That the New Year should follow so closely after Christmas underscores the point: in the Common Era, the ancient human need for ritual renewal manifests itself in essential Christian ways, even as those needs are, like Christ, suprachristian and suprareligious.
The situation underscores how closely, and perhaps irrevocably, Ms. Stewart's company depends on her image.
The Minnesota Orchestra's performance shows a taut athleticism, and the closely miked recording only underscores the well-conditioned precision.
The production's portentous atmospherics may be a trifle heavy-handed, but Mr. Esbjornson's emphasis on the ever-present specter of mortality — an early scene is interrupted by the distracting vision of a hangman practicing his gallows technique — underscores how closely linked sex and death are in this peculiar play.
It has been five weeks since President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela went to Cuba for his fourth cancer-related operation, and the normally garrulous leader has not been seen or heard from in public since — a closely guarded silence that underscores the extremely tight relationship between the two countries.
"The documents underscore how closely supervised the program was by officials in Washington," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose Freedom of Information Act lawsuit forced disclosure of the records.
But Mr. Schlobohm's journey as a whistle-blower, and some of the financial losses that still occurred even though authorities were closely monitoring Mr. Cook, also underscore the limitations of the system.
"Magic Street" and "Ender's Game" underscore how closely fantastic fiction approaches myth.
But statements like his underscore how closely beliefs about evolution correlate with religious behavior -- a troubling, potentially volatile situation in this country, not least when powerful politicians wield such claims as truths.
However, significant variation in the complexes recovered even between comparatively closely related taxa does underscore the potential lability of the trafficking system.
