Word: gloss
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...same way punk took back music, steampunk reclaims technology for the masses. It substitutes metal gears for silicon, pneumatic tubes for 3G and wi-fi. It maximizes what was miniaturized and makes visible what was hidden. Where the iPhone is all stainless steel and high-gloss plastic, steampunk is brass and wood and leather. Steampunk isn't mass-produced; it's bespoke and unique, and if you don't like it, you can tinker with it till...
...easy solutions like these allow modern vampire franchises to completely gloss over some of the darker—and more interesting—questions that the vampire myth raises. For one thing, the modern construction of the vampire no longer involves the idea that immortality comes with a price. Our society is no longer one in which eternal damnation is a huge concern, but the question of whether one must give up one’s soul in order to live forever remains compelling. Without some kind of sacrifice, like losing one’s humanity or having to prey...
...most faithful of renditions: the Muppets do gloss over some of the song's racier lyrics. "Mama, just killed a man/ Put a gun against his head/ Pulled my trigger/ Now he's dead" becomes a monosyllabic riff ("Mama! ... Mama?") by the drummer Animal. But these are kids' show characters, after all, and by the time Miss Piggy finishes the song with an epic solo delivered atop a piano, the few omissions seem like a trifling complaint. (See pictures of Sesame Street's 40-year cavalcade of stars...
...account of Bill Millin, bagpiper for the 1st Special Service Brigade of the British Army, who had to march out of the surf onto Sword Beach under rifle and mortar fire playing "Highland Laddie." And Beevor focuses on things other writers have neglected. For example, he doesn't gloss over the hideous costs paid by French civilians. The Allies, before liberating them, bombed them relentlessly in an attempt to paralyze the German army. Three thousand French civilians died during the first 24 hours of D-day. That's twice the number of American soldiers who died...
...backlash against newly arrived Mexican immigrants, some of whom brought the drug with them. Also in 1937, the Federal Government passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which made nonmedical use of marijuana illegal. Only the birdseed industry, which argued that hemp seeds gave birds' feathers a particularly shiny gloss, was exempted, and to this day birdseed producers are allowed to use imported hemp seeds treated so they don't sprout...