Word: symbolics
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...revolution has now run through a full cycle. A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman - laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face - swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to the woman as Neda, Farsi for "the voice" or "the call." Tributes that incorporate startlingly up-close footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube...
...trial is based on fraud accusations, not religious practice. Meanwhile, the burqa offensive is aimed at protecting the rights of women forced to efface themselves by covering their bodies entirely. "The rights of women isn't an issue of a few centimeters of cloth, but the burqa is the symbol of the oppression women suffer, so this debate should be encouraged," says Siham Habchi, president of the Neither Whores Nor Submissive women's movement, referring to the parliamentary initiative. (Check out a story about Europe's "veil wars...
...something else. In Twitter's case, the users have been redesigning the tool itself. The convention of grouping a topic or event by the "hashtag" - #hackedu or #inauguration - was spontaneously invented by the Twitter user base (as was the convention of replying to another user with the @ symbol). The ability to search a live stream of tweets was developed by another start-up altogether, Summize, which Twitter purchased last year. (Full disclosure: I am an adviser to one of the minority investors in Summize.) Thanks to these innovations, following a live feed of tweets about an event - political debates...
...Hummer, which was based on the humvee vehicle produced for the U.S. military by AM General, was first sold as a civilian vehicle in 1992. GM bought the line in 1999 and later introduced the smaller H2 and H3 models. After the SUVs became a rolling symbol of hip-hop bling and celebrity excess, Hummer in 2006 registered peak sales of 71,524 for all models. But with higher gas prices and the onset of recession, sales plunged...
...take these difficult decisions lightly. University Hall understands the hardship this will mean for undergraduates, and we are all making sacrifices. For example, at a recent faculty meeting, the champagne was arguably subpar. As a symbol of our shared sacrifice, the statue of John Harvard will be meticulously chiseled down to a smaller size in proportion to the budget cut, at a cost of $2.6 million. Since improvements like this, and all the amenities of Harvard life, do not come cheaply, we ask for your kind, tax-deductible donation...