Word: cleverness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Belgrade's military chiefs went back to the planning board. Instead of the massive "sweep" of the original attack, they developed a wickedly clever alternative: a series of smaller sweeps against the K.L.A. that would be combined with a wholesale assault on the civilian population. This two-punch would have the double purpose of depriving the K.L.A. of ground support and permanently altering Kosovo's demographics. Cities and towns would be emptied to depopulate the province. The VJ would shell villages so the police and paramilitaries could move in to put the population to flight, torch their houses and kill...
...their 200-man units that the Serbs have long specialized in making mines out of plastic so they can't be located with standard mine-detection gear. The allies are using mine plows and remote-controlled vehicles to detonate such mines before sending troops in. The Serbs, however, are clever about planting underground bombs. There's concern that they've done what they did in Bosnia, trip wiring antitank mines to antipersonnel mines so a smaller mine explodes when a bigger mine is moved, or daisy chaining mines so that triggering one detonates an entire minefield. Though the Serbs have...
...care to say they opposed the war but supported the troops. Even that usually meaningless ritualistic distinction, though, often came barbed with the innuendo that the draft dodger President did not support or respect the troops (or he wouldn't put them at risk so promiscuously). It was very clever to have figured out how to use Clinton's antiwar past against him when he decides to use force and when he decides not to. But this is just the kind of sound-bite strategizing that ought to be suspended for the duration...
...three acts make music of varying quality. Kid Rock often displays a throbbing power; Eminem is a clever, albeit socially irresponsible, lyricist; and the Insane Clown Posse is just plain malicious and dumb. But all three acts do share some core attributes: they make jagged, angry music, full of violent imagery and snide, snotty humor; and they perform songs that grind and groan like auto plants closing down...
Oscar Wilde's second-best play, about a politician threatened with scandal, was in love with its own verbal dazzle and even more with the frailties of the clever folk at its heart. Adapter Parker, content to skate on the cool, hard surface of Wilde's wit, gets suave turns from Jeremy Northam (right) as the pol, Cate Blanchett (left) as his naive wife, Rupert Everett as a drawling best friend and Julianne Moore as the blackmailer. He also retains enough of Wilde's wit that you may want to reach for your Epigramamine. But the plot is trashed...