Word: cipher
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...trade. But much will hinge on Jiang himself and on what he says and does on a trip that will take him to Honolulu, Williamsburg, Va., Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and Los Angeles. While the American public regards him--if they regard him at all--as a cipher, until recently he was dismissed by some U.S. officials as a lightweight incapable of surviving the hardball intrigues at the top level of Chinese politics. But since the death of his mentor, Deng Xiaoping, in February, Jiang's reputation has been completely rewritten. He is now acknowledged...
...unfathomable is Scheider's stony-faced patriarch, who offers no clue to any of his actions or offenses against his children. Danner gets next to nothing to do as the sensible, yet oddly passive mother; and Kerwin's Elliot, a psychotherapist with no apparent therapeutic skills, remains a mere cipher, a receptacle for Mia's pent-up rage...
...effort has not made an impression on the public. Since the trial is not televised, McVeigh is more like an evil cipher, and the proceedings have not been the talk of lunchrooms across America. "Some people follow it," says Everett White, 55, of Pueblo, Colo. "You see it in the papers, but it's not like that other one, with...what's his name?" As for McVeigh's guilt, says Mark Collins, city manager of Gunnison, Colo.: "Jeez, you think there's a question there...
...realize that these richies don't always win. Michael Huffington is always used as the example of how money alone can't buy a Senate seat if the candidate is doing a pretty good impression of a cipher. But the nominee of the Reform Party isn't going to win anyway. Winning isn't the point of a third party. In others words--looking at this from the point of view of a party loyalist--nominating somebody other than Ross Perot means that we're going to split the check for the full meal even though no entrees were brought...
...important change from TV's early days, when series characters were largely static from episode to episode, season to season. There was little shading or evolution in Darrin Stephens' nincompoopcy. And Joe Friday--not counting the occasional expression of disgust with punks and hippies--was a tragically repressed emotional cipher (which isn't to say audiences would have wanted to see Jack Webb really air it out as an actor). In essence, TV's early characters were subjected to the same drama every week, as if they were stuck in a time warp. Would Darrin stop Larry Tate from finding...