Word: pattern
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...pattern can be seen as a "checkmate" in which the subject can neither move nor choose not to move without running into contradictory and paradoxical pressures and demands. A husband might suggest, for instance, that his wife spend more time with the children and later implicitly condemn her for this. If the wife is not allowed to question the consistency of his demands, and they persist, confusion and self-doubt push the limits of sanity. A mother might ask her son for a kiss, but her body language and tone of voice tells him she doesn't really want...
...time-In the last scene of the first act, for example, George-recently plagued by an annoying case of impotence-sees in his annual trip to California a potential source of relief. Instead, he encounters only additional frustration in the person of an eight-months-pregnant Doris. This pattern of blighted expectations recurs in the opening scene of the second act; this time, George-now a stuff, Establishment type-exchanges verbal thrusts with Doris-metamorphosed into a Berkeley flower child. Refusing indignantly to sleep with a former Goldwater voter, Doris sniffs, "And all the time I though Democrat...
Sentiment is building in Congress to bring some kind of order to the system's crazy-quilt pattern and at the same tune increase payments. At present, benefits vary widely from state to state. The highest weekly maximum, $156 (with dependents), is made in Connecticut; the lowest, $60, in Mississippi. Of course, many people receive less than those maximums. The Administration has now called on all states to pay an amount equal to at least half a worker's average weekly take-home pay-up to a maximum of two-thirds of the average salary paid...
...genus Photuris. Like other fireflies, these nocturnal, winged beetles send out short, rhythmic flashes of light as part of a special signal system that attracts males of the same species. The female Photuris practices a deadly variation of this ritual. It modifies its signal to mimic the flash pattern of different species of fireflies and thus lures unsuspecting males. Once they are in reach, the female devours them...
...responses of the females perched on shrubbery below. Using a pocket flashlight, Lloyd learned to imitate the signals of various species. He soon discovered that when he gave the mating flash of a male Photinus, a female Photuris sometimes responded. When Lloyd switched signals, flashing the mating pattern of a different male species, the versatile female Photuris often began to mimic the proper response for the female of that species. In fact, a female can mimic the signals of at least three different species...