Word: bitterly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...events yet largely cloistered from them, Karol Wojtyla lived in the early 20th century world about as intensely as it was imaginable to do and still survive it. Born in 1920, as Poland, a once great power, was moving toward its postwar sovereignty after more than a century of bitter subjugation, the army officer's son planned to study the Polish language at Krakow's Jagiellonian University. That aspiration--along with Poland's short-lived autonomy--was dashed when Germany invaded in 1939 and Wojtyla was plunged into a firsthand study of successive totalitarianisms. Forced to work at a limestone...
...political gridlock has deepened the frustration of ordinary Iraqis. Their first experience of democracy may be acquiring a bitter aftertaste, having braved death to go out and vote for lists of candidates who were kept almost entirely anonymous due to security concerns, only to see a familiar cast of characters haggling behind closed doors to divide the spoils of power. They don't know who is really in charge, and they don't see anything being done to improve their lives...
...Zimbabwean Mike Maseko, the journey home is a bitter reminder of his country's decline. It's a trip Maseko makes almost every week, driving the 800 km from Johannesburg to Bulawayo in his blue Toyota minibus. Before setting out, he packs the van with groceries and televisions, furniture and children's toys, carefully concealing envelopes filled with South African rand so the corrupt border guards who inspect his vehicle won't confiscate the money. The cash and consumer goods are gifts from Zimbabwean expatriates in South Africa to their desperate families at home. Maseko, 32, makes roughly $700 from...
Such trials can sometimes bring families closer. Marianne Svanberg, 88, a Swede, suffered a massive stroke while visiting her granddaughter Kim Gagne in Santa Rosa, Calif., in January, setting off a bitter generational row between Svanberg's daughters and granddaughters about whether to put her on a feeding tube. At one point, recalls Gagne, 40, "my mother and I had a big blowup, right there in front of the doctor." The granddaughters prevailed, and a tube was inserted, but Svanberg's condition worsened. She died on Feb. 19, leaving a family that was mournful, says Gagne, but knit tighter...
...recording industry could have deployed a legal and effective solution like iTunes immediately after online music began to gain popularity; instead, they sued scores of consumers and resisted the inevitability of the fall of the CD and the rise of the MP3. The result is a nation of bitter consumers, depressed music sales, and rampant illegal file sharing. There is an iTunes service that, while successful, would have been immeasurably more successful had it been activated years earlier—before the spread of illicit services like Kazaa and Limewire. As it turned out, the recording industry was damaged...