Word: beset
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...campaign will be sparked by ongoing events in South Africa, and this April will be a crucial month in that nation beset with racial tension SASC members say. "Things are going to be happening in South Africa like they haven't before," says SASC member Jaron R. Bourke '88. Earlier this year South African students went on strike, returning to school with the warning that if the South African apartheid policies had not improved by April, they would strike again. And the national labor force has also pledged a national strike in April if steps have not been taken...
...inflicted upon Americans the purest pain that they have collectively felt in years. It was a pain uncontaminated by the anger and hatred and hungering for revenge that come in the aftermath of terrorist killings, for example. It was pain uncomplicated by the divisions, political, racial, moral, that usually beset American tragedies (Viet Nam and Watergate, to name two). The shuttle crew, spectacularly democratic (male, female, black, white, Japanese American, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant), was the best of us, Americans thought, doing the best of things Americans do. The mission seemed symbolically immaculate, the farthest reach of a perfectly American ambition...
With so many of their farms and oil businesses going bust, Oklahomans may have begun to feel that the sprightly lyrics "You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma, O.K." of the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein tune suddenly sound tinny and surreal. The state was beset by 13 bank failures in 1985, more than in any year since the Depression, as well as more than 6,000 bankruptcies and farm-loan defaults. Still, Sooners were not prepared for the latest bad news: the oil well on the lawn of the state capitol in Oklahoma City has gone dry. Nicknamed Petunia when drilled...
...bluff old-style Democratic pol. Though studded with deals and concessions to buy off various Congressmen and their constituencies, the tax package Rostenkowski wrung out of his committee last month was at least a reasonable facsimile of the reform proposal launched by Reagan with great fanfare last spring. Beset by conflicting advice from his aides, however, the President hesitated before endorsing Rostenkowski's bill two weeks ago, and even then his praise was lukewarm...
...pernicious abuse of individual freedoms in our society. Like those who carry handguns or operate automobiles, umbrella users pose a serious danger to the general public. That they are allowed wantonly to menace unarmed rainy-weather walkers is a disgrace in a community such as Cambridge--one at once beset by wet weather and committed to protecting the welfare of its citizens...