Whenever there is an aura of money and power, an entourage grows up, and that is what's happened in Washington, DC. In an excerpt from "This Town," Mark Leibovich recounts the entourage's recent history. A good #longread for the long weekend.
Temple Grandin is a 2010 biopic directed by Mick Jackson and starring Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, a woman with autism who revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses.
《中英對照讀新聞》Sarkozy biopic to pull no punches at Cannes 薩科茲傳記影片在坎城首映將直言不諱
◎俞智敏
The much-anticipated film about Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise to power that is to premiere at Cannes will pull no punches as it strips bear French politics, scriptwriter Patrick Rotman said.
眾所期待有關法國總統薩科茲勝選過程的影片，即將在坎城影展首映，據編劇霍特曼表示，這部片將毫無保留地揭發法國政壇真面目。
The French president has already said he will not be seeing "La Conquete", directed by Xavier Durringer, which Rotman describes as "the story of a man who conquers power and loses his wife," Cecilia.
法國總統已經表明，他不會看這部由導演杜藍傑所執導、名為「征服」的影片，霍特曼則形容此片為「一個征服權力卻失去愛妻（瑟西莉亞）的男子的故事。」
"I did an enormous amount of investigation," Rotman said of the film centred on the 2007 French presidential campaign. "I needed to know the story like the back of my hand," he said.
「我做了極為詳盡的調查，」霍特曼形容這部以2007年法國總統大選為主題的影片。「我必須對整個故事瞭若指掌，」他說。
The film is unembarrassed about showing politicians as they are -- at least away from the electorate’s view.
這部片對於展現政治人物的真面目，至少是遠離選民目光之外的樣子，絲毫不感到尷尬。
"Lots of people will be surprised by the violence and cruelty of the milieu’s language," says Rotman. "And every journalist who spends time with politicians knows that they swear like troopers, especially （former president Jacques） Chirac and Dominique de Villepin. Nicolas Sarkozy flies off the handle with his entourage ."
「許多人會對政壇語言的暴力與殘酷感到吃驚，」霍特曼說。「但每個曾與政治人物相處過的記者都知道，他們動不動就對人破口大罵，尤其是（前總統）席哈克和（前總理）德維爾班。薩科茲也經常對身邊的隨行人員惡言相向。」
新聞辭典
pull no punches：片語，指毫不保留地告訴別人你的看法，例句︰Her image is that of an investigative reporter who doesn’t pull any punches.（她的形象就是直言不諱的調查記者。）
Behave unrestrainedly, hold nothing back, as in
The doctor pulled no punches but told us the whole truth. This expression comes from boxing, where to
pull one's punches means "to hit less hard than one can." This idiom, too, has been applied more generally, as in
They decided to pull their punches during these delicate negotiations.
[First half of 1900s]
Andrew Coyne, a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail, pulls no punches on the incoming US administration:
“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual
bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.
There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.
The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.
At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.
The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.
Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.
Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”
Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.
All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.
All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”
Definition of entourage in English:
NOUN
to know something/someone like the back of one’s hand：片語，指對某事或某人瞭若指掌。例句︰He knows the software like the back of his hand, and can often solve problems over the phone, without looking.（他對這套軟體瞭若指掌，根本不用看就能在電話上解決問題。）
=
know like a book
Also,
know like the back of one's hand or
know backwards and forwards. Be extremely familiar with or knowledgeable about; understand perfectly. For example,
I know Greg like a book--I'm sure he'll come, or
I know this town like the back of my hand, or
John knew his part backwards and forwards. The first of these hyperbolic idioms, dating from the
early 1800s, has a close cousin in read like a book, which means "to discern someone's intent," as in
I can read Greg like a book; also see under
open book. The second (
back of hand) dates only from the
mid-1900s. Also see backwards and forwards, def. 2;
inside out, def. 2;
know all the answers.
比較: back of my hand
Rejection or contempt, as in
Unimpressed with him, she gave the back of her hand to his suggestion. This phrase is usually the object of a verb such as
give or
show.
[Second half of 1700s] Back of the hand similarly means "an insult" in the term
back-handed compliment (see under
left-handed compliment) but has a quite different meaning in
know like the back of one's hand (see under
know like a book).
fly off the handle：片語，指對某人或對事大發雷霆。例句︰He really flew off the handle when I suggested selling the house.（當我建議賣掉房子時，他真的大為光火。）
bíopìc[bío・pìc]
(bī'ō-pĭk') 
n.
A film or television biography, often with fictionalized episodes.
[名]((略式))伝記物映画(bioflick).
［biography picture］
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