Word: matter
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...examination questions--that is by the use of the overpowering assumption, an assumption so cosmic that it is sometimes accepted. For example, we wrote that it was pretty obvious that the vague generality was the key device in any discussion of examination writing. Why is it obvious? As a matter of fact it isn't obvious at all, but just an arbitrary point from which to start. That is an example of an unwarranted assumption...
...Boss has had it in for ((Geoffrey Howe, then Foreign Minister)) for quite a while, ever since he started going round saying he had invented Thatcherism . . . It was only a matter of time before the throwing knife was heading for the spot between his shoulderblades . . . Our scheme was to shift the little sod Howe out to Leader of the House, along with all the other deadbeats . . . I remember very clearly writing all this down and Margaret agreeing. My writing may have got a bit illegible towards teatime . . . A few very stiff drinks later, we looked at the list and realised...
...they killed him in retaliation for Israel's seizure of Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid, a presumed leader of Shi'ite Hizballah terrorists, during a raid into southern Lebanon. U.S. officials now believe, however, that Higgins had been dead for some time, then used for his kidnapers' macabre display. No matter which terrible theory turns out to be true, the image of Higgins' body was a brutal reminder that, ten years after the seizure of hostages at the American embassy in Tehran, the U.S. still lacks any truly effective means for dealing with terrorist kidnapings...
...certain expediency in welfare for the wealthy. The reason: a cut in the capital-gains tax would produce a burst of revenue for the Treasury, helping Congress meet its targets for reducing the federal budget deficit, at least in the short term -- the only term that seems to matter in Washington. During the first few years of a lower tax, investors would rush to realize the appreciation on their stocks and other assets and thus pay taxes on them earlier than planned. Once this spurt of early tax collections was exhausted, however, a lower capital-gains rate would produce much...
...starving-artist routine," he recalls, "did not behoove my immigrant legacy of belief in education and upward mobility." In 1983, when he was 26, Hwang suffered the sort of crisis of conscience that comes to many people whose success was quick and easy. "I lost belief in my subject matter -- I dismissed it as 'Orientalia for the intelligentsia' -- and virtually stopped writing for two years. I thought seriously about going to law school." After the anxiety passed, Hwang tried to broaden his horizons in Rich Relations, his first play not about Asians. To his disappointment but not surprise, critics took...