Word: omens
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Franzen displays a striking talent for turning an implausible plot into a convincing omen. Middle-class flight, a shriveled tax base and the usual urban rumpuses encourage St. Louis authorities to hire S. Jammu, a woman related to Indira Gandhi, to run its police department. Soon Jammu and her imported Indian co-conspirators launch a power grab that includes Orwellian public relations, kidnappings and pet assassinations. Franzen's twisty plot and thriller pace are the sweeteners that mask his caustic commentary on urban decline...
Hale has found that the arrival of a major comet--especially so near the end of a millennium--is still widely regarded as an omen of upheaval and disaster. Several Christian Fundamentalists, he writes in the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer, have proclaimed Hale-Bopp to be one of the "signs of the end times" foretold in the New Testament. They also suggest that the comet might be the object described in Revelation 8: 10 as a great star named Wormwood that "fell from heaven, blazing like a torch." Wormwood, according to the Bible, destroys a third of almost everything...
...drove along a thin, wooded road and found the entryway into the ranch: laser-guarded, barbed-wired and accompanied by the anxious grrrrr of concealed attack Dobermans. A good omen--they had something in there worth hiding. A walk around the property's perimeter at first yielded only more of the same. Then we turned a corner and through the trees saw children playing a game of some sort--little houses moved around a board with sticks. The children spotted Lori and me and several of them came over...
...less good news may be more important: the picture is murkier than images on most old-style television sets, and the Ivana-thin display costs, ahem, $25,000 (for the 42-in. incarnation, on sale at Hammacher Schlemmer). Nonetheless, TV analyst Allen Griffin says the set is a good omen. The breakthrough "plasma" technology that made these high-end boxes possible should push higher-quality, lower-cost versions into the price range of mortals sometime near century...
Berry said that the enthusiasm Pepsi has shown is a good omen...