Word: hammerism
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...numerous activities for the kids. On the main stage in front of the Holyoke Center, John Bonaparte '81, a.k.a. "Bonapart the Magician" performed. On Garden Street, there was an inflatable carnival where kids climbed the rock pillar and bounced around in the Moon Walk while at the Strong Man Hammer Swing their middle-aged fathers rolled up their sleeves and flexed long-dormant muscles...
...simply, it hasn't been the same since Gorbachev turned in his hammer and sickle and the laughable Yeltsin took the stage...
...freedom as they waged a doomed battle against Soviet tanks. Twenty-two years later, those streets are once again filled with idealistic young people, but this time the target of their ire is not communism, but global capitalism. The spectacle of demonstrators on the streets brandishing the same hammer-and-sickle logo that had adorned those Russian tanks must look a little bizarre to a Czech population who suffered four decades of the repression, deprivation and tragicomic absurdity of communism; indeed, the standoff between leftist demonstrators and the World Bank and IMF whose summit they're trying to disrupt...
...vice president inherited his father's relationship with Hammer - as well as taking over a piece of land the oil magnate had sold his father in a lucrative sweetheart deal - and dined regularly with the oilman in Washington during the '80s. Hammer was Gore's guest at the Reagan inaugural in 1984, and the then-senator also got him a prime seat at the Bush inaugural four years later...
...Although Hammer died in 1990, Occidental's CEO, Ray Irani, appears to have enjoyed a similarly chummy relationship with Gore. Indeed, according to the New York Times, the traditionally Republican firm gave heavily to the Democrats in the '90s, starting with a $100,000 contribution to the Presidential Inauguration Committee in 1992. Occidental is further reported to have forked over $50,000 in soft money after a phone solicitation from Gore in 1996 and a further $100,000 after Irani spent two nights in the Lincoln Bedroom that same year...