Word: instrument
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...overriding ambition was to rid China of all traces of its decadent past, while at the same time transforming the Chinese national character. His instrument was a vast totalitarian party and police apparatus that reaches into every facet of daily life, that controls what a Chinese can read, where he can travel, how he should live. Despite the omnipresence of this Orwellian machinery, many practices of the feudal past are observed. In the privacy of their homes, there are many peasant families who still pray to Kuan-yin, the goddess of mercy, and burn incense to their ancestors. Ouija boards...
...right hands, English is a precision instrument. And, like all such devices, it is alternately blunted and sharpened by its users. In 1978, many nicks and abrasions came from Washington. Ernest Boyer, U.S. Commissioner of Education, admitted that he had been faking it: he actually pretended to understand memos. The confession was prompted by logorrhea in his own department: "This office's activities during the year were primarily continuing their primary functions of education of the people to acquaint them of their needs, problems and alternate problem solutions, in order that they can make wise decisions in planning...
...palace (his father is an accomplished cellist and his mother plays the piano and harp), Hiro is devoted to music. When he joined the Gakushuin orchestra, he put aside the violin he had played since kindergarten and switched to the viola. By performing with a lower register instrument, says the prince, he can better hear his fellow musicians...
According to Texas rules, all candidates for the twirling line must be at least sophomores and able to play a musical instrument well enough to make the school band. At Huntsville that in itself is serious business, because it means dealing with Richard Wuensche, 36, the intense, bespectacled perfectionist who directs the band. Wuensche (rhymes with clinchy) is known as The Chief, and the 175 members of the Huntsville marching band are Wuensche's Wonders. For eight years they have won the Division One rating for high school bands in Class AAA (schools with 625 to 1,300 students...
...issue was tax cuts, stolen from the newspapers out in California, where they lumped it under the unlikely name of Proposition 13. King took the issue and played it like a fine instrument, caressing it and keeping it polished, and he carried it out of the September primary with a mandate to reverse the trend in government toward human services and other "wastes." The clenched fists were raised and a throaty roar went up when Ed King beat the Duke, because his people knew the issue could not lose...