Word: polarizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...been more than a decade since Chile’s much-vaunted transition to democracy, but the presence—now the specter—of a man I had begun to think of as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named still haunts the country, perpetuating its bi-polar economic, political, and social environment. And despite the outpouring last Sunday, it is unlikely that his death will change anything...
...Hannibal was one of those supporting players, like Falstaff in Henry IV, whose extravagant personality propels them into the limelight. The trick to the Lecter character was genius uncorrupted by conscience. Inside him, polar opposites coexisted: elegance and heartlessness, fastidiousness and cruelty, insanity and insight. He's a great people-reader, exercising a hypnotic power over those he meets, and with an acute instinct for the emotional jugular. This is on display the first time Hannibal appears in the books - when Will Graham visits him in a prison cell in Red Dragon - "Graham felt that Lecter was looking through...
...minute before sunrise on a frigid morning last Friday, 70 brave—or foolish—souls channelled their inner Alaskan and plunged into the Charles River at the Alaska Klub’s third annual Polar Bear Swim. The air temperature was 19 degrees Fahrenheit, although the brisk Northwest wind and flurries of snow made it feel more like four, but that didn’t stop devoted Klub members and their friends from shedding their clothing—some with bathing suits beneath, some with nothing at all. “I’m very excited...
...visitors who don't plan to stay too long. A moon base would have to be built in the harder-to-target poles. The perpetual sunshine in most of the extreme north and south means plenty of light for energy-producing solar panels; the perpetual darkness in the shadowed polar regions means a steady supply of water ice, which can be harvested for consumption and fuel manufacture. Currently, the lip of south pole's Shackleton Crater is NASA's favorite site...
...largely gone red. Remember the Reading Wars? In the '80s, educators embraced "whole language" as the key to teaching kids to love reading. Instead of using "See Dick and Jane run" primers, grade-school teachers taught reading with authentic kid lit: storybooks by respected authors, like Eric Carle (Polar Bear, Polar Bear). They encouraged 5- and 6-year-olds to write with "inventive spelling." It was fun. Teachers felt creative. The founders of whole language never intended it to displace the teaching of phonics or proper spelling, but that's what happened in many places. The result was a generation...