Word: distorter
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...networks are very fond of these low-budget reality shows, but one downside is that they distort reality for viewers whose only moral and educational influence is television. People who really want to be on TV might try to submit a video to air on "America's Funniest Home Videos," but would readily settle for a spot on "America's Most Wanted" instead...
Diane Ravitch, Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education, is a "sophisticated Texas Jew," Jeffries said, "a debonair racist." He repeatedly called her "Miss Daisy." Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who has written against Afrocentrism, is "a weakling . . . slick and devilish." White people, including "very nice white folks," "distort history in what I call racial pathology. They are as diabolical as that." Jeffries sang out falsetto imitations of various Jews and other whites, manic little strokes of mockery and emasculation. Through it all, he invoked the liberating powers of truth. When he was finished, the audience gave him a rather tired standing ovation...
...this even though we know that humanity's "errors" -- our bigotry or anger or lust or selfishness or greed -- will go on churning out the accursed creatures. Like our forebears, we have got in the habit of monsters. If we are to escape their terror, we must not distort their significance. If they frighten us, we must remember why. Otherwise, monstrum and remonstrance fade from memory, and we gain not even the awful lesson about the darkness that we must each live with and subdue...
Royal's photographs are valuble because they remind us that the camera does not directly record "reality." The camera's technological capabilities can be used equally to distort and manipulate the "reality" the lens captures. This dynamic is interesting, but in general the exhibit is dull. Royal needs to add more depth to her photographic work by varying her subjects and technique...
Scientists wanted a telescope in space so that the instrument would be free from temperature changes and the pull of gravity, both of which can subtly distort the shape of earthbound mirrors. They also wanted it to rise above earth's turbulent atmosphere, whose constant roiling makes the stars appear to flicker. But scientists have learned to make mirrors that can change their shapes, enabling ground-based telescopes to overcome the problems of gravity and temperature fluctuations. Soon it may be possible to compensate for the atmosphere's turbulence as well...