Word: awkwardness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...rewritten before personnel go to Iraq. Baghdad had refused to allow the surprise inspection of Saddam's 57 palaces. China and Russia disagreed with the U.S., and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for "the quickest possible deployment" of inspectors. But chief inspector Hans Blix said: "It would be awkward if we were doing inspections and a new mandate were to arrive." At week's end, the U.S. seemed ready to accept a compromise French proposal for two new resolutions, for inspections and military reprisals. And the U.S. was also likely to assure Russia, China and France that their oil interests...
...awkward moment. Sandy Weill, the world's most powerful banker, came face-to-face with Eliot Spitzer, the toughest cop on Wall Street. Both were among the guests at a Sept. 10 lunch hosted by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion. Their exchange was brief. But Weill, 69, CEO of Citigroup, indicated he was eager to talk about the ugly business that Spitzer, the ambitious New York State attorney general, has been finding in his probe of the financial behemoth. Within days a high-level session followed, and even Spitzer was impressed with Weill's sense...
...Hussein with little choice but to do what he rarely does: concede something. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraq announced that after four years of blowing off inspections, it was now ready to submit to them "without conditions." That left the war camp in an awkward dilemma. Can you convince the world it needs to get rid of a bully if the bully suddenly appears to be playing nice? And it left those less than eager for an invasion with the responsibility to prove exactly what, if anything, Saddam has conceded...
...Aside from the author's descriptions of her own life, we're mostly reading third- or fourth-hand accounts of what other women experienced. The distance is both discernible and awkward. As a result, several passages seem strained or muffled by less than deft translation and cultural barriers. By the time certain stories are passed along via letters, interpreted by Xue, translated by someone else, then edited by still another person, they appear to have either lost their essence or simply been boiled down...
Even the future proprietor, Louisa Solano, who worked at the Grolier for many years before Gordon’s death, felt awkward in the store. Former poet laureate Robert Pinsky recalled a similar experience onstage: “I used to hate to go into the place—it was scary. But I had to go in there because it had all the books I wanted...