace to the requisite two-record album of last year's hits that functions as the music track. But the vignettes that percolated between Crowe's soft covers are ironed into decal cliches on the screen Director Amy Heckerling has failed to provide the raunch or poignancy that would interest young moviegoers, all of whom have seen American Graffiti and its 467 imitators. Ridgemont High? A nice place to visit, but who would want to transfer there...