Word: surrounds
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This fast-paced account of a bitter racial discrimination case brought by a Harvard-trained black attorney successfully evokes the tortuous ambiguities that surround efforts to integrate the professional work force through affirmative action. But it never quite answers the hard question at the heart of the story: Was Lawrence D. Mungin, the "good black" of the title, a competent lawyer who got the shaft because he was black, or a disillusioned Uncle Tom who blamed racism when his ambitions exceeded his talent? Without knowing that, it's impossible to judge the validity of Mungin's case...
...Despite these high expectations, the creators of Star Trek: Insurrection still manage to produce some impressive visuals: Data walks around as a head without a body after removing part of his invisibility suit; Worf clubs an attacking drone ship out of the sky; truly evil-looking Son'a spaceships surround the Enterprise with the colorful backdrop of a nebula; and, as usual, the make-up artists have created a variety of strange-looking aliens...
...Witness a marvelous ink painting of vegetables by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800). You can read it, with pleasure, as a supremely assured market still life (Jakuchu was, in fact, a vegetable wholesaler before he turned to painting full time). Gourds, melons, turnips, ears of corn and a shiitake mushroom surround an enormous forked white radish, lying as if in state on a basket. But as Singer points out, an educated 18th century Japanese would have recognized this as a parody of a familiar religious image--the parinirvana, or scene of the dead Buddha encircled by a crowd of his mourning...
...lizards and insects, which themselves support birds and monkeys. Army ants bivouac and hang from tree limbs in living nests, with their pupae asleep in the center. Sometimes the trees become food; they can be devoured by strangler figs, which grow from seeds dropped by birds, then rise and surround a tree like a parasitic vine, swallow it whole and take its place...
Pale, fleshy groupies surround him on all sides, adoration in their eyes. Some are overwhelmed, speechless in his presence. Some ask for his autograph; some just want to thank him for all that he's done for them. Some call him a god and want to be among his disciples, helping spread the word...