Word: peculiar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Carter, who begins his book by writing, "I got into law school because I am Black," said yesterday that "it was peculiar thing that President Bush said that race was not a factor...
...these espionage novels, impudent crimes were committed on both sides of the Berlin Wall. There was a peculiar similarity to the sunless corridors and bureaucratic fatigue of Moscow and Washington. Enemies became interdependent and sometimes indistinguishable; it was a case of the left hand strengthening the right. George Smiley in Britain needed his rival Karla in Moscow. NATO needed the Warsaw Pact. The CIA needed the KGB. And the spy novelists needed them...
...around in their society, or occasionally as springboards for earnest discussions of them. At a time when moral discourse has been reduced to the size of a sound bite and rapid social change has everyone on edge, the messages conveyed in even the most frolicking of these movies stir peculiar passions. Such films often have an astonishing afterlife, not only in popular memory but as artifacts that vividly define their times...
Such is the peculiar intimacy that develops between hunters and quarry. Big Paul Castellano, as the admiring authors describe him, had a certain gritty grandeur. There was one unshakable rule for his boys in the Gambino family: no dealing in drugs. He accepted fiscal tribute from his capos with the lofty dignity of an Indian raja being given his weight in gold by his subjects. And he could discuss, with almost Socratic detachment, the subtleties of when or whether to "whack" a customer who had fallen behind in paying the vig on an extortionate loan...
...most important of these was Bush's peculiar need to demonstrate independence in his first "presidential" decision. Resentful of news stories that depicted him as Ronald Reagan's lapdog and a tool of savvy campaign "handlers," Bush decided that he would choose his running mate in secret and that his pick would be dramatic and unexpected...