Word: spite
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...mystery of this fiercely private and almost neurotically shy man has endured in spite of his exposure to 37 years of public life. It has been reinforced by his bizarre shifts from right to left and, especially, his zigzag relationship with the Communist Party. Most of all, the mystery has been fostered by the distance Mitterrand has placed between himself and all but his family and a few intimate friends. In the end the best analyst of the character-and the methods-of Mitterrand may be Mitterrand himself. His observations, perceptive, witty and often elegant, run through his eleven books...
...Crossed Destinies), Calvino has always had a way of getting serious about his own jokes. If on a winter's night a traveler is no exception. He may begin by grimacing wittily over books that make themselves more important than life, but he ends up proving in spite of himself that books are life. His antic critique turns into a love letter on the wry but irresistible pleasure of reading...
First, freedom of advertising, while often preverse in its execution, fulfills a vital function in any social democracy. In spite of the taint of money, advertising boils down to advocacy, and to deny its importance is "ludicrously and condescendingly" to defy liberal precets...
...Some of his anecdotes are telling and funny: Fiedler's annual conversation with the New England Provision Company before his end-of-season bash always went: "Hello Sam? Fiedler, here. It's time for that goddam party again." But others do not appear to deserve their build-up, in spite of Dickson's chatty "he told me" style. Neither the maestro nor the family and colleagues Dickson interviewed were strong on bon mots. Certain points simply beg for detail. Dickson lauds Fiedler's genuis for selecting balanced programs, yet endlessly reiterates a generality--in this case, he writes a full...
...interminable speeches. Marching in a procession of 100,000 workers down Warsaw's Krolewska Street last week, under a sea of red flags, was a group of men who used to gaze down on such manifestations from an elevated platform: the entire eleven-member Polish Politburo, hatless in spite of the light drizzle, occasionally smiling at the gaggle of photographers around them. Said one startled Polish journalist: "This is the greatest sign of renewal they could have given...