Word: machinas
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...exception for most of the summer, but he has spent much of September stepping on his epaulets, too. What's a pundit--or a despairing Democratic member of Congress--to do? I have covered eight presidential campaigns, and the answer is always the same: find a deus ex machina. In my time, these have ranged from Jerry Brown (1976) to Ralph Nader to Lee Iacocca to Mario Cuomo to Al Gore (1992, when Clinton seemed to be stumbling) to Ross Perot. Most were wise enough to stay away; those who jumped in failed...
...often--in Bosnia and Rwanda, for example--humanitarian workers have simply served as fig leaves, moral cover for big powers that did not want to get involved. As long as telegenic humanitarians put on a morally satisfying show of Western deus ex machina, caring for refugees on the 6:30 news, then governments can procrastinate. Take, for instance, the legal dithering of the Clinton Administration on Rwanda (where 800,000 dying in eight weeks amounted to an immense crime of omission): It depends on what the meaning of the word genocide...
...trio (always a bad sign) responsible for the new POTA?s blueprint had to have a different ape start the simian civilization, apparently just so the little fella could return for a truly ludicrous deux-ex-machina moment in the middle of the grand battle for planetary control - and so Davidson can borrow the pod and still get back home to wifey in time for dinner with the Feldmans. And the fact that home isn?t what he remembered is the kind of out-of-left-field "surprise" ending that gets mystery writers beat up at Ellery Queen conventions...
WHAT IT'S ABOUT The eponymous deus ex machina (Sergi Lopez), who cheerfully greets a hard-pressed chap named Michel (Laurent Lucas) in the men's room of a highway rest stop. Harry claims they were at school together. Michel can't recall him, but he lets him into his life anyway. And why not? He has a miserable job, a sarcastic wife, three whining daughters and an auto that lacks air conditioning. Harry has mysterious amounts of time and money to lavish on them. Michel suddenly gets a new car, his grasping parents soon disappear, and the rest...
...overall settlement" with the dissidents--hammered out perhaps by an independent panel. Lloyd's, still wallowing in red ink (according to market estimates, losses could total as much as $4.5 billion for 1998-2000), has yet to respond. The refuseniks for their part are hoping for a deus ex machina in the form of criminal proceedings launched by U.S. government prosecutors who have been investigating possible mail fraud involving Lloyd's. But Lloyd's remains confident that the arguments that won the case last week will triumph in the future...