Word: mutterances
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...arrested for heresy and beheaded under the orders of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, a ruler admired now by Pakistani hard-liners for his championing of an orthodox Islam and the destruction of hundreds of Hindu temples. As Sarmad was led to his execution, he was heard to mutter lines of poetry: "There was an uproar, and we opened our eyes from eternal sleep," intoned the Sufi. "Saw that the night of wickedness endured, so we slept again." For many, Sufism's slumber has lasted far too long...
...time when so many things - credit, confidence, consumer demand - are in short supply, our political leaders are still able to muster such bounteous supplies of outrage. Outraged people often do dumb things, though, and my initial reaction to the many declarations of fury was to roll my eyes and mutter something about this being a trivial distraction from the Important Things we need to be dealing with. (I suspect that similar sentiments on the part of Geithner and Summers largely explain their politically tone-deaf handling of the bonus affair.) (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis...
...Taliban was toppled, and a Northern Alliance-dominated government took its place. Hamid Karzai, educated in India, became President. India stepped in with multimillion-dollar reconstruction projects. Pakistani officials mutter darkly about up to 19 Indian "consulates" based in sensitive border areas as if it were fact (there are only three). "Who is the beneficiary of this war on terror that requires the collaboration of Pakistan?" a retired major in the Pakistani army once asked me. "India is again in Afghanistan, working against us. Unless you demonstrate what good for Pakistan will come out of this collaboration, you will...
...attend church have a shot at getting their kids into a state-funded religious school, for decades a refuge of the aspirational classes. Rising private-school fees - up over 40% in the last five years - have triggered a groundswell of faithful behavior. "It's pray or pay," parents mutter to one another. I've attended baptisms of people who may be secularists, but are fervent believers in the right to decent schooling for their children...
...another bloodless young achiever coming down from the top floor to fix the ailing machine-tool company. They listen to his polished pitch in the employee cafeteria, and he wins some converts. But after he is finished, a few old-timers exchange knowing glances and mutter to one another about how young this hotshot is. Somebody makes a cynical and unkind remark about affirmative action. Deep down, they think he'd rather hit the executive gym for a cardio workout during lunch hour than share a cheesesteak and beer with the hourly workforce. And they ask one another...