Word: paranoias
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...past decade, Zimbabwe has become a repository of stories of the nightmarish and grotesque. The southern African nation is (or should be) a place of plenty, a former food exporter that was ruined, beaten and starved by the ineptitude, corruption and paranoia of its aging dictator, a liberation hero who led Zimbabwe to independence but - in a familiar African refrain - came to personify all the tragedy and broken promise of a continent. I'd had my own brief disaster there in April 2007, when, the day after I arrived, the subject of my very first interview asked me to wait...
Citing "residual paranoia," our reporter chooses to use the pseudonym Shane...
...Paranoia is above all the death of exaggeration. Many of us became great storytellers in our fear, ascribing near unlimited powers to the state. Life became cramped as we turned inwards on ourselves, picking up the censor's pen to scrupulously measure every word and deed. Ordinary phone calls became exercises in awkward misdirection and elision, and everyday conversations came with a healthy dose of looking over our shoulders. These were habits that I would later find difficult to shake. The movie, it seemed, would not end in Tehran, would have no final scene. (See pictures of Iran's terror...
...This isn't your grandma's marijuana," quipped a Miami-Dade narcotics officer at one bust as he tossed garbage bags stuffed with confiscated marijuana into an unmarked police truck. Levels of THC - the agent in marijuana that produces feelings of euphoria, and in some users mild hallucinations and paranoia - have risen dramatically because of indoor techniques. Thirty years ago, most marijuana contained about 7% THC. Today, indoor growers boast THC levels of 25% or higher thanks to the additional care that indoor plants receive. (See pictures of 4/20, the unofficial pot holiday...
...feared Basij paramilitary roam the streets at night, often blending in with people lounging in parks or window-shopping at the capital's many squares. Locals are reluctant to discuss anything remotely political in public, let alone divulge their opinions. And looming over everything else is the constant paranoia of surveillance: on the Web, over the notoriously unreliable mobile networks, on the hectic, crowded streets, even at work...