Word: stirring
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...jangling around in their society, or occasionally as springboards for earnest discussions of them. At a time when moral discourse has been reduced to the size of a sound bite and rapid social change has everyone on edge, the messages conveyed in even the most frolicking of these movies stir peculiar passions. Such films often have an astonishing afterlife, not only in popular memory but as artifacts that vividly define their times...
Harmon says he questions Gallagher's seriousness about actually working for Silber rather than attempting to cause a stir. If Gallagher had worked within the club, Harmon believes, "some people who were sort of undecided could have come over to Silber. There were certainly some people who did work for Silber and working within the club would have definitely helped his cause...
...public execution issue goes beyond legality. It ranges towards the What Kind Of Society Is This? kind of questions that make most of us squirm. Some people fear that videotaped executions will stir up what Time called a "disquieting Dickensian excitement...
Typical American chronicles that bittersweet journey for Ralph Chang, a Chinese engineering student who comes to the U.S. in 1947 for his doctorate; his wife Helen; and his sister Theresa. The Changs initially disdain the lack of tradition they describe as "typical American" behavior, but soon they are stir-frying hot dogs. They also fall under the spell of Grover Ding, an American-born Svengali of free enterprise who leads Ralph into a dubious fried-chicken business, seduces Helen and causes Theresa, the family loyalist, to leave home. The happy ending for the Changs comes not in abandoning the American...
Death-penalty proponents are similarly split. Ernest van den Haag, a former law professor at Fordham University who supports the death penalty, fears that televised executions might stir a misplaced sympathy for murderers. "Our compassion for the murderer whose life is cut short before our eyes may overcome our sense of justice," he argues, "for we are not shown his innocent victims nor how he murdered them." The fear of a public backlash is countered by the argument that once citizens view their first execution, the next one will not seem so terrible, and anti-death penalty fervor may even...