"Yes, the mandate of heaven is drifting away, but I'm not sure it has completely died yet," said Chris Baker, a British historian and a co-author of books about Mr. Thaksin.
While the book could benefit from crisper organization (there's some authorial drift; thank heavens for the index), it nevertheless presents all the factual ammunition and clarifying diagnosis of our predicament that any reformer and motivated citizen could need.
At the beginning of "Far From Heaven," the camera drifts downward toward the tidy streets of Hartford, through a screen of blood-red maple leaves.
The object seems to float in space, weightless, like some artistic ark drifting through the heavens in search of alien life, the exterior surface a mix of patterned news information and stock reports.
"Yes," will be the reply from the hundreds of millions who watched a score of Mary Poppinses drift down from the heavens, bearing lit umbrellas, to chase and chivvy away the forces of darkness.
Did the combined spirits of Malcolm X and Rosa Parks drift down from the heavens and cry right there with you?
And when he ascends to heaven, he is truly gone, leaving just a drift of vapor in the sky and the disciples below, arms stretched wide, like fledglings trying to fly.
Admittedly the actors have a lot to compete with: a rain of lead that plummets from the sky, clouds of ash, an autumnal drift of gold leaf, falling like manna from heaven.
In her hilarious sketch of her own life up to that point: "Made In Heaven", Little Brown, '71, she described her emergence from New England schooling into the drift lanes of the young and bright from Paris to Marrakesh.
Like a child lying on her back watching the heavens slide by overhead, the telescope will hold a position that allows stars and galaxies to drift across its camera, creating pictures in a long, continuous strip.
