Word: villainized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With some justification, Loder feels he is being unjustly branded a villain. Hydrologists say a lined lake generally loses less water from evaporation than a lawn of comparable size, since grass consumes soil water while losing moisture through its blades--meaning the more than 100 golf courses in the area deserve equal scrutiny. "The lake looks wasteful," Loder says, "but it uses half the water a date grove would use, and I've attracted high-end buyers whose money feeds the local economy." Loder's completed project could add more than $1 million in property taxes, so supporters contend...
...movie. Everybody wants to see Li in action. So watch him defeat bad guys with the tools of domesticity: a mop, a bale of laundry and (ouch) an iron. Gasp as he kicks a billiard ball out of an end pocket, then swats it, cricket-bat-style, into a villain's cranium. See him use a desk drawer as a truncheon. He sneaks past a sentry's guardhouse outside the evil inspecteur's police station and, just to show he can, he rams his foot through his guardhouse door, neatly kicking the sentry in the groin. Inside, he chances upon...
...Stripes. But the secret ingredient is Luc Besson, the French auteur (Nikita, The Fifth Element) who produced Dragon, wrote the story, set the dark, violent tone, signed French music-video ace Chris Nahon to direct and chose Karyo, the angular menacer who shone in Nikita, to play the spuming villain. The film's other star is Paris. Like any self-respecting thriller set in a famous city, Dragon stages action scenes in many local landmarks: the MEtro, a bateau mouche, the gorgeous Gare de l'Est, the Regina Hotel and the Paris sewers...
...Despite the author's even-handed treatment, Veerappan comes across as a calculating and vengeful villain. He carries around a bullet inscribed with the name of the police officer whom he holds responsible for the death of his brother and fellow gang member, Arjunan. In one of the book's more chilling anecdotes, he kills and then, drawing a sickle from his bag, graphically beheads a forest officer who had built a local school and clinic and tried to wean the community away from criminal activity. Veerappan blamed the official for the suicide of his sister who worked...
...Davis knows taking on Bush and the Republicans through his rich Houston friends is his only shot to stick around in California - when it's all a painful memory, the governor will need a villain besides himself. Nationwide? Putting aside the new tilt that a Republican slaughter in California would do the House, two-thirds of America believe Bush and Big Energy are in bed together, and cooked up this whole crisis as a moneymaking scheme. If a judge agreed and wrote Davis a $20 billion check? At the very least, it gives the Democrats a nice one-two punch...