Word: plaines
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Despite the good record, the city was just plain getting bored with the long-entrenched reformers; some complained that Cookingham himself wielded too much power, grumbled about new taxes following the annexation of outlying communities. Threats of new taxes simmered. So did resentment against the powerful Kansas City Star, whose editorials carried dramatic warnings that a coalition victory would bring back the gaudy old days of wholesale corruption...
...Preparen . . . apunten . . . fuego!" After the volley, Marks stepped up to Contreras' writhing body, fired the coup de grâce with his .45 automatic-then had to shoot two more times before his man finally died. Guards took off Contreras' shoes, fingerprinted him, placed him in a plain wooden coffin, and loaded him aboard a hearse for delivery to waiting relatives. By 1:55 a.m., all three prisoners were dead, and Marks's work was ended for the night. "Execution is not a pleasant task," says Castro's chief executioner, "but a necessary...
...apple-cheeked Eddie Fisher, also entranced, agreed with the customers. Nostrils flaring, he made it plain that all his songs were for Liz-Tonight Won't Be Just Any Night, It Happens Every Spring. Then Eddie flashed an arch smile for the rest of his fans. "I opened here two years ago," he said. "Since then, nothing much has happened." Having thus wrapped up his marriage to Debbie Reynolds and seven months of sharing headlines with Liz, Eddie ran through the rest of his repertory and retired to his dressing room. Elizabeth followed, trailing Mamma, Papa, secretaries, agents, flacks...
...though, Simon's poeticizing betrays him. His final gust tastes too much of sorrow spooned with a sophomore's relish: "Soon [the wind] would blow up great storms across the plain, tear the last red leaves from the vines, strip the trees bent beneath it, its strength unimpeded, purposeless, doomed to exhaust itself endlessly, without hope of an end, wailing its long nightly complaint as if it were sorry for itself, envying the sleeping men, transitory and perishable creatures, envying them their possibility of forgetfulness, of peace: the privilege of dying...
...Browns. In its most virulent form, says Tabori quoting a psychiatrist, stupidity serves "to disguise the truth from ourselves." Milder cases result in folly, credulity, superstition, plain silliness. Men of science have resisted progress with the mindless tenacity of Bourbons. Distinguished experts, including members of the famed French Academy, have on occasion "proved" that there are no such things as meteors and hypnosis; they have shown conclusively that man can never fly, that steamboats and railways will not work, and that the idea of laying undersea cables is preposterous...