Word: flimflams
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...movie industry is about to honor some of its biggest flimflam artists--and we're not just talking about the Oscar ceremony on March 24. The Third Annual Golden Trailer Awards are scheduled to be handed out this week at Hollywood's grand old El Capitan Theatre. A panel of judges (including Ben Stiller) will cast their votes for last year's best trailers: those 2 1/2-minute theatrical reels, 30-second TV spots and eye-grabbing teasers. Some contenders made bad movies look good (Pearl Harbor); some helped B movies open big (The Fast and the Furious); all of them...
Polies see such experiences as painful but transcendental, and not surprisingly, there's a fair amount of New Age flimflam associated with the movement. But many adherents like Loving More leader Ryam Nearing prefer to dwell on science. "People are biologically poly," she asserts, noting that polyamory occurs even in societies that punish it by death. Polyamorists love the work of Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist and author of Anatomy of Love. Fisher has written that only 16% of cultures on record actually prescribe monogamy; in most, polygamy is sought after by men as a sign of power. Fisher...
That's hokum, of course--the bit of flimflam at the core of her listening tour. Hillary knew more about health care and education than most of the panelists she was listening to last week. She displayed an extraordinary command of policy detail, a steely anger on behalf of those getting screwed by the health and education systems, a fine ear for the telling local anecdote (such as the Ithaca car-crash victim denied insurance coverage after she failed to get preapproval for her emergency helicopter evacuation because she was unconscious at the time). But she was the Woman...
...aesthetic question, Is pro wrestling fun to watch? The answer is: Not really. It can evince the rude, flimflam energy of its carnival origins, but as a form of pulp culture, wrestling has far less imagination than a decent horror movie or comic book. If you're desperate for mock terror on Monday nights, stick with Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
Frazier Todd Jr., a flimflam man from Atlanta, sussed out the IRS's inability to detect fraud. Todd obtained Social Security numbers from dozens of Atlanta women who lived in public housing projects. He then secured employer IDs from the IRS (making him look as if he were hiring them) and transcribed both numbers onto W-2 forms that he used to prepare electronic returns. Todd filled in an income for these women and a figure for taxes withheld that was high enough to kick back a generous refund. Todd then took the returns to banks to obtain "refund anticipation...