Word: fostering
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...Though Foster's acting is impressive, with a kind of steely radiance, her character remains essentially enigmatic. There's some suggestion of a basic psychological need, a loneliness on Ellie's part that symbolizes--or is symbolized by--her all-consuming desire to prove that "we are not alone." But if this is so, one wonders why she seems so uninterested in pursuing any kind of human relationship...
...Jodie Foster is ideally cast as Ellie Arroway, a brilliant astronomer who has devoted her life to attempting to communicate with the extraterrestrial life she feels sure must exist somewhere among the billions of stars. Battling continual funding problems and other setbacks, her search is finally vindicated when a radio transmission arrives from the distant star Vega. It is decoded to reveal instructions for building a machine believed to be capable of transporting its occupant through deep space...
...case, McConaughey and the rest of the supporting cast are all subordinated to Foster's principal--an understandable decision, but not necessarily the best one. The shortest shrift is given to Angela Bassett as a crisply level-headed Presidential aide who appears just often enough to make you wish she'd been given a meatier role. Woods as the necessary pain-in-the-ass gets a few laughs, but not enough to prevent a certain deadening feel from setting...
...across the ocean, freedom of the press was deemed an essential right of citizens and an essential component of a working democracy. Newspapers would serve two main purposes: first, they would keep citizens informed of and involved in the local and national affairs, educating them in order to foster a better citizenship. Second, the knowledge that an independent press existed would chasten public officials and check their potential excesses. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about newspapers during the early nineteenth century in his monumental work Democracy in America: "So the more equal men [sic] become and the more individualism becomes...
...families are poor and the check is a large percentage of household income. And some families may be torn apart. Organizations like the Arc, formerly the Association for Retarded Citizens, say they have been inundated with calls from parents afraid they will have to give up their children to foster care or institutionalization. "People tell us this is what's holding their family together," says Arc spokesman Marty Ford. "If you pull this card out, the whole house falls down...