These astroturf organizations allow corporations to engage in public debates and government hearings under the guise of concerned citizens. A key purpose of astroturf activities is to defuse the efforts of social movement organizations[…]

Some of you might be familiar with the Yiddish mantra, a third German, two-thirds Hebrew—keinahora (meaning “no evil eye”)—said to defend against compliments and good wishes and occurrences of good luck. Should someone praise the beauty of your child or her intelligence, or congratulate you on your newborn baby, you must hurry to ward off the evil eye and say keinahora.The kind and wise congratulator of the newly delivered mother knows well enough only to whisper a blessing in the mother’s ear lest it provoke the demons who are surely trying to catch what is being said in order to blast the infant and make the mother doubt the very intentions of the congratulator.

He was to call a new legislature, to closet its members.

Bourdain grew into his looks; his was the kind of face that inspired Talmudic levels of study among women. He grew into his shows. They got better, moodier, more complicated.