Word: spasms
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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EASY DOES IT, YOUNG MAN. Will Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, 68, eventually succeed Deng Xiaoping, 84, as China's leader? A recent spasm of economic unrest did not help his chances. Zhao reluctantly called for a slowdown in the pace of reform. But that decision is likely to slow his ascension. China's veteran military commanders will now wait to see if Zhao, once considered a shoo-in to succeed Deng, can put the economy back on course...
...shiny black Secret Service van with black tinted windows, an agent standing on the tailgate with his hand inside a black nylon bag that concealed his automatic weapon. The sunshine itself became sinister and a chill of premonition crossed the mind -- the dank American underdream -- and in a small spasm of panic one frisked the faces in the crowd, looking for the wrong one. The sudden foreboding had a specific primal antecedent in time and place and noon sunshine: the nerves were reaching back exactly to the imprint made upon the American mind on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas...
Another acid-tongued writer once observed in a spasm of humanity that, "It is hard to laugh at people's need for romance and beauty"--a process Wolfe has made a career of. No matter what your avocation, you should take his advice. The best way to transcend the limits society imposes is to have sympathy when there is a knock on the door...
Ignoring the weird spasm of patriotism I suffer every four years or so, I can admit that Witt danced a beautiful program to beautiful music. In this most watched of Olympic events, however, it is ironic that dancing to beautiful music is what wins...
Party discipline, waning in the mid-'60s, had its last hurrah at the 1968 Democratic Convention, where the barons forced the nomination of Hubert Humphrey. That provoked a spasm of reform that had stunning (and debilitating) success. The first in a series of party commissions radically altered the rules in favor of "open democracy." Increasingly, delegates chosen by primary or caucus would be bound to actual candidates rather than to party leaders who might use them in brokerage. Though the movement was a Democratic invention, Republicans were also affected because many changes were imposed by Democratic legislatures...