Word: shrewd
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...that in the '50s was learning to cater almost exclusively to kids and their need for rebel figures. But there was also an element of discomfiting truth in the message he sent. The thing about the young Jerry Lee was that he was all fecklessness and recklessness, without a shrewd thought in his head -- and without a Colonel Parker to cover up his skid marks. There is a certain irony in that, but it is of an altogether more subtle and interesting kind than anything Great Balls of Fire has to offer...
...anything at all -- prompted Londoners to buy out essentially the entire four-month run of The Merchant of Venice, giving the play the largest advance sale of any nonmusical show in West End history. For once the actual event is no disappointment, although in director Peter Hall's shrewd reading the play is more comedy than tragedy and focuses more on Portia (played by Geraldine James of TV's The Jewel in the Crown) than on Shylock...
PAUL McCARTNEY: FLOWERS IN THE DIRT (Capitol). McCartney goes back to the future by returning to his old Beatles label and collaborating with a shrewd, spiky co-writer, Elvis Costello. That Day Is Done and My Brave Face show both these lads in top form, and the entire album has a buoyancy that has eluded McCartney for years...
...elite. In the days leading up to the crisis, he reportedly abstained from a crucial vote when the party was paralyzed over how to act on the student protests. That demonstration of neutrality may have made him acceptable as a compromise leader to all sides. "He is a very shrewd man," says Ruan. "He was elevated to the Politburo by Hu Yaobang. But when Hu was ousted, Qiao acted against his former mentor and sided with Deng...
Khomeini's ascent to power worked a remarkable change in a man who had once seemed a gentle, if extraordinarily zealous, cleric. During the upheaval that toppled the Shah, Khomeini urged his followers to remain nonviolent. In part, this was a shrewd wish to avoid harsh military reprisals, but his caution also reflected Khomeini's temperament at that time. Abolhassan Banisadr, whom Khomeini ousted as President in 1981, notes that in the final weeks of Khomeini's exile the Ayatullah "would not even kill a fly." Yet after Khomeini became Iran's ruler, he exhorted his countrymen to kill, burn...