Word: pained
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...Gist: Chances are you underestimate your capacity for cruelty. Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiments in the 1960s and '70s demonstrated that we're conditioned to inflict pain on complete strangers when impelled to do so by an authority figure. Milgram's experiments - linchpins of any freshman psych class - were simple. Volunteer participants were enlisted to help with a study purportedly tracking the effects of punishment on learning. When the "learner" made an error, the volunteer was told to administer an electric shock. Milgram found volunteers were disturbingly willing to follow orders, even as voltage levels increased in intensity...
...Smith's characters are isolated and superior, estranged from normal life, ultimately trying to make contact with ordinary folks. It's been ages since the star flashed his charismatic smile for a whole movie. Here he speaks to people with a precise courtesy that seems learned rather than felt. Pain pulses just behind his fretted eyebrows; he carries himself like a hero too gentlemanly to show his grief, too weighed down to hide it. Those whom Ben touches see that he's on a mission beyond making their lives more bearable. The same may be true of Smith: rashly...
...dire, in fact, that winning is often a matter of perception for Genson, who uses a scooter and cane to ease the pain of walking due to a neuromuscular disorder. After all, he frequently goes up against government offices with conviction rates well above 90%, and he rarely negotiates plea agreements. Even if he loses, however, Genson will call it a win if the sentence is less than the government was seeking, if some of the often long list of counts are dismissed, or even if he gets the right prison for his client...
...patent sexuality, shocking even for Britney, distracts from the staler elements of the record. Throughout, Brit’s voice is treated, Auto-Tuned, and tweaked until it’s robotic and metallic. This may be a nod to current successes in the hip-hop world like T-Pain or Kanye; it just as likely covers up lost singing talent. The android-like drone complements the futuristic sounds of “Womanizer” and “Mannequin,” but its ubiquitous presence soon becomes grating. And without the driving shock factor, milder songs never...
...television. I was transported back to September 20, when a suicide bomber at Islamabad’s Marriott hotel blew himself up, claiming the lives of 53 people, including two Americans and the Czech ambassador. The crying child in Mumbai who had lost his parents wrenched my heart with pain, as did the image of the Pathan child whose family was instantly killed by an American drone attack in northwestern Pakistan. The parallels were all too stark and obvious, and my heart bled as it had at each past instance of terrorism, be it in Islamabad, Mumbai, or Baghdad...