Word: polarize
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...Arctic Oscillation, or AO for short, is defined as the back-and-forth pattern of low and high pressure between high polar latitudes and the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. The AO encircles the whole of the Arctic and also extends from the sea's surface to the stratosphere, an ethereal region of the atmosphere some seven to 30 miles above the earth that forecasters thought had little bearing on day-to-day weather. Thanks to the discovery of the AO, that view of the stratosphere is changing. Among other things, scientists studying the AO have connected sudden warmings...
...snowy Chicago parking lot for Kmart, I have an epiphany: hobby shops. My confidence renewed, I make my way to two odd stores that smell like diesel and boys. Same story at both: no Polar Express trains until February. "Ha! Good luck," says the owner of Grayland Station. He slips me the card of a friend's shop that had one set as of last night. From my car, I dial my cell phone with frozen fingers. The woman who answers tells me I am lucky: I'll be No. 58 on her waiting list. The Toy Station...
Perhaps Hollywood can't be trusted to make Hollywood-style movies anymore. When ancient-history films lumber like the elephantine Alexander, or when technological gewgaws abduct the magic of fantasy in films like The Polar Express, where can a curious cinephile go? China. That's where director Zhang Yimou blended history book with graphic novel in the worldwide hit Hero, and whence he returns with the even zippier, more cunning kung fu caper, House of Flying Daggers...
...Polar Bear Night...
...cold, still night. An arctic expanse of sea and ice. A frosty moon above. In another book those could be elements of a lonely, scary adventure. Here they're the setting for a strangely soothing bedtime story, illustrated by charmingly simple drawings. A polar-bear cub ventures out of the cozy den where her mother sleeps, drawn by "something in the moonlit stillness [that] quietly beckons. What is it?" The air of expectancy and mystery builds as she passes other sleeping animals--walrus, seals, whales--and arrives atop a mountain of snow, where "she waits, wondering." The moon, her companion...