Word: passionate
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...sets us up for disappointment and disillusionment.Politics should be the preserve of reason, where arguments about the common good and the individual good are entertained, disputed, and resolved. It should not have to shudder at the specter of busybody protestors and petition-signing extortionists. Moral indignation is an important passion for politics—it serves as a corrective to abstract cold reason gone astray. But it is nevertheless extremely powerful and should be used wisely. We should hope and pray for the abject of Darfur or Myanmar; but we cannot immanentize the eschaton—bring Heaven to earth?...
...demands. That makes American Gangster, which is rather leisurely paced but richly detailed in the way it pursues the minutiae of conspicuous criminality as well as consumption, a more disturbing movie than its makers may have intended. I don't think it attains the Godfather level - it lacks dark passion and grand-scale irony - but it is an intelligent, well-made and seductive movie...
Love can be a powerful motivator even, it turns out, when the object of your passion is a molecule. Charismatic, enthusiastic biochemist Arthur Kornberg, who won a 1959 Nobel Prize for his discovery of DNA polymerase, the enzyme needed to produce synthetic DNA, credited his research and teaching career to his "love affair with enzymes." In recent years Kornberg, whose work on DNA helped spark the biotechnology revolution, studied polyphosphate--a substance dismissed as useless by colleagues. Kornberg, who lamented the "clannishness" and lack of creativity of many in the scientific community, was convinced that it could...
...dueling charges largely neutralized the religion issue, which was all Jefferson needed, given public concerns over other Federalist policies. Both political parties reached out to Christian voters. Federalists praised Adams' public support for religious institutions; their opponents trumpeted Jefferson's passion for religious liberty. Each side claimed its candidate was a Christian--or at least as good a Christian as the other guy. By all accounts, Evangelicals still voted overwhelmingly for Adams but not in sufficient numbers to overcome the popular surge for Jefferson's party, which captured the presidency and both houses of Congress. Adams later blamed his defeat...
...Politics might be rock 'n' roll for nerds, but the nerds aren't supposed to be quite this nerdy. The leader of the disaffected in next year's presidential election - the Howard Dean, the Ross Perot, the Pat Buchanan - is a kindly great-grandfather and obstetrician whose passion is monetary policy. Paul, a 72-year-old hard-core libertarian Republican Congressman who is against foreign intervention, subsidies and the federal income tax, is not only drawing impressive crowds (more than 2,000 at a post-debate rally at the University of Michigan last month) but also raising tons of cash...