Word: perfective
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...fitting that the smug Alter Eco's title is a twist on the word ego, because the show is a perfect marriage of sanctimony and self-regard. It's ecotistical. It's compostentatious. Grenier and company mean it to be aspirational--it's cool to be green!--but the effect is exactly the opposite. Hey, I compost and recycle too, I think as I watch. Do I look like that big a tool...
Twain's racial pitch was not perfect. One is left uneasy, for example, by the lengthy passage in his autobiography about how much he loved what were called "nigger shows" in his youth--these were minstrel shows, mostly with white men performing in blackface--and his delight in getting his prim mother to laugh at them. Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality. His frequent assaults on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not. The shows were simply a form of entertainment popular all over the country...
...livelihoods, but others are simply poor rural residents who have been beaten down for decades by the military and still believe in the FARC's original social-justice crusade. The guerrillas dress in civilian clothes and can be hard to distinguish from local farmers, and the difficult terrain is perfect for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare. The government "could not sustain an offensive on this scale without U.S. help," says Alberto. "They use American money to set up high mountain battalions, pay informants, for training, helicopters, boats and every type of war materiel. We believe we could overthrow the Colombian...
...latest techniques for hydration and pruning from France, and knows what pleases the European eye and palate. Moving over to a grove of mature trees, he plucks a shiny and symmetrical nectarine off a branch, and holds it up: "You see, it almost looks like it's plastic - perfect like an apple." A bite reveals a sugary sweetness that must indeed be the taste...
...perfect political photo op - and this was a pretty darn good one -isn't aimed at the rational faculties of an informed electorate. It seeks whatever section of the brain it is that triggers a tummy rumble at the sight of a moist doughnut. It's about instinct, not reason...