Word: seem
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...insurer to announce that it would impose an AIDS blood test on anyone who sought an individual life insurance policy. Many rivals, particularly among the 50 major insurance firms, have since begun testing anyone seeking a high-value individual life policy. But those measures are less sweeping than they seem: some 85% of U.S. insurance policies are provided through group plans, which are usually unaffected by the testing dictum. Even where tests have been applied, the results so far have been minor. Transamerica received 168,000 insurance applications between January 1986 and June of this year, and rejected only...
...answers provided by Freedom are not encouraging. For one thing, it is difficult in 1987 to generate much suspense over whether or not Lincoln will free the slaves. Curiosities have to be piqued by something other than the plot. But Safire does not seem to acknowledge this necessity. His narrative is hobbled to a crawl by the freight of information it must carry. Characters are rarely allowed to act and think like recognizable human beings; instead, they must constantly remind themselves (and possibly forgetful readers) just who they are and what they have done. Hence Union General John Fremont muses...
Shortly after his election in 1984, Duarte strode into the small town of La Palma for a dramatic, highly publicized meeting with guerrilla representatives. Subsequent attempts at talks fizzled, however. For a while, it did not seem to matter. Strengthened by dozens of U.S.-supplied helicopter gunships, the 52,000-strong Salvadoran army seemed to be slowly gaining the initiative. F.M.L.N. forces dwindled from an estimated 11,000 to around 7,000, and they alienated supporters by torching buses and planting land mines, maiming innocent civilians...
...mystery here is why Author Tom Clancy abandoned the Popular Mechanics formula that served him so well in The Hunt for Red October (1984) and Red Storm Rising (1986): describe enough hardware and any plot can seem plausible. Clancy occasionally hits his old stride ("Pellets fired from a shotgun disperse radially at a rate of one inch per yard of linear travel"), but this time out he concentrates on his human characters, a subject apparently beyond the range of his research. Patriot Games is a minefield of unintended comedy. When, for instance, the Princess announces that she is two months...
...getting thinner," admits Silver Friedman, co-founder (with her ex- husband Budd) of the Improvisation club in New York. So far, however, the ranks are not dwindling. "The competition is unbelievable," says Comic Wright. "Every year I think it will level off, but it doesn't." Meantime, happy audiences seem willing to endure wisecracking dwarfs and Indian mystics in hopes that another Wright or Leno will be just beyond the next punch line...