Word: rare
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Despite the high cost of the war to Israel, the hostilities gave the U.S. a rare diplomatic opportunity to press for a solution to some of the region's longstanding problems. As of last September, the P.L.O. had been defeated, the Syrians had been virtually disarmed and the Soviets discredited in their ability to influence events. The U.S. responded with an admirable plan, the Reagan initiative, but then allowed precious months to slip by as the Israelis dallied, the Soviets rearmed the Syrians, the P.L.O. recovered part of its strength, and Jordan's King Hussein tried to decide...
...attempt to carve out a middle ground between the two sharply polarized major parties. Campaigning last week in Glasgow, Jenkins and Liberal Party Leader David Steel held an innovative public question-and-answer session in Partick Burgh Hall. Steel, a tireless campaigner, views the snap election as a rare opportunity to boost his party's status with the electorate. Conservative campaign advisers have feared that the Alliance might do well enough to drain off Tory votes and deny Thatcher outright victory...
...ancient stargazers, comets (from the Greek for hairy star) were signs of heavenly displeasure. Actually, they are stray bits of debris, largely ice and dust, left over from the formation of the sun and its family of planets nearly 5 billion years ago. Skywatchers around the world got a rare chance last week to view such a dirty celestial snowball close up, at least by astronomical standards. The surprise visitor from deep space swept to within 2.9 million miles of earth, the nearest approach by a comet in two centuries...
...wonder they call television a medium, Comedian Ernie Kovacs once observed, since it is neither rare nor well done. Moreover, no matter how it is cooked, television often seems to consist of leftovers. Never more so than in the past few weeks, when a persistent recipe served up by the networks has been television about television. After more than 30 years, it appears, television has discovered that it, too, has a "usable past," a peculiar history that can be exploited in every sense of the word...
...faded comic ironists of his generation, he does not appear to have run out of material or energy. The former is not necessarily related to the latter. There is always more raw material for satire than one writer can handle in a lifetime. However, energy usually comes from a rare devotion to an insistent internal voice...