Word: grasp
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...scene is the Oval Office of the White House, where Warren Gamaliel Harding is talking to a newspaper columnist. The eminent man says: "Oftentimes, as I sit here, I don't seem to grasp that I am President." The statement is too good not to be true. In fact, the entire Harding Administration is a humorist's despair; at a certain point, venality and incompetence simply transcend parody. Historian Charles L. Mee Jr. understands this. His brisk, hilarious retelling of the Harding saga resembles a series of blackout sketches. Facts are trotted out quickly, to speak and bray...
...real business of fairy tales is not propaganda. It is to help the young deal with anger, sibling rivalry, fear of separation and death and the eerie omnipotence of the adult world. "The fairy tale," adds Bettelheim, "offers solutions in ways that the child can grasp on his level of understanding." For girls and boys, those solutions do not invariably come through identification with the strong, but often with the bewildered, prefeminist likes of Cinderella and Snow White...
South Africa's recent national elections, in which nonwhites were not allowed to vote, reflected unprecedented division within Botha's ruling National Party over the pace and scope of future "accommodations." Though the party, which has been in power since 1948, maintained its iron grasp on the government by winning 131 of 165 parliamentary seats, it is now supported by only 57% of South Africa's 2.1 million eligible white voters, including most of the Afrikaner majority-within-a-minority...
...moments leading up to the speech, the Pope was reaching out to the crowd. He swept babies into his brawny grasp and kissed them, touched outstretched hands, extended his arms in blessing. At 5:19, the Popemobile had nearly completed its second and final circuit of the square. John Paul had picked up and held high a little girl, her blond hair tousled as he hugged her. After he put her down, recalls Pietro Volpicelli, an onlooker who was standing only 10 ft. away, the Pope was leaning out of his car and "giving his hand to a girl dressed...
...double sweep brings the team's league record to an undefeated 9-0, and 11-5 overall. The Crimson's unblemished league performance guarantees the squad sole possession of the Eastern title, an honor which has eluded the team's grasp for 16 years...