Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Pitchfork Media	(2.8/10)[2]
Rolling Stone	[3]

Mink Car is the eighth studio album by They Might Be Giants, released in 2001 on Restless Records.

One of the band's most eclectic efforts, its variety reflects its recording process; it was put together in a number of different studios, with a number of different guest artists and producers, around the country as the band toured between 1999 and 2001.

It runs the gamut from pure power-pop songs, such as "Bangs" and "Finished With Lies", to dance music ("Man, It's So Loud In Here"), and soft romantic ballads ("Another First Kiss"). "Man, It's So Loud in Here" was the only single released from the album, though its cover of the Georgie Fame oldie "Yeh Yeh" was featured in a Chrysler car commercial. "Bangs," "Cyclops Rock," "Man, It's So Loud In Here," and "Another First Kiss", as well as "Boss of Me" (which was featured on non-U.S. releases), were released on the band's 2002 anthology compilation Dial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants.

"Bangs" would provide the initial spark for author Zadie Smith's short story "The Girl with Bangs".

Track listings[link]

The track listing for the album varied depending on where it was released. Some releases featured bonus tracks, such as "Boss of Me" for the Australian release,^[4] and "Your Mom's Alright" in Europe.

All songs written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell except where indicated.

U.S. release[link]

1. "Bangs" - 3:09
2. "Cyclops Rock" - 2:38 (with Cerys Matthews)
3. "Man, It's So Loud In Here" – 3:59
4. "Mr. Xcitement" – 3:36 (with Mike Doughty) (written by John Flansburgh, John Linnell, Dan Levine, Elegant Too, Mike Doughty)
5. "Another First Kiss" – 3:06
6. "I've Got A Fang" – 2:32
7. "Hovering Sombrero" – 2:13
8. "Yeh Yeh" – 2:40 (written by Rodgers Grant, Jon Hendricks, Pat Patrick)
9. "Hopeless Bleak Despair" – 3:08
10. "Drink!" – 1:49
11. "My Man" – 2:57
12. "Older" – 1:58
13. "Mink Car" – 2:09
14. "Wicked Little Critta" – 2:11
15. "Finished With Lies" – 3:18
16. "(She Thinks She's) Edith Head" – 2:37
17. "Working Undercover for the Man" – 2:19

European release[link]

1. "Man, It's So Loud In Here" – 3:59
2. "Boss Of Me" – 2:57
3. "Cyclops Rock" – 2:38
4. "Another First Kiss" – 3:06
5. "Bangs" – 3:09
6. "My Man" – 2:57
7. "Drink!" – 1:49
8. "Your Mom's Alright" – 2:59 (with Mike Doughty) (written by John Flansburgh, John Linnell, Elegant Too, Mike Doughty)
9. "Hovering Sombrero" – 2:13
10. "Yeh Yeh" – 2:40 (written by Rodgers Grant, Jon Hendricks, Pat Patrick)
11. "I've Got A Fang" – 2:32
12. "Mink Car" – 2:09
13. "Hopeless Bleak Despair" – 3:08
14. "Older" – 1:58

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mink Car at This Might Be A Wiki
• Mink Car Cover 10th anniversary cover compilation of the entire Mink Car album, from the FuMP

Jonathan Mann (July 30, 1947 – September 2, 1998) was a head of the World Health Organization's global AIDS program.

Mann was medically qualified, receiving his B.A. from Harvard College, his M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis (1974), and the degree of M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1980.^[1]

Mann was a key figure in the early fight against HIV/AIDS. He resigned his post at the WHO to protest the lack of response from the United Nations with regard to AIDS, and the actions of the then WHO director-general Hiroshi Nakajima. Mann's work against AIDS, his conflict with Nakajima and its impact on WHO's AIDS efforts have been documented as a part of PBS Frontline documentary "The age of AIDS".^[2] During Mann's tenure, the AIDS program became the largest single program in the history of the WHO. He was a key figure in highlighting the need for a global response to the crisis.

Mann died in the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111 along with his wife, AIDS researcher Mary Lou Clements-Mann.^[3] Evidence of an incendiary device on-board the aircraft was later raised in September 2011 by a former RCMP officer. At the time of his death, Mann was the dean of the Allegheny University School of Public Health, which is now the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia.

James Curran of the Centers for Disease Control said of Mann, "It was always safe for scientists and institutions to think of AIDS as a virus, a transmissible infection… but Dr. Mann structured it as a human rights issue, and a global rights issue.^[4]

Education[link]

Mann was president of National Honor Society in the Newton South High School class of 1965.

Promoting health and human rights[link]

Jonathan Mann was a central advocate of combining the synergistic forces of public health, ethics and human rights. He theorized and actively promoted the idea that human health and human rights are integrally and inextricably connected, arguing that these fields overlap in their respective philosophies and objectives to improve health, well-being, and to prevent premature death.^[5]

Mann proposed a three-pronged approach that has appropriately acted as a fundamental explanation of the relationship between health and human rights. First, health is a human rights issue. Secondly (and conversely), human rights are a health issue. Human rights violations result in adverse health effects.^[6] Thirdly, linkages exist between health and human rights (a hypothesis to be rigorously tested).^[7] Literature substantiates the effects of the first two points, but Mann and colleagues proceeded to call for the validation of the third point and challenged the world to practice it.^[8] His work led to the development of the Four-Step Impact Assessment, a multi-disciplinary approach of evaluating interdependent and overlapping elements of both disciplines of human rights and Public Health.

With this framework, Mann attempted to bridge a perceived gap of philosophies, correspondence and vocabulary, education and training, recruitment, and work methods between the disciplines of bioethics, jurisprudence, public health law and epidemiology. Furthermore, Mann knew that the history of "conflictual relationships" between officials of public health and civil liberties workers presented challenges to the pursuit of what he called a "powerful" confluence of health and human rights – a positive approach.^[9]

While conflict between disciplines exists, Mann thought it important to first raise awareness of these challenges. In the spirit of negotiation and acting as mediator, Mann pointed out that such an intersection of fields can only benefit if a common ground in philosophies is uncovered and planted with a flag of cooperation.

Mann’s was both visionary and practical in the pursuit of health and rights for all. He advocated non-discrimination, an ideal that reached beyond borders regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, and access to care. He was born in 1947, the year the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted, and died in a plane crash with his wife in 1998 while on the way from New York to Geneva for a United Nations (UN) AIDS vaccine conference. He was a gifted academic who spoke fluent French and rallied many to the cause. He served in several roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and in 1986 founded the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global Program on AIDS. Mann had raised nearly $100 million in funding two years later. "The program was himself [Mann], a secretary and one typewriter," said colleague Daniel Tarantola.^[10] Later, in 1994, Mann directed the launch of the journal [4]Health and Human Rights (journal), published by the François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, which he also helped to establish.^[11] In 1990, Mann founded the health and human rights organization HealthRight International (initially known as Doctors of the World-USA), as he felt there was a void amongst the health and human rights organizations in the United States and he desired to create a unique organization whose mission was to create sustainable programs that promote and protect health and human rights in the United States and abroad.^[12]

Bibliography[link]

• Vamps, Virgins and Victims: How Can Women Fight Aids? Robin Gorna, Jonathan M. Mann
• Health and Human Rights: A Reader Sofia Gruskin, Jonathan M. Mann, Michael A. Grodin
• AIDS in the World II: Global Dimensions, Social Roots, and Responses Jonathan M. Mann, Daniel J. M. Tarantola

External links[link]

• HealthRight International Homepage

References[link]

Edith Head (October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American costume designer who won eight Academy Awards, more than any other woman.

Early life and career[link]

She was born Edith Claire Posener in San Bernardino, California, the daughter of Jewish parents, Max Posener and Anna E. Levy. Her father, Max Posener, was a naturalized American citizen from Prussia, who came to the United States in 1876. Her mother was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of an Austrian father and a Bavarian mother. There is nothing to document if Max and Anna ever married or where they met. Just before Edith's birth, Max Posener opened a haberdashery in San Bernardino which failed within a year, and the stock and fixtures were liquidated. In 1905 Anna married mining engineer Frank Spare, originally from Pennsylvania. The family moved frequently as Spare's jobs moved, and the only place whose name Head could later recall from her early years was Searchlight, Nevada. Frank and Anna Spare passed Edith off as their mutual child. As Frank Spare was a Catholic, Edith ostensibly became one as well.^[1]

She received a bachelor of arts degree in letters and sciences with honors in French from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1919 and earned a master of arts degree in romance languages from Stanford University^[2] in 1920. She became a language teacher with her first position at Bishop's School in La Jolla teaching French as a replacement. After one year, she took a position teaching French at the Hollywood School for Girls. Wanting a slightly higher salary, she told the school that she could also teach art, even though she had only briefly studied the discipline in high school.^[3]

To improve her drawing skills, which at this point were rudimentary, she took evening art classes at the Chouinard Art College. On July 25, 1923, she married Charles Head, the brother of one of her Chouinard classmates, Betty Head. The marriage ended in divorce in 1936 after a number of years of separation, although she continued to be known professionally as Edith Head until her death.^{[citation needed]}

The Paramount years[link]

In 1924, despite lacking art, design, and costume design experience, Head was hired as a costume sketch artist at Paramount Pictures in the costume department. Later she admitted to borrowing another student's sketches for her job interview. She began designing costumes for silent films, commencing with The Wanderer in 1925 and, by the 1930s, had established herself as one of Hollywood's leading costume designers. She worked at Paramount for 43 years until she went to Universal Pictures on March 27, 1967, possibly prompted by her extensive work for director Alfred Hitchcock, who had also moved to Universal, in 1960.

Head's marriage to set designer Wiard Ihnen, on September 8, 1940, lasted until his death from prostate cancer in 1979. Throughout her long career, she was nominated for 35 Academy Awards, including every year from 1948 through 1966, and won eight times – more Oscars than any other woman.^[4]

Although Head was featured in studio publicity from the mid-1920s, she was originally over-shadowed by Paramount's head designers, first Howard Greer then Travis Banton. It was only after Banton's resignation in 1938 that she achieved fame as a designer in her own right. Her association with the "sarong" dress designed for Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane made her well-known among the general public, although Head was a more restrained designer than either Banton or Adrian. In 1944, she gained public attention for the top mink-lined gown she created for Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark, which gained notoriety due to its being counter to the mood of wartime austerity. The establishment in 1949 of the category of an Academy Award for Costume Designer further boosted her career, because it began her record-breaking run of Award nominations and wins, beginning with her nomination for The Emperor Waltz.^{[citation needed]}

Head was known for her low-key working style and, unlike many of her male contemporaries, usually consulted extensively with the female stars with whom she worked. As a result she was a favorite among many of the leading female stars of the 1940s and '50s such as Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley MacLaine, Anne Baxter, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Natalie Wood. In fact, Head was frequently "lent out" by Paramount to other studios at the request of their female stars.^{[citation needed]}

During the 1950s, she was dubbed the "queen of the shirtwaisters" by her detractors. However, this approach to costume design was in line with studio policy which discouraged films from becoming instantly dated through the use of short-lived costume fads (especially in late release or re-released films). Despite this trait, or even because of it, she has been cited as one of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite costume designers and had a long association with Hal Wallis among others. She was also well known for her work for Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Head also designed the costumes for many of the solo films of Jerry Lewis while he was at Paramount. During her long career, she was occasionally criticized for her working methods. Early in her career, she opposed the creation of a union to represent studio-based costume designers and outfitters and was accused of being anti-union on several occasions.^{[citation needed]}

Even though a favorite of many stars, her design trademark of restraint on occasion brought her into conflict with the wishes of other film stars and directors. Claudette Colbert was one actress who apparently preferred not to work with Head, while her relationship with flamboyant film director Mitchell Leisen was by all accounts quite tense. Apocryphally, despite her own design accomplishments, she had a reputation for taking credit for others' work. However, this practice only became controversial in the latter part of her career, because, in the era of studio-dominated film production, a department head commonly claimed credit for design work created in his or her department.^{[citation needed]}

The Universal years[link]

In 1967, she left Paramount Pictures and joined Universal Pictures, where she remained until her death in 1981. As studio-based feature film production declined and many of her favored stars retired, Head became more active as a television costume designer, often designing outfits for film actors, such as Olivia De Havilland, who were now involved in television series or film work. In 1974, Head received a final Oscar win for her work on The Sting.

During the late 1970s, Edith Head was asked to design a woman's uniform for the United States Coast Guard, because of the increasing number of women in the Coast Guard. Head called the assignment a highlight in her career and received the Meritorious Public Service Award for her efforts.^[5] Her designs for a TV mini-series based on the novel Little Women were well-received. Her last film project was the black-and-white comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, starring Steve Martin and Carl Reiner. For the production, she re-created fashions of the 1940s, extensively referencing the film clips from classic film noir motion pictures. It was released shortly after her death and dedicated to her memory.^{[citation needed]}

Death[link]

Head died on October 24, 1981, four days before her 84th birthday, from myelofibrosis, an incurable disease of the bone marrow.

Hollywood Walk of Fame[link]

Edith Head's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6504 Hollywood Boulevard.

Actors and Actresses designed for[link]

Among the actresses Edith Head designed for were:

• Carmen Miranda in Scared Stiff 1953
• Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, 1933; Myra Breckinridge, 1970; Sextette, 1979
• Frances Farmer in Rhythm on the Range, 1936, and Ebb Tide, 1937
• Paulette Goddard in The Cat and the Canary, 1939
• Veronica Lake in Sullivan's Travels, 1941; I Married a Witch, 1942
• Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire, both 1941; Double Indemnity, 1944
• Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark, 1944
• Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, 1946
• Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane, 1937; in most of "The Road" movies.
• Betty Hutton in Incendiary Blonde, 1945; The Perils of Pauline, 1947
• Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter, 1947
• Bette Davis in June Bride (1948); All About Eve, 1950
• Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress, 1949
• Hedy Lamarr and Angela Lansbury in Samson and Delilah, 1949
• Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, 1950
• Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun, 1951; Elephant Walk, 1954
• Joan Fontaine in Something to Live For, 1952
• Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, 1953; Sabrina, 1954; Funny Face, 1957
• Ann Robinson in The War of the Worlds, 1953
• Grace Kelly in Rear Window, 1954; To Catch a Thief, 1955
• Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas, 1954
• Jane Wyman in Lucy Gallant, 1955
• Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956
• Anne Baxter in The Ten Commandments, 1956
• Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution, 1957
• Rita Hayworth in Separate Tables, 1958
• Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958
• Sophia Loren in That Kind of Woman, 1959
• Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger, 1963; Sex and the Single Girl, 1964; Inside Daisy Clover, 1965; The Great Race, 1965; Penelope, 1966; This Property Is Condemned, 1966; The Last Married Couple in America, 1980
• Shirley MacLaine in What A Way To Go!, 1964
• Tippi Hedren in The Birds, 1963; Marnie, 1964
• Claude Jade in Topaz, 1969
• Katharine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn, 1975
• Jill Clayburgh in Gable and Lombard, 1976
• Valerie Perrine in W.C. Fields and Me, 1976

Among the actors Edith Head designed for were:

• Danny Kaye in White Christmas, 1954

Academy Awards[link]

Head received eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design from a total of 35 nominations.

• 1949 – Color – The Emperor Waltz
• 1950 – Black and White – The Heiress – won
• 1951 – Color – Samson and Delilah – won
• 1951 – Black and White – All About Eve – won
• 1952 – Black and White – A Place in the Sun – won
• 1953 – Color – The Greatest Show on Earth
• 1953 – Black and White – Carrie
• 1954 – Black and White – Roman Holiday – won
• 1955 – Black and White – Sabrina – won
  • Note: Although Edith Head won an Oscar for Best Costumes, most of Audrey Hepburn's "Parisian" ensembles were, in fact, designed by Hubert de Givenchy and chosen by the star herself. However, since the outfits were actually made in Edith Head's Paramount Studios costume department, some felt that doing so created enough of a technicality to nominate Head, instead of Givenchy. And, indeed, since she refused to have her name alongside Givenchy's in the credits, she was given credit for the costumes, even though the Academy's votes were obviously for Hepburn's attire. Head did not refuse the Oscar, however.^[6]
• 1956 – Color – To Catch a Thief
• 1956 – Black and White – The Rose Tattoo
• 1957 – Color – The Ten Commandments
• 1957 – Black and White – The Proud and Profane
• 1958 – Best Costume Design – Funny Face
• 1959 – Best Costume Design, Black and White or Color – The Buccaneer
• 1960 – Color – The Five Pennies
• 1960 – Black and White – Career
• 1961 – Color – Pepe
• 1961 – Black and White – The Facts of Life – won
• 1962 – Color – Pocketful of Miracles
• 1963 – Color – My Geisha
• 1963 – Black and White – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
• 1964 – Color – A New Kind of Love
• 1964 – Black and White – Wives and Lovers
• 1964 – Black and White – Love with the Proper Stranger
• 1965 – Color – What a Way to Go!
• 1965 – Black and White – A House Is Not a Home
• 1966 – Color – Inside Daisy Clover
• 1966 – Black and White – The Slender Thread
• 1967 – Color – The Oscar
• Note: After 1967, the Academy no longer distinguished between awards for Color and awards for Black and White films.
• 1970 – Sweet Charity
• 1971 – Airport
• 1974 – The Sting – won
• 1976 – The Man Who Would Be King
• 1978 – Airport '77

Guest appearances[link]

Head made a brief appearance in Columbo: Requiem for a Falling Star (1973) acting as herself, the clothing designer for Anne Baxter's character. Her Oscars were displayed on a desk in the scene.

Again as herself, she appeared in the film Lucy Gallant (1955) as the emcee of a fashion show.

Posthumous references[link]

As part of a series of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in February 2003, commemorating the behind-the-camera personnel who make movies, Head was featured on one to honor costume design.

The band They Might Be Giants recorded the song "She Thinks She's Edith Head," which was included in the 1999 album Long Tall Weekend and the 2001 album Mink Car. The song is about a girl from the singer's past, who had changed her persona to be more sophisticated, and compares her new attitude to Head and longtime Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown.

To many viewers of the 2004 Pixar/Disney computer-animated film The Incredibles, the personality and mannerisms of the film's fictional superhero costume designer Edna Mode suggest a colorful caricature of Edith Head. Edna Mode's sense of style, round glasses, and assertive no-nonsense character are very likely a direct homage to Head's legendary accomplishments and personal traits. But the film's director, Brad Bird, has not yet confirmed or denied this.^[7]

References[link]

1. ^ Chierichetti, David (2003). Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer. New York, NY: HarperCollins. pp. 2–3. ISBN 0-06-019428-6. 
2. ^ Chierichetti, David (2003). Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer. New York, NY: HarperCollins. p. 6. ISBN 0-06-019428-6. 
3. ^ Chierichetti, David (2003). Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer. Ney York, NY: HarperCollins. pp. 7–8. ISBN 0-06-019428-6. 
4. ^ Fishko, Sara. Edith Head. February 25, 2011.
5. ^ U.S. Coast Guard website
6. ^ Chierichetti, David. (2003). Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer, p. 134. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-056740-6.
7. ^ "Who is the ''Incredibles'' fashion maven based on?", Entertainment Weekly

Sources[link]

• David Chierichetti (2003). Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-019428-6. 
• John Duka. "Edith Head, Fashion Designer for the Movies, Dies." The New York Times. October 27, 1981.
• Edith Head (1983). Edith Head's Hollywood. New York: Dutton. ISBN 0-525-24200-7. 
• Edith Head and Jane Kesner Ardmore (1959). The Dress Doctor. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/999750030X|999750030X]]. 
• Edith Head with Joe Hyams (1967). How to Dress for Success. New York: Random House. LCCN 66012021. 

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Edith Head at Find a Grave
• Edith Head at the Internet Movie Database
• Edith Head designer profile at Fashion Model Directory
• Edith Head at the TCM Movie Database
• Edith Head Papers - Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research
• Edith Head on The California Museum's California Legacy Trails
• Elegance by Design: The Edith Head Collection in Wisconsin
• image: Edith Head alongside actress Claude Jade at the Universal-Studios 1968
• Sewing patterns by Edith Head
• U.S. Coast Guard website story "Women's New Uniform At HQ Fashion Show"

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012)

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.^[1]

History[link]

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[2][dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in U.S. News and World Report, had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine Easyriders which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema, featuring particularly prominently as a recurring motif in the 2003 film School of Rock.^[3][4][5][6]

Use as praise[link]

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."^{[7][dubious – discuss]}

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also[link]

• Absentee landlord
• Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• New World Order (conspiracy theory)
• Ruling class
• The Establishment
• Power elite
• Corrections officer
• YTMND

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Lighter, J.E. (Ed.). (1997). Random House Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Random House.