Word: rife
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Brown uses painfully obvious devices to fill the reader in on past events. Out of nowhere, a character remarks: "Did they ever prove that Cassius Rife killed Cora's father?" One of the cast marries a Japanese man. He is apparently the only Japanese in town. No explanation is given of how he got there. When World War II breaks out, we hear that his wife bashes a Fed over the head with an umbrella when they come to take him away to an internment camp. He reappears later in the book, casually, and again no explanation is given...
...still reluctant to face the issue squarely. If the word "pure," when used by adherents of revolution, in effect means "barbarous," perhaps the best the world can hope for in its future political upheavals is a revolution that is as "corrupt" as possible. Such skewed values are, indeed, already rife in some quarters. During the 1960s, Mao's Cultural Revolution in China was admired by many leftist intellectuals in the West, because it was supposedly "pure"-particularly by contrast with the bureaucratic stodginess of the Soviet Union. Yet that revolution, as the Chinese are now beginning to admit, grimly...
...from Cambodia and Laos have fared somewhat better in Thailand. Explains a European diplomat in Bangkok: "The Thais will accept the Laotians as ethnic cousins, while the Cambodians are not a group to be greatly feared; after all, the Thais always got their slaves from Cambodia." Still, exploitation is rife in the U.N. camps. In April, 18 Thais were arrested for robbing refugees in a camp at Nong Khai that houses 26,000 Laotians. Camp officials encourage Laotians to find work outside the compounds. "Many factories in this country are looking for cheap labor," explains Nong Khai Governor Chamnarn Potchana...
Witch hunts never cease; only the witches change. Early 17th century France was rife with witch trials. Aldous Huxley chose to write about one that occurred in 1634. His book The Devils of Loudun provided the material for this raw adaptation. Since British Playwright John Whiting's early death in 1963, the play has acquired something of a cult following. Cult plays rarely improve on revival, and The Devils is no exception, but they do often contain scenes or ideas of piquant interest...
Nine Lahoud's article on the Palestinian problem (May 16) is rife with distortion and clouding of crucial distinctions. Lahoud joins the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in denying the right of Jews to national self-determination when she quotes an Arab spokesman's specious distinction between Jews and Zionists--a distinction denied by all three major American Jewish denominations...