Word: bickering
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nathaniel Clay, Wolff's hero, attended Princeton in the late '50s -- as did Wolff -- and was snubbed by adolescent aristocrats there, who failed to invite him, in the excruciating selection process oddly called "Bicker," to join one of the university's exclusive and very social eating clubs. Clay's offense seemed to be not so much that he came from a prosperous, partly Jewish Seattle family, but that he was unrepentant about this shortcoming. He acted uppity, as if he had nothing to be ashamed of. Thus it was necessary that he be humbled, and the cruelty with which this...
...them, is variously unaware, unconcerned and unprepared for emergency. Populism being the operative spirit of this genre, it is up to Perfection's two-man lower class, Val and Earl (adorable Kevin Bacon and solid Fred Ward), to get their betters organized. They make their living doing odd jobs, bicker laconically, dream of urban glamour, can't imagine how to obtain it. But staring into a graboid's gaping mouth, they're the kind of guys -- resourceful, practical, unflappable -- you want on your side...
Whatever happens to Gorbachev and his risky experiment, he already qualifies as a political genius, if only because he radiates a sense of purpose, motion, decisiveness and hope -- in short, "the vision thing." While Western experts bicker over whether he knows what he is doing and where he is going, Gorbachev gives the impression that he has as many answers as they have questions. Part of his acumen is his sure feel for what is truly important to his task and, conversely, a breathtaking audacity in discarding what he believes is less than vital. This year, without a great deal...