Word: distressing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...belief that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is run from Moscow. Apparently acting independently, the Russian ambassador to America decides that the capitalists "must be stopped--at any cost." The Russians plan to resink the Titanic. Once it is raised, the clever foreigners phone in a false distress call, deluding the good-hearted American destroyer guarding the resurrected liner into leaving. Then, a Russian envoy boards with the news that the Russian "research vessel" is actually a warship (will they stop at nothing?) and adds that the Titanic will be torpedoed "in exactly eight minutes." The Americans, surely...
...oppressive summer weather in most sections of the country was only part of what has become a season of economic distress. Declining consumer price increases in April and May fostered the hope that inflation had peaked and was on the way down. But in June consumer prices jumped back up by 1%, an annual rate of of 12.7%, despite a 1% decrease in the cost of gasoline and only a slight increase in food bills. The sharp price hike was caused largely by the 1.8% rise in housing costs. The latest increase throws into question the Administration's estimate...
Carter's ego-boosting appearance before the N.E.A. was the highlight of a frantic week of sputtering presidential fireworks, or possibly distress signals, as he tried to generate momentum for his campaign. Though he had just returned from a moderately upbeat trip to Europe, Carter took off on another 15-day marathon that would wing him twice across the U.S., then to Japan, then to a stopover in Alaska on the way back and finally to a few days of rest at Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia, where he would watch the Republican Convention...
...there is little doubt that, when man's ancestors first learned to stand on hind legs, they exposed themselves to aches in the back that have been plaguing their descendants ever since. Today Ramapithecus' spinal distress is experienced millions of times a day around the world. Indeed, after headaches, pain in the back-usually the lower -is man's most common and intractable physical complaint. It is also the object of intensive investigation by doctors into new ways of curing this most ancient of ailments...
...rebel. An overtaxed muscle suddenly goes into a sustained contraction, or spasm. It becomes a hard, knotty mass. The tiny blood vessels that bring it oxygen and nourishment and carry off wastes constrict. Soon some of the cells in the stricken muscle die, and the body sends out a distress signal in the form of a sharp pain...