Word: direction
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This is a remake of the 1973 The Crazies, by George A. Romero, whose 1968 zombie classic Night of the Living Dead has been the inspiration for countless remakes and rip-offs. (Romero's latest film, Survival of the Dead, may go direct to video.) The Crazies - about people whose minds are poisoned by the town's water supply - wasn't quite so trailblazing. It built on that potent science-fiction trope, the takeover of personality by an alien entity, that dates back to Philip K. Dick's 1954 story "The Father-Thing," in which an eight-year-old suspects...
...voters?" Birch, a tall, burly man with a shaved head, goatee and winning smile, is a professional initiative-signature gatherer. In the past year, he has worked on gerrymandering in Florida, a casino issue in Ohio and affordable housing in Massachusetts before coming to California - the undisputed capital of direct democracy - where he is hustling a stack of nine ballot initiatives. Birch gets 50 cents to $1 for every signature he gathers...
...Oregon, it is hard to think about politics and government without speaking about ballot initiatives - some of which can come crashing down on a state capitol like a tsunami. The so-called Progressive Era in U.S. history (from the 1880s to the 1920s) bestowed the secret ballot and direct elections for the U.S. Senate and the city manager, as well as the initiative, the referendum and the recall. The latter, of course, transformed Arnold Schwarzenegger the movie star into Arnold the Gubernator when the actor became California governor after voters chose to recall Democrat Gray Davis. (Read "How California...
Critics of direct mass democracy say many ballot measures are flawed and incoherent and that hot-button measures - such as initiatives on immigration, guns and offshore drilling - are designed to bring out certain groups of voters on Election Day. As Kimball points out, the biggest positive of the initiative process is that states with ballot measures as part of the political culture are more responsive to the citizenry than states without. The biggest negative is that the cumulative effect of initiatives - some of them constitutional amendments nearly cast in stone - severely hamstrings state legislators and governors as they do their...
...them. But the Pakistanis made an exception with Baradar, who may have a treasure trove of information on the Taliban. Possibly the Pakistanis were under pressure to reciprocate for the U.S. strikes on the Mehsuds. Or perhaps Baradar had fallen out with Omar and was trying to open a direct channel for peace talks to the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, bypassing his hosts. By taking Baradar out of circulation, Pakistan may be making a case to be given a seat in eventual peace negotiations...