Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...were slightly ridiculous (hip-hop, world music, supergroup--the hubristic rock star's triple crown) but well received, yet none can quite prepare you for Albarn's latest: Journey to the West, a "circus opera" based on a Ming-dynasty novel, with lyrics in Mandarin by Chinese actor Chen Shi-zheng. The protagonist is the wildly self-confident Monkey, who irritates his peers with his certainty that he is far more gifted than they are and deserving of immortal acclaim. He doesn't go by the nickname Damon, but it's a fair question...
...April of this year, Barack Obama was taking a lot of heat for saying he'd be willing to talk to the leaders of the Shi'ite nation of Iran. Yet at the same time, the head of another theocratic state - one whose agents in this country had committed devastating crimes against hundreds of thousands of young Americans - came to the U.S. and received a warm welcome from President Bush, the national press and most of the American people. He even got to say Mass before a sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium...
...What we tend to ignore is why Syria has had an uninterrupted record of attaching itself to radical causes and countries like Iran. For starters, Syria is ruled by a besieged and insecure minority, the Alawites, a heterodox-Shi'ite ethnic minority. About 12% of Syria's population, the Alawites are looked at by extremist Sunni Muslims as heretics, fallen-away Muslims, usurpers who should be put to the sword. In the late '70s and early '80s, the Sunni extremists came close to getting their way. During a February 1982 Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in Hama, Syria's third largest city...
...Arab-Israeli conflict, in which Syria has no choice but take sides. Since the Alawites cannot settle with Tel Aviv and survive the wrath of the Muslim Brothers, it remains reliant on its alliance with Tehran. And this is not to mention that with the division between Shi'ites and Sunnis widening, the Alawites will feel they need Iran and its message of belligerence to Israel more than ever. So if, for instance, Iran suggests that Syria respond to Saturday's bombing by shipping more weapons to Hizballah, Syria will be inclined to agree. Having been embraced as honorary Shi...
...dissolve the Iraqi army proved to be a key strategic blunder that gave a massive boost to the insurgency. This week the U.S. will try again, transferring control of 54,000 of the 100,000-strong largely Sunni citizen patrols known as the Sons of Iraq (SOI) to a Shi'ite-led government many of them view with suspicion. The rest will remain on the U.S payroll, as part of a phased transfer...