Word: ritual
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...informant's throat below the chin, then pulling his tongue through the wound as he bleeds to death. Or suffocating a rival with a clear plastic bag over his head while a henchman named El Gordo (the Fat Man) bounces on his chest. But perhaps Ramon's favorite ritual is carne asada--barbecue--executing entire families and tossing their corpses on a bed of flaming tires, as he and his goons celebrate with tequila and cocaine...
...Whatever the motives of the gallows crowds of old, they at least acknowledged execution as a collective act. Today it is a tribal taboo, a purification ritual that dirties those who come in contact with it. And just as the majority of Americans still agree that it is right to kill killers but don't agree on why (revenge? deterrence? respect?), we are also not certain why it is wrong simply to watch the deed carried out. Would it horrify us or make us jaded? (Or - dare we say it - sympathetic?) Would it feed our bloodlust or weaken our will...
...private meeting with Joseph Stalin increased Marshall's anxiety about Europe's future, that he contemplated including foreign policy reforms in his Commencement address. When he proposed the idea to Dean Acheson, the Under Secretary of State, Acheson advised against it "on the ground that commencement speeches were a ritual to be endured without hearing...
...leads are richly drawn and well cast; theater veteran Hall finds layers within layers in tightly wound David. In the pilot's finest scene, Nathaniel's funeral, Nate makes a self-indulgent show of refusing to sprinkle dirt on the grave from a tidy canister, protesting the "sanitized" ritual by hurling on fistfuls of dirt with his bare hands; Ruth follows suit, wailing like an animal. "You want to get your hands dirty?" David confronts his brother. "You sanctimonious prick. Talk to me when you've had to stuff formaldehyde-soaked cotton up your father's ass so he doesn...
...becoming more widespread than ever. The season finale of ABC's eminently forgettable Two Guys and a Girl allowed viewers to vote online among four possible endings. (I searched in vain for the options to cancel the series, burn all videotapes or watch Disney honcho Michael Eisner commit ritual suicide in shame for having aired it.) Meanwhile, the creator of Dharma and Greg is developing a sitcom for Fox called Nathan's Choice, in which the hero faces a dilemma halfway through the show, the audience votes on his "choice" online and the second half of the show is based...