Word: spate
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...commentary on the future of humanity after Sept. 11, No Such Thing serves as an alternative to the current spate of nationalistic war movies. However, for all its whimsical parody, the film falls far short of a clear conclusion about monsters and mayhem in the modern world. The monster’s disgust with history and evolution is so exagerrated that we lose out on any millenial 2001: A Space Odyessey-type insights. Perhaps if his character hadn’t been written so inebriated and whiny, the monster could have held up a more penetrating criticism of his human...
Most great comics are to some extent manic-depressive, but Spike was an extreme case, swinging between certifiable despair and a spate of creativity that threatened to sweep him away. He once said he would sacrifice everything for mental peace. Had he done so we would have been the poorer...
...Texas photo op is dear to Jiang because he's had a spate of bad publicity of late. Frustrated proponents of political reform have smuggled abroad an insider's memoir, believed authentic by U.S. sinologists, called Zhu Rongji in 1999. A hatchet job, the book, thought to be written by a Zhu aide, accuses Jiang of undermining China's immensely respected Premier by playing petty political games?denying him the office space he wanted, for one thing?and doing "everything in his power to turn Zhu Rongji into a figurehead." Then there's the indignity of revelations by military leaders...
...maybe more. Because as 2002 gets underway, stocks are sluggish. Manufacturing is contracting. And whereas just last Friday a spate of economic reports - consumer confidence, housing, manufacturing - had investors writing in the recovery in pen, the first trading day of the new year is featuring the beginnings of a pretty stern reality check...
...children of Poso and the surrounding villages, both Christian and Muslim, bombs, guns and knives have been an almost daily presence for three long years. A drunken brawl between a Christian and a Muslim youth in 1998 sparked a spate of killings by vigilante groups. Since then, despite the frantic efforts of community leaders, the conflict has been characterized by periods of uneasy quiet, punctuated by explosions of mob violence. Hundreds, mostly Muslim, died in an outbreak in May 2000. But the arrival of the 750 Laskar fighters on July 19 this year decisively tilted the balance on the island...