Word: guttings
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That summer of 2005, many Iranians actually heeded Ebadi's call and boycotted the vote. This helped the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the firebrand leader who proceeded to gut the country's economy and sully Iran's reputation in the world. Reformist politicians, whose candidates had fared badly at the polls, told moderate Iranians that they were to blame for Ahmadinejad's victory. If the so-called silent majority - the millions of middle-class, educated Iranians who seek more freedom and economic opportunity - had voted, the emerging wisdom went, then the country wouldn't have been lost to the lunatic...
...Actually, the most disconcerting aspect of the new Pelham 1 2 3 is the sight of Washington, the usually impeccable movie hero, sitting at a subway dispatcher's console. The star looks puffy and has a gut you could park a Hummer on. Weighing in at a sedentary 220 lb. (100 kg), he's playing a desk jockey burdened by the usual bureaucratic bull plus a scandal that has put his career in the commode. (In the original film, Matthau rarely rose to anger; he was a weary, wily guy, just doing his job. This time it's personal...
...Helgeland, who won an Oscar for his L.A. Confidential, does try to put a stethoscope to the current national malaise when it alludes, toward the end, to the toxic duplicity of insider trading. There's also a superrich mayor (James Gandolfini) who could be Michael Bloomberg with a bigger gut. But most of the film takes place in a fantasy present, where the Dow is at 11,000 - a relic of that halcyon era of 2008, when the movie was shot. And by emphasizing the cop-killer relationship, the picture loses the original's busy fresco of New Yawk types...
...humans are increasingly capable of remolding themselves in the image of whatever they choose, with fewer and fewer unpleasant side effects. We can either embrace this development or—as the current inclination seems to be—do everything in our power to avoid it. Our gut pulls us towards the second option, but I think our heads should pick the first...
...approach is like a catchy tune you keep humming after hearing it on the radio. When applied, it immediately cuts down on foolish impulses. But the author, whose husband famously wrote the best seller Straight from the Gut, isn't discounting intuition. That's what governed her decision to dive--joblessly--into a new life with Jack. "I failed 10-10-10 because I was overwhelmed by events," Suzy admits now, with a touch of authorial embarrassment. "I was sort of standing in the middle of a field, and suddenly the skies opened up, and the skies fell down...