Word: grim
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...euphoria over Wei Jingsheng's freedom was muted by the grim reality he left behind. For fellow dissidents remaining in China, life is worse than ever. Virtually all are either imprisoned and tortured or hounded daily by authorities who keep them largely separated from society. What's more, foreign governments that claim to pressure China on the dissidents' behalf now seem more concerned with trading rights than human rights...
...grittiness of his team aside, 0-6 is a grim introduction to the Ivy League for a coach who, like Harvard's Tim Murphy four years ago, brought a winning track record to a sagging program. In 1993 Siedlecki took over an Amherst team whose last win had come in 1991, when it was 1-6-1. He compiled a winning record in three of his four seasons with the Lord Jeffs and went 20-11-1 overall...
...scratch Harvard's skeptical, scholarly exterior and things start to look a little more interesting. Rumors circulate: one account explains that early one morning, forty years ago, a cleaning lady vacuuming alone in Wadsworth House saw a grim character in a Tricorn hat and cloak silently come down the stairs and go out the door; another report describes the sounds of a phantom dinner party that filled the corridor by the southwest corner of University Hall, a displaced echo of the dining hall that occupied the building in the 19th century; and some remember hearing Bill Gannon, former sexton...
...then the hysteria? This El Nino appeared from early data to be particularly strong. Hence the emergency preparations everywhere from California to South Africa. The major anticipated event for California is heavy rain. Some meteorologists, however, remain skeptical and distinctly unimpressed by the grim Noachian predictions. For example, Jan Null of the National Weather Service in Monterey, Calif., points out that in the eight heaviest El Nino years, California experienced on average only about a one-third increase in rainfall. In fact, two of these years, 1965 and 1991, brought drought...
With the Oscar award winning Leaving Las Vegas, director Mike Figgis made a film that was as hopelessly romantic as it was depressing. With no trappings of saccharine Hollywood sentimentality, Figgis' grim valentine was one of the best films of 1995 because it achieved a refreshing balance between pulp tragedy and true-love lyricism. Although his follow-up One Night Stand has much in common thematically with Leaving Las Vegas, and once again showcases Figgis' stylish direction, it lacks the earlier film's complexity and emotional heft (not to mention a powerhouse performance from a great actor like Nicolas Cage...