Word: patina
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...Vietnam; Iraq hasn't gone so well either. And there are two other developments that have cut into the sense of American perfection. The middle class has begun to lose altitude - there isn't the certainty anymore that our children will live better than we do. More important, the patina of cultural homogeneity that camouflaged 1950s suburbia has vanished. We have become more obviously multiracial. There are lifestyle choices that were nearly unimaginable in 1960 - the widespread use of the birth control pill, the legalization of abortion, the feminist and gay-rights revolutions, the breakdown of the two-parent family...
...Musharraf found himself juggling political allies in search of a patina of legitimacy and manipulating elections as popular opinion turned against him, largely on the basis of his alliance with Washington. Moreover, the new reality in Afghanistan prompted the Pakistani security forces to begin playing what was essentially a double game. Despite its alliance with Washington, the Pakistani strategic establishment was not willing to accept the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which was closely allied with India, as an established power in Kabul. So, despite professing support for the NATO effort in Afghanistan, Pakistan continued to serve as the Taliban...
...detest the harsh, slightly metallic quality of the air forced through even the fanciest AC systems. The only air conditioner I own sits, unused, in my car; my home is happily unrefrigerated. But given the energy mess we're in, I can now gild my personal preference with a patina of high-mindedness: air-conditioning is bad for the planet, and for national security, and for our balance-of-payments deficit. Unfortunately, it is not as bad as I'd like it to be - in part because not all of our electricity is provided by fossil fuels (although coal does...
...Stallone. They see Diane Lane's name on a movie called Untraceable and think it might be a thriller for adults, an Unfaithful with a little murder on the side. What they'll get is Saw 4-1/2, another slice of movie gorenography, this time with the patina of social comment...
...will lead to a replay of Burma's version of Tiananmen, when a nation confronted its brutal military rulers only to be crushed by an iron fist. Certainly, there are similarities between today's protest movement and that of 1988. Although the previous strikes are now glossed with a patina of democratic yearning, their initial motivation was also economic. Back then, the military regime demonetized the local currency, rendering millions of people's savings worthless. Small groups began marching over a six-month period, a stop-start effort that culminated in August 1988 with tens of thousands of people thronging...