Word: graying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Malaysia, ethnic Malays are bound by Islamic Shari'a law for matters such as marriage, property and divorce. But that system leaves considerable gray space. Joy, a 43-year-old Malay, needed to seek permission to legalize her conversion from the Shari'a court, which considers forsaking Islam a crime. And since she is still classified as a Muslim, she could not use the civil-law system. The Federal Court failed to iron out this catch-22, ruling that it had no jurisdiction over her religious conversion. With no further legal recourse left, only Joy's faith can give...
...bigotry of immigration opponents is a familiar shadow in our civic myth, like the devils and tempters in a medieval morality play. In 1798 John Adams signed the Alien Act, which gave the President the power to expel "dangerous" foreigners. Harrison Gray Otis, an Adams supporter in Congress, singled out "hordes of wild Irishmen" as particularly unwelcome. Other Congressmen mocked the French accent of Representative Albert Gallatin, who was born in Geneva, Switzerland. Adams was rewarded for his harshness on this issue and others by losing the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, who understood Gallatin well enough to make...
...Wednesday, the Court announced that it had no jurisdiction over the case since it was under the purview of Shari'a law, effectively punting on any attempt to clear up the gray space that exists between Malaysia's two legal systems. The ruling was greeted by shouts of "God is great!" from many in the assembled crowd outside the Palace of Justice in Kuala Lumpur. More secular observers were far less jubilant. "I see this case not just as a question of religious preference but one of a potential dismantling of Malaysia's ... multi-ethnic, multi-religious [character]," warned Malik...
...Besides Van Sant's, there were four other U.S. films in the Competition - Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men, Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, David Fincher's Zodiac and James Gray's We Own the Night - and none of them received a prize. Readers in the States may be wondering if all four films were less laudable than the nine that won something...
...answer is that the Coens' crime caper is sharp and smart and was certainly worthy of a top slot. Gray's cop drama rarely reached the emotional boiling point, but the Tarantino and Fincher films, if not nearly the best of the directors' work, paraded the filmmaking brio, the narrative twists and drive, that mark solid updates of the classic Hollywood style. That the jurors ignored every member of this quartet, while laying hands on Van Sant's very minor indie effort, could possibly suggest an anti-Hollywood agenda. Major U.S. studios may take the hint, and be more reluctant...