Word: punishments
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fallen-angel smile. In the scene that could cinch his Oscar nomination, he gets a long closeup as Randy pours out his clumsy love for his daughter. The speech is boilerplate sentiment, which the actor elevates to a passion as sweet as it is forlorn. If Rourke had to punish himself to look the part of a battered fighter so he could slip inside Randy's wounded innocence, then, man, it was worth...
...Class War Michael Kinsley is right to condemn affirmative action based on social class [Aug. 25]. This proposal is a logical extension of the compassionate but misguided urge to reward human inadequacy and punish achievement so as to achieve an egalitarian leveling of success in life. From childhood we learn to try to behave in ways that will be rewarded and avoid behaviors that will be punished. Class-based affirmative action would perversely ensure that this value system was turned upside down. American greatness was built by honoring the natural order, which rewards competence and punishes failure. Reversing this order...
...misgivings about his public persona. And it is Sittenfeld's triumph that we do. Charlie is a puerile, self-absorbed innocent but not unkind. (Alice would never tolerate that.) He is an excellent father and a faithful husband; the pure pleasure of his company overwhelms Alice's need to punish herself for her lethal mistake. He is clever and insightful--his emotional intelligence beggars his intellect--and blithely uninformed. His strengths are every bit as apparent as his weaknesses...
...Obama's visit came in a campaign notable for candidates avoiding various media. Most Democratic candidates, including Obama, largely shunned Fox during the primaries. (Obama has gone on Fox News Sunday.) John McCain canceled on Larry King earlier this week to punish CNN for Campbell Brown's having dared to ask a McCain aide too many follow-up questions about Sarah Palin's foreign policy credentials. And Palin, thus far, has been avoiding all national media interviews, save one with People magazine...
...promise of a move toward human-rights centered foreign policy, and the Syrian leader is hardly a poster boy for the liberty France celebrates on its national day. Indeed, Chirac, hardly an acolyte of the Bush Administration, had been every bit as vehement as Washington on the need to punish Syria over its alleged involvement in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Chirac boycotted this year's Bastille Day events to protest at the Syrian leader's presence...