Word: legendizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Italian deer found at a wildlife preserve in the town of Prato, outside of Florence, is attributed to a genetic mutation, but its discoverers aren't ruling out the possibility that other creatures with similar abnormalities could have been spotted throughout history, and contributed to the persistent unicorn legend. Whatever the present-day implications of this discovery, however, historically speaking, scientific evidence has seldom played a role when it comes to believing in unicorns...
While unicorn legend evolved in the West, in the Far East, similar creatures developed in mythology. The Japanese unicorn, or kirin (after which the beer is named) is a fierce creature able to root out criminals, instantly punishing them by piercing them through the heart with its horn. In China, the similarly named qilin had quite a different disposition. It harms no creature, and its presence is considered a good omen. Reportedly, a qilin appeared to Confucius' mother before he was born...
...until Wednesday, unicorns have seldom been spotted, theories vary wildly, but one of the most interesting falls squarely on Noah's shoulders. Legend holds that when Noah had to pack up the Ark in the face of the flood, the unicorns were just too slow getting to the boat (either that, or they were so proud that they were taking up more than their fair share of space, and Noah had to kick them off). As the Irish Rovers sing in "The Unicorn": "Close the door because the rain is falling/ And we just can't wait for no unicorns...
...there's any anxiety at Pixar about doing an I Am Legend for the junior set, you won't hear it from John Lasseter, Pixar's creative director and the inventive mind behind Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Cars. He's his usual beaming, cartoon-round, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing self as he waxes rhapsodic about WALL?E and, in passing, confides the secret of the studio's success: "The people who work here are doing what they've wanted to do their whole lives...
This news, disclosed here for the first time, is a big deal. Lots of Wall Streeters--loudest among them the hedge-fund legend George Soros--have been warning lately that speculation has inflated oil prices into a soon-to-pop bubble. But talk is cheap--this is something more. One of the biggest oil winners of the past decade has decided...