Word: bleak
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...defiant statement: “No one should be imprisoned—not even for a second—for expressing an opinion.”Journalists are not the only ones who suffer under today’s Iranian government. Women, homosexuals, and minorities also face a bleak existence. According to Human Rights Watch, four Iranians were publicly hung last year for engaging in homosexual acts. Females no longer have their lips sliced off for wearing lipstick, but they are barred from holding positions of significant power. (Eighty-nine women had their candidacy for presidency rejected simply because...
...amidst reverb-loaded guitars and squeaky clean production. But whereas Interpol, especially on “Turn on the Bright Lights,” threaten to sprawl into bloated, albeit atmospheric, songs, Editors maintain the same calculated, tight sound throughout. Alas, like Interpol, Editors suffer from mediocre and repetitively bleak lyrics. Because their vocal range and guitar style is already rather limited, lyrical diversity could have provided Editors with much-needed variety, but instead the tedious lyrics only compound the band’s repetitive sound. On the first track, “Lights,” Smith announces...
...funny moments, “Tristram Shandy” is geared toward those who love eighteenth century British literatur, Fassbinder, slapstick comedy, and “The X-Files.” Yes, Gillian Anderson appears, playing herself. Watch her in PBS’ remake of “Bleak House” instead. Ironically enough, it’s funnier...
When I showed him a draft of this speech, outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan advised me that such bleak language would send the stock market careening into a plunge worse than the dive following 9/11. And that, my fellow Americans, is the mindset that I wish to change with this speech. America is not defined by its invincibility, nor should it be. Vulnerability is not the trait that will destroy America; rather, the danger comes from purposeful blindness and denial...
...command arrangements they have to work with. It was always a gamble to make Afghanistan the symbol of a reinvigorated Atlantic alliance. The country is far from the immediate interests of most European states. Over the last 150 years, soldiers from many nations have left their bones on its bleak mountainsides. It probably achieved its greatest unity under the Taliban's Islamo-fascism. Narcotics remain the lifeblood of economic activity, and warlordism rules everywhere outside Kabul. But this next phase of military operations in Afghanistan is especially problematic, because while Nato's expanding mission has tactical similarities to the continuing...