Perhaps I don't have the right to laugh at revolutionary ceremonies or question the meaning of laughing at them.
In a recorded message broadcast at Sunday's awards ceremony, he questioned whether he was right to retire in 2001: "I suppose I could have struggled on for a bit.
A third silver was put around her neck as she wept uncontrollably during the medal ceremony, raising questions as to whether that was to be the end of her Olympic career.
The Rev. Louie Giglio, the Atlanta pastor scheduled to deliver the benediction at President Barack Obama's second-term inauguration, said Thursday he is withdrawing from the ceremony amid questions about an anti-gay sermon he gave in the mid-1990s.
But while Mr. Stern agrees with the prohibitions on segregation of buses and government or military ceremonies, he questions whether street signs in insular neighborhoods and radio programs geared to a narrow audience form a separate, quasi-public category that should be considered differently.
Though no Oscar contingencies plans have been announced, the Writers Guild of America has already threatened to picket the ceremony, throwing into question whether the nominees will even show up.
At 11, somehow, the tone of them changed: birthdays staggered from less a celebration of you and your achievements into a loaded social ceremony, a constant question of whether the cool kids from your school would turn up to your party, or whether you would be condemned here, in purgatory, playing an hour of laserquest with the exact six same boys you hang out with every break and lunchtime.
After coming last year to the donations ceremony, he now questions the $135 million donation — the largest in the university's 31 years, and payable over 11 years — asking what the company would get in return.
The carefully timed attack, two months after Mr. Abramov's predecessor, Akhmad Kadyrov, was assassinated in a bombing at a public ceremony, raised further questions about Moscow's official position that the war in Chechnya is under control.
Sitting in the Times Square offices of his consulting and investing company, Mr. Giuliani began with a brief, informal statement about the coming memorial ceremony, then answered questions for about 45 minutes on subjects ranging from the political to the personal, at one point relating his memories of waking up on Sept. 12, 2001, to see the sun rise.
