Word: powerlessness
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...Dalai Lama's very refusal to be dictatorial and his calm assurance that Tibetan Buddhist centers, unlike their Roman Catholic counterparts, "have no central authority" and are "all quite independent" have left him somewhat powerless as all kinds of questionable things are done in the name of his philosophy (a prominent lama was slapped with a $10 million sexual-harassment suit in California). And his wish to make peace among the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism has so infuriated a few that earlier this year three members of his inner circle were found murdered in their beds, apparently...
...this kind of peace was not unlike the rapture that seizes the snowbound before they freeze to death. If the Mir crew members were going to save their station and perhaps themselves, they would have to get moving fast. Though the thrusters on Mir were powerless to make the sweeping maneuver necessary to orient the solar panels, the thrusters on the Soyuz might not be. Like a pickup truck pushing a tractor trailer, the little lifeboat just might be able to nudge the mammoth Mir far enough for its panels to catch a shaft of sunlight...
...Things happen all around them, and they choose not to look at it," he says. "When you know you're powerless, you become cynical. You feel you can't do anything, so you make peace with the situation...
...Boogie Nights, Dirk Diggler (a.k.a. Eddie Adams) is the champion of the American dream. When Adams, son of an alcoholic mother and powerless father, reflects on his sizable endowment--"Everyone is born with one special thing"--it is a moment that deeply stirs our egalitarian passions. His ability to come on demand is a legitimate foundation on which to base his worth, and in America, even Eddie, a busboy from the San Fernando Valley, can make it big. He becomes Dirk and rides his broomstick o' love straight...
...both physical health and administrative punishment, or-and this might be the more effective approach-they should advise students on how to drink safely. Though this might be seen as running counter to the College's stance against underage drinking, it is better to appear contradictory than to remain powerless to curb this threat to students' lives. At the very least, Krueger's terrible death has snapped college students back into the grim realization that, while drinking is enjoyable and harmless most of the time, when someone drinks so much that he or she loses all self-control, that person...