Word: gruffs
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...high index of power distance,” according to Gladwell, which is a term from cross-cultural psychology describing the hesitancy of underlings to question superiors. This cultural phenomenon caused the Colombian co-pilot to speak timidly to the air traffic control booth’s gruff New Yorker. Even as the plane was running out of gas and was in grave danger of crashing, the Colombian co-pilot did not assert the need for the plane to land. When asked, according to the flight log, “Is that okay with you and your fuel...
Walt Kowalski is, to put it gently, an old crank, given to growling and spitting like a distempered stray. He's a mass of gruff prejudices against the minorities who've moved into his Michigan town. When some kids brawl in front of his house, he brandishes a rifle and actually shouts, "Get off my lawn!" In any other movie, he'd be the sour comic relief or the monster's first victim. But since, in Gran Torino, he's played by Clint Eastwood, Walt is a stalwart man of the Midwest--the hero who has a score to settle...
...Cromwell is exactly the guy for the job; he's played a President three times before in films and on TV. He gives Poppy a gruff machismo that both dominates the film and, given its ostensible protagonist, distorts it. When, toward the end, the octogenarian Poppy is shown muttering sage dismissals of W.'s Iraq escapades, we realize that the film is actually the story of a proud man perpetually disappointed...
...Highlight Reel: 1. On Otis, the gruff Times owner: "The riots, were, he firmly believed, only the opening salvo in a war that would not be over until the unions were driven out of Los Angeles. Compromise would be surrender. Rather than negotiate, he prepared for new battles. He now called himself "General." He christened his sprawling home "The Bivouac." He mounted a cannon on the hood of his limousine and made sure his chauffeur was prepared to repel, at his command, any enemy attacks. He modeled the paper's new printing plant on a fanciful vision of an impregnable...
...does have some things going for him. A famously avid fan of manga comics and the first to set up an award for non-Japanese cartoonists, the ex-foreign minister has gained the support of young voters. His characteristic off-the-cuff remarks win him the image of a gruff political straight shooter - he admits, for instance, that he is "prone to pork-barrel spending," but says that to reinvigorate Japan's economy he plans to spend more to stimulate domestic demand. "The economic situation is getting tough," said Aso on Sept. 22, the day he was elected to lead...