Word: peculiar
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...Peculiar odors and furry flashes of black and white have been detected from the lawns of Harvard Law School to Harvard Yard itself...
There is a peculiar American cultural convention that "old news is no news," meaning that if any story, no matter how appalling, has seen some light of day a few weeks or months earlier, it is ipso facto drained of moral and political valence. Sure enough, despite the initial shock waves set off by the Starr report, public support for Clinton has remained steady. Two-thirds of Americans still don't want him to resign or be impeached. In fact, two-thirds approve of the job he's doing as President...
...addition to contributing to the alarming breakdown of discourse, zealots and their ilk also possess the peculiar trait of often being, well, just plain wrong. Oh, they start out right, but somewhere along the way they veer off the narrow path and start clearing new trails of their own. Much as they can still see the original path, there's still some ounce of truth left in their claims, but it's been shrouded by the questionable data and dubious claims that are the hallmark of fanatics the nation over...
This is, to say the least, a peculiar reversal and an instructive one. Since they first lumbered out of the Serengeti, the men and women of our species have approached the mysteries of romance from different vantages. Generally it's the men who prefer to move in the direction Lewinsky suggests: sex first, romance later (if there's a ball game on TV, maybe romance never). But by his testimony, the President wants it understood that the sex was an expression, a culmination, of a deepening friendship. And there's a reason the President would like it to be seen...
...rolling of a slave ship and her own blood seeping from torn flesh. Although Perry has clearly read her Toni Morrison, her insights into slavery are no more piercing than, say, Steven Spielberg's in Amistad. But to be fair, this debut novel is not really about remembering that peculiar institution; it's about healing relationships between mothers and daughters. The twist: Lizzie is both daughter and mother...