Word: ruthlessness
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F.D.R. was not a perfect man. In the service of his objectives, he could be, and often was, devious, guileful, manipulative, evasive, dissembling, underhanded, even ruthless. But he had great strengths. He relished power and organized, or disorganized, his Administration so that conflict among his subordinates would ensure that the big decisions would come to him. A politician to his fingertips, he rejoiced in party combat. "I'm an old campaigner, and I love a good fight," he would say, and "Judge me by the enemies I have made." An optimist who fought his own brave way back from polio...
...final years, Mao seems to have welcomed the association of his own name with these distant Qin precursors. The Qin, after all, had established a united state from a universe in chaos. They represented, like Mao, not the best that China had to offer, but something ruthless yet canny, with the power briefly to impose a single will on the scattered emotions of the errant multitude. It is on that grimly structured foundation that Mao's successors have been able to build, even as they struggle, with obvious nervousness, to contain the social pressures that their own more open policies...
...crime, and it feeds an already fertile mind." Most children resist the worst temptations, he says. The trick is to recognize the ones who do not. "If you have a child who increasingly is lying instead of putting some value on the truth, a child who is becoming more ruthless and unprincipled--you need to take some of these signs seriously...
...stage presence. Yannatos exchanged a few words with him, then plunged into the beginning of the concerto. Lin remained imperturbable as he hoisted his violin onto his shoulder during the silky orchestral introduction, then abruptly interrupted the orchestra as he entered. Norton Lecturer Joseph Kerman described the violin as "ruthless" in the first movement of the concerto; Lin's fiery performance did indeed seem threatening. The assaulting violin grew almost unbearably loud, until--SNAP!--broken string brought the concerto to a crashing halt. Buzzing murmurs controlled the theater until Lin returned, new string installed, and Yannatos rebegan the concerto...
...haven't heard, the wildly overrated writer-director of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown has decided to amuse and confound the New York theater scene by accepting a part in a much-ballyhooed revival of Frederick Knott's classic 1966 thriller, Wait Until Dark. Tarantino plays Harry Roat, a ruthless drug smuggler who coerces two small-time hoods (Stephen Lang and Juan Hernandez) into helping him recover a shipment of heroin hidden in the apartment of an unwitting couple. When they discover that Suzy (Marisa Tomei), the homebound wife, is blind, the crooks wait for her husband to leave...