Word: sordid
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...DIED. RICK JAMES, 56, early '80s funk icon known for his outrageous fashion sense and a sordid personal life that included a five-year prison sentence for assault; of undetermined causes; in Los Angeles. His infectious 1981 single Super Freak launched him to superstardom, but his career was soon derailed by a decade-long cocaine addiction. Comeback efforts in the '90s were sidelined by a stroke and hip-replacement surgery...
...often overlooked side of fame. Neither dominating pop culture for any substantial amount of time nor laboring away without any success, Semisonic and Slichter have walked a much more subtle path. The stories he has to tell of the music business’ endless convolutions are not quite sordid, but neither are they ever boring—Slichter’s voice is vicariously thrilling at the highs even as it chronicles the maddeningly banal roadblocks to chart domination...
...superiors in Washington, the effort to stabilize Iraq is job No. 1. The general has spent much of the past year trying to prevent the occupation from becoming an unwinnable quagmire--and that was before the prison-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib erupted in all its sordid horror. Now Abizaid and his men are racing against the clock, attempting to turn back the insurgency, soothe Iraqi outrage at the U.S. and bring the country enough security so that Iraqis can begin to take power after June 30, when a U.N.-anointed caretaker government steps in. Abizaid, accompanied by TIME...
...believe Specialist Jeremy Sivits, the MPs in his unit caught on camera tormenting Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison did it for sport. In statements he gave to military investigators looking into the allegations of abuse last January, Sivits depicted a sordid camaraderie in which a handful of young soldiers willingly followed the lead of the older Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick and Specialist Charles Graner into perverse revelry. Sivits described nights of violence and debauchery, during which soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company joked and laughed and subjected the prisoners under their control to sexual humiliation and physical pain...
...straightforward; it can’t be chalked up to religion or a hermetic lifestyle. Finally, my companions’ dissatisfaction with my explanation produces an awkward silence. People look at me like I’ve said too much, as though I’ve revealed some sordid personal information that should remain private. Conversation killer, their eyes seem to say. Go back to the Amish village from whence you came...