Word: grimness
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Davis' plight is grim, but it's hardly unique. States across the nation are struggling with falling revenues and budget crises, and overall spending by the states is set to decline for the first time in 20 years. New York is hiking income and sales taxes, Alaska is charging higher fees on studded tires, and Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn is suing the state assembly for failing to pass a budget on time. In 2000, the states had rainy-day funds that totaled nearly $50 billion; last week only $6 billion of that was left. But California, with its $38 billion...
Yuri Shchekochikhin could foretell the future. In May, as a wave of suicide attacks in Chechnya killed 77 people and wounded over 300 others, he made a prediction. "We have entered a new stage. It's Palestine," he told TIME. "Now suicide bombers will start hitting Russia." His grim prophecy came true on July 5, when two female Chechen suicide bombers killed 14 and injured over 60 by detonating explosive belts at a Moscow rock festival. But "Shchekoch," as he is nicknamed, wasn't around to see the attack. The crusading journalist and politician had died under mysterious circumstances...
...Anglo-American spy spoof. If Bond and Matt Helm outrageously flout social norms, MM seems to follow an inverted morality, almost defying the reader to accept him. Yet there's something charmingly retro about Bahal's "outlaw" approach. His closest literary parallel is with the Beats: the grim, druggy surrealism of William S. Burroughs, the headlong rush of Jack Kerouac...
...depressed and disoriented Japan, that behind-the-scenes tale of filial piety may be more rousing than the grim generational combat depicted in the film itself. Battle Royale II is a decent war flick, though it's nowhere near as entertaining or unsettling as the original. But the story of a dying director striving to complete his final work and a devoted son dedicated to finishing the job may just provide Japan with something that it needs even more than another celluloid bloodfest: an emotional lift...
...wage increase for civil servants nationwide earlier this year. Economy Minister Harald Wolf says Berlin is instead offering wage cuts in exchange for not firing thousands of workers. Roland Tremper of the Verdi public sector trade union calls this "a stab in the back for all employees." The grim mood extends far beyond the arcane details of the city budget. Last week Berliners solemnly marked the 50th anniversary of a nationwide workers' uprising in East Germany that was brutally suppressed by Soviet tanks on June 17, 1953. Those workers were demanding freedom, but today there are plenty of people around...