Mass challenges at the polls bog the process down, creating excessive and confrontational lines that make voting a gauntlet rather than a civic rite.
What would be more unbelievable than that same kid, all grown up, using a gauntlet that's powerful enough to destroy half the universe?
It's not often that you feel you were present at a truly significant artistic event – one that people will talk about for years to come, one that throws down a gauntlet to other artists, one that raises the bar.
Gaokao, the Chinese-university entrance exam, is a gauntlet that knows almost no equivalent in the West (grades, recommendations, and extracurricular activities have little bearing on the admissions process).
These thinkers are rare among philosophers in their willingness to take up a gauntlet that is usually refused even by those with views in many respects similar to their own.
Every day, Julian stares out the window of a city bus on the way to school, a commute that can sometimes be a gauntlet of terror.
One former wrestler told the Associated Press that "creepy people" lingered in abundance; another said that he faced "a gauntlet of sexual deviancy" after practice.
She says she knew her network had arrived when Jay Leno lampooned it last summer on "The Tonight Show," contending that WE had thrown down a gauntlet, that a ME channel for men was overdue.
Concerning a certain slim novel that Dr. Hart had just the day before handed to David, one particular colleague had sneered, "Is that any good?" A gauntlet, made of contempt.
"When the IBM PC came out, that was kind of like a gauntlet being thrown down," he said.
