Word: dourness
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...dour diplomat without triggering a potentially compromising countersuit? Last week a frustrated State Department, invoking a little-known statute, prepared to fire Bloch "in the interest of national security." Precisely what national-security "interest" was not disclosed. After so many months of stonewalling, how far will Bloch go to defend himself? Prosecutors are concerned that the State Department's action could jeopardize an already shaky criminal case...
...area around Appalachia, however, having a job often seems more important than having your health. Health care benefits may have been the main sticking point between UMW and Pittston, but many of these dour-faced, bored miners said that their greatest concern was job security...
WARREN ZEVON: TRANSVERSE CITY (Virgin). The nastiest and least predictable of the California singer-songwriters opens hard with a dour, futuristic suite of three tunes inspired by cyberpunk sci-fi, then draws his usual fine satiric bead on a range of subjects from perestroika to malling...
...East Germany the situation came close to spinning out of control. Considered a hard-liner, Krenz succeeded the dour Erich Honecker as party chief only three weeks ago, and eleven days after a state visit by Mikhail Gorbachev. Ever since, Krenz has had to scramble to find concessions that might quiet public turmoil and enable him to hang on to at least a remnant of power. He has been spurred by a series of mass protests -- one demonstration in Leipzig drew some 500,000 East Germans -- demanding democracy and freedoms small and large, and by a fresh wave of flight...
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. In Woody Allen's acute meditation on the Greed decade, bad men are rewarded for their crimes and nice guys worry about committing misdemeanors. This is Allen in his funny-serious mood, farcical and dour by turns, a showman of gentle misanthropy...