Word: ironic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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DIED. ANDRES RODRIGUEZ, 73, iron-fisted Paraguayan general turned President who overthrew his repressive boss, Alfredo Stroessner, in 1989; of cancer; in New York. Stroessner's right-hand apparatchik for most of the dictator's nearly 35-year reign, Rodriguez abruptly unlearned his loyal habits when he was elected President after the 1989 coup, urging democratization. He silenced skeptics by voluntarily stepping down in 1993, but the grand gesture was later tainted by persistent charges of drug smuggling...
Sanchez learned to play in Central America, as an eight-year-old growing up in Guatemala City. His father, Felipe, cut a five-iron to length for him. Felipe bought his son a set of "really short woods" a year later...
...secretly planning to restore union power once in office. For many in Britain, calling someone a closet union lover is like saying in the U.S. that someone is soft on crime. Thatcher rode to Downing Street on a promise to curb union influence. If it worked for the Iron Lady, Major's camp figured, why not try it again? Trouble is, Blair's view that employees should be permitted to join a union if a majority vote to do so is neither new nor particularly objectionable. Still, Blair reasoned, simply stating the facts might not do the trick...
...Pumping iron he could do. Pumping blood was another matter. Not long after Maria Shriver was discharged from the hospital (she had hyperemesis, a pregnancy-related ailment), her hubby ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER checked himself in for voluntary heart surgery. He had a congenital defect in his aortic valve--the valve that stops blood from going back into the heart. Don't fret about those pecs, though. He's fine, and doctors say the scar will be barely noticeable...
...days when our national security was allegedly under constant threat from the world behind the Iron Curtain, it is understandable though not at all excusable that we would pounce on any holiday we deemed "un-American." But now the threat has been reduced to nil and Americans can rest assured of their global supremacy for many years to come. The threats that remain are increasingly internal and perpetuated not by lunatic leftist radicals but by their right-wing counter-parts. Now that the national security/communist menace legitimization of repression is gone, it is time to liberate May Day and return...