Word: crude
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Earth constricts. We imagine ourselves to be prisoners in solitary confinement, tapping crude coded messages on the dungeon wall and hoping for an answering tap--without which we stare at the queasy possibility that we are truly, absolutely alone. Such an abyss 1) may be infinitely more depressing than the assumption of human inferiority or 2) may argue, conversely, for the divine uniqueness and therefore preciousness of the human enterprise. An agnostic will split the difference and think of Voltaire: "Remember your dignity...
...guarantee it won't happen again." In his declaration speech Zhirinovsky demanded, "End the war in the Caucasus! If you don't burn the rebels' bases with napalm, then you, Boris Nikolayevich, will lose the election on June 16, and I will do it on July 1!" Though crude, the threat contained a simple truth: the war in Chechnya mars any Yeltsin-image makeover, however impressive, and seriously hurts his chances for victory in June...
...Iraq, first imposed in August of 1990, has devastated the Iraqi economy. Until now, Hussein has refused the UN offer to allow Iraq to sell a billion dollars of oil every 90 days because of the monitoring strings attached. As a result of Hamdoon's announcement, the price of crude oil fell sharply. But the issue was plunged into doubt at the end of the day when CNN's Peter Arnett reported from Baghdad that Iraqi officials were denying any change in their government's policy...
...House, Gingrich seized the initiative from a temporarily passive President and steered the country onto a heading that the Speaker accurately proclaimed to be revolutionary. His venture is in a stormy mid-passage now. It may ultimately be forced back, or even sunk. Yet Gingrich did the work--crude, forceful, effective--that compelled the voyage in the first place. It is for that reason he is Time's Man of the Year...
...TALKS NEAR DAYTON ENTERED THEIR third week, much of the civility that had been evident in the summit's first days was gone. In its place, a kind of diplomatic cabin fever set in and provoked the delegates to carp about the character flaws of rival countries' Presidents: the crude belligerence of Croatia's Franjo Tudjman; the manipulative arrogance of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic; the maddening--and seemingly willful--indecisiveness of Bosnia's Alija Izetbegovic. The resignation of Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey suggested that tensions had grown within the Bosnian delegation. To escape the pressure, the Croatians flocked...