Word: alarming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Nitze was an author of the so-called Gaither report to Dwight Eisenhower, which warned that within two years the Soviets would be able to carry out a "disarming attack" against "our deterrent power." That alarm helped John F. Kennedy proclaim the "missile gap" in his campaign against Richard Nixon. Nitze, an adviser to Kennedy, was rewarded with a Pentagon appointment, first as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, then as Secretary of the Navy. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, he was at the heart of the action as a member of J.F.K.'s ad hoc Executive committee...
That impact is viewed with alarm by many. The rave reviews won by Gorbachev's television performance ("A tour de force" -- San Francisco Chronicle) sparked grumbling that TV had given a slick propagandist a free platform from which to seduce the American people. The candidates' debate, too, was decried as another instance of TV's reducing complex issues to trivial matters of looks, performing style and catchy one-liners. Neither TV event, however, was a ratings blockbuster: both were soundly beaten by entertainment fare on the other networks...
...scream is one of the indigenous sounds of city life, like an automobile alarm that whoops and heaves, then stops, leaving the question hanging like a hawk as to whether a car was broken into, or did its owner set off the alarm by accident, and then lay it to rest. With human screams, the question is more complicated, since screams are not mechanical or automatic. Did you hear that, Harry? What could it be? A scream of delight, of fright? Hilarity, Harry? Do you think that someone is laughing too hard? Could it be hysteria, madness...
Signs are increasing that the crash is discouraging consumers across the U.S. as well. While polls immediately afterward showed only a modest amount of alarm, later surveys indicated that the Wall Street shock was starting to register. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of 2,394 Americans last week, nearly two out of three (64%) say a major economic downturn is very or somewhat likely in the next twelve months. "Since about 19% of total retail sales occur during November and December, the plunge could not have come at a more inopportune time," says Robert Chandross, chief economist...
...political debate in America, yet rely on mere numbers to make their points. Stalin once bragged that "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic." What does that make the 1159 statistics in the Harper's Index? The stuff of fun conversation, maybe, but also cause for alarm...