Word: pageant
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...mood sometimes had its shadowed side, a touch of self-righteousness and meanness, a hint of the old nativist punitive zeal, it also showed great shine. America made a pageant of itself, erupting in a procession of spectacles of sudden self-celebration, all red, white and blue: the political conventions a turbulent sea of Old Glories, the campaign (the Reagan campaign, anyway) a triumphal masterpiece of the politics of mood. Walter Mondale ran a depressive, cautionary race, preaching selflessness and self-denial, his speeches like the parable of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf (the savage, devouring...
...Ueberroth's idea to run the Olympic torch across the nation, through hundreds of cities, by night and day. The idea provoked considerable derision. But it was a public relations masterstroke, a pageant in harmony with an emotional need vibrating at that moment in the American character. Ueberroth felt the vibration. The torch, slowly making its zigzag way across the land, became one of the unforgettable images...
Washington's official celebration, echoed in festivals of light and countless other wassailings across the nation, was called the Christmas Pageant of Peace. Held on the Ellipse, a 52-acre circular park between the White House and the Washington Monument, it included not only the elaborately decorated national Christmas tree but also 56 smaller ones representing the states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. In addition, the National Zoo installed nine live reindeer near by, and each day a traditional yule log is set ablaze. That feature proved less than popular during last Thursday's balmy weather...
...final element in this year's pageant was a crèche, an assemblage of near life-size figures around a manger scene representing Christ's birth. The display included painted representations of Joseph and Mary, the gift-bearing Magi, two angels and assorted animals-20 pieces in all. It would have been wholly unremarkable, similar to thousands of others, except for one thing: this particular Nativity scene was reappearing in the festival after an enforced and highly controversial absence of eleven years, the hostage in a legal dispute involving the constitutional separation of church and state...
...movie-serial avatar of White House Reagan, leaping up from near fatal assaults with a wave and a joke? Who is Superman if not the Krypton Gipper, fighting for truth, justice and voluntary school prayer? At the end of a campaign year that played like one long half-time pageant, two entertaining movies arrive with a complementary pair of star figures for the next generation. Supergirl: the girl next door as feminist champion. The Terminator: a killing machine from the year 2029 and rotten to the cybernetic core...