Word: shock
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Three months ago, I found out that my maternal aunt in her late thirties was diagnosed with stage two cancer of the lungs. This came as a huge shock because she never smokes, no one around her smokes, and our family does not have a history of cancer. The doctor says the environment might have caused it. Whatever the reason, she is now preparing for chemotherapy after taking an MRI to check if the cancerous cells have spread to her brain because she has been having blinding headaches, and a test of seven lymph nodes surrounding her lungs for presence...
...That shock to our taste buds came just a few days into the trip. The stretch of cramped stalls, many lacking stools for their customers, hardly seemed a serious challenge or even a promising venue for a sanitary meal. This was nowhere near a level playing field. After all, a $2 street-cart hot dog in the U.S. isn’t expected to compete with a meal cooked by Wolfgang Puck...
...ostensible specialty, the world of privileged black society, a realm of clubs and connections and incestuous politics with its own nasty prejudices: "As her grandmother used to say, there are our black people and there are other black people--and all her life Julia had secretly believed it." The shock value of this revelation wears off early, leaving little to sustain the reader through the 500 or so pages that remain. The only takeaway seems to be--to paraphrase that famous exchange between Fitzgerald and Hemingway--that rich black people are different from rich white people. They're black...
...citrus froze in California this year; oranges cost nearly a third more in May than they did in May 2006. Climbing food prices sound scary, and reporters have filed a spate of alarmist stories about "soaring" grocery bills (Good Morning America) that are "way up" (CNN) and causing "sticker shock" (the Bend, Ore., Bulletin). But it actually would be good if food cost a great deal more...
Such criticism of the authorities and calls for a greater watchdog role by the tightly controlled media reflects the extent of shock many Chinese feel at the gruesome revelations. But it also shows the way the party is being forced to offer some accountability to a citizenry that is increasingly affluent and unwilling to accept that they have no ability to counter the arbitrary power of the state. The party leadership recognizes that it must adapt to the changing attitudes or risk losing control. "There is room to maneuver and the party is willing to negotiate so long as there...