From the category archives:

IN THE NEWS

ARTIFICE [ART-tuh-fis]: a skillful or artful contrivance

May 11, 2013

“We are in a world of artifice and illusion, confected from old-fashioned production design virtuosity and new-fangled digital hocus-pocus.”  (A.O. Scott, NY Times) It was this quote from Scott’s article, “Shimmying Off the Mantle”  in Friday’s NY Times that finally excited me about seeing Luhrmann’s new film, The Great Gatsby.    I had been reading the [...]

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GHOST BIKES: bicycles painted white, located at sites of fatal bike accidents

May 10, 2013

It is a sobering moment.  You are driving down the street and suddenly on the side of the road appears a white bicycle, sometimes with flowers on it. It is a ghost bike. Oh, there’s nothing supernatural about it.  It is a memorial placed there anonymously by someone who wants us to remember that on [...]

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CIRCUMSTANTIAL: seemingly factual, but based upon existing conditions

May 2, 2013

We hear frequently that a trial is being held in the media rather than in the courthouse.  That’s a phrase that indicates that the media is too involved in weighing the evidence, testing the credibility of the defendant, and analyzing the information given by witnesses.   Almost before the jury has been charged the media has [...]

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VIOLENCE: an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws

April 22, 2013

It has been a tough week in America.   Terrorist attack, factory explosions, poisoned mail, shootings, strong public words, and  countless acts of aggression throughout the nation. This all comes at a time of conflict in Congress over such issues as gun control and  immigration. The mixing of these elements has caused me to say to [...]

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CLOSURE [KLOH-zher]: to bring to the end, finalize

April 21, 2013

The people of Greater Boston, first responders, medical personnel, and marathon runners from all over the world have been expressing the same thing.   They wanted the perpetrators to be found and punished so that it could bring closure to the nightmare. When the first of the alleged bombers was killed and the second was found [...]

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DOGGED [DAWG-ged]: persistent

April 20, 2013

After having featured the word cowed the other day on this blog, it seemed only appropriate to stay in the animal kingdom to feature the word dogged today.   They are only similar in the sense that they begin with an animal word. Cowed, you will remember, is a one syllable word.  But dogged has two.  It [...]

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CRASH COURSE: an immediate access to details of how to do something

April 19, 2013

The people of the greater Boston area are getting what I would call a crash course in what it feels to be under siege.   That is to say, it has been just a few days since bombs exploded in Boston.  Yet, in those five days the presence of terrorist bombers, police and FBI activity, military [...]

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MARATHON : any contest, event, or the like, of great, or greater than normal, length or duration or requiring exceptional endurance

April 16, 2013

When the bombs went off in Boston on Patriots Day the Boston Marathon was well into its concluding hours.   The winners had come across the finish line a long time ago, and now the “other” winners … those who completed the 26.2 mile course … were surging across the finish line, having seen the attainment [...]

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MEMORABLE: not easily forgotten

April 14, 2013

Friday night we went to see the opening night showing of the new film 42.  It is the story of Jackie Robinson, the first black man recruited into Major League Baseball.  He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the late 40′s. The film is a blunt exposé of the racism which greeted Robinson’s recruitment as [...]

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TELLING: revealing, exposing, as in “telling moment”

April 10, 2013

Telling is a word that can have a variety of meanings.  The simplest is, of course, the act of relating something to someone else.   We use the word that way all the time. But my purpose today is to explore the way in which we use the word telling as in the phrase, a telling [...]

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