Small quotes become big issues in part because they become proxies for larger tensions or disagreements.
The ethicists have become proxies for all of us, precisely because so much of this technology, for political reasons, is unfolding in the private sector.
Academics are effectively required to seek publication in those highly ranked places, as the journals themselves become proxies for measuring the value of research.
"In North America pipelines have become proxies for the broader, contentious debate around climate change and oil sands development," the documents say.
The rising emotions reflect how the islands, which in most cases are little more than barren rocks in the sea, can become proxies for deeper historical resentments.
These elections illustrate that personal relationships can supersede race in a highly partisan time, when black and white too often become proxies for left and right.
All actors become proxies for the roles that they play, and so Pacino and De Niro are, one suspects, loved less for their acting ability than for their status as men who pound heads into tables.
Recent debates over "how young people talk" — their frequent use of "like," the interrogative "uplift" young women often add to declarative sentences and so forth — have become proxies for disagreements about our hopes and fears for our children.
The references, invoked ironically at least as often as seriously, have become proxies for talking about anything from asking for a raise to pushing high school girls to take more computer science classes.
"As law has moved closer to mere politics, political affiliations have naturally and predictably become proxies for the different political agendas that have been pressed in and through the courts," Mr. Luttig said.
