Word: confect
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Self-contradiction has been a Zhirinovsky trademark ever since he first surfed to notoriety atop a self-generated wave of incendiary rhetoric and cloddish antics in 1991. Most politicians build their public personalities upon the bedrock of consistency; Zhirinovsky prefers to confect his views from the moods and passions of his audience. He has a talent for timing the rhythm of his harangues to the emotional heartbeats of those around him. How, then, would the man who may become Russia's next President tailor his message to America, a country that is a catch basin of his harshest invective...
...English cozies" -- the ladylike, death-stalks-the-vicarage sort of teacup rattler that grannies used to write and read -- is mostly over and widely unmourned. Nor is it necessary these days for women who want to write about the darkest crimes -- P.D. James comes to mind -- to confect not-quite-believable male investigators. It's not a surprise that among the grittiest of this season's crime novels are three written by and about women...
...Philadelphia. Andy Beckett (Tom Hanks), a lawyer who is quietly gay and controllably HIV-positive, learns he now has AIDS. The partners in his firm find out too. When they confect a phony excuse to fire him, Andy sues for wrongful dismissal and hires a skeptical, cut-rate attorney (Denzel Washington) to defend him. Can the case against these powerful solons be won? And if so, will Andy be alive to savor the victory? Philadelphia's agony lies less in these questions than in Andy's drastic deterioration. Hanks so scrupulously, heroically mimes the wasting wrought by the disease, from...