Word: strained
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While embracing modernity, the government has assiduously eschewed its usual counterpart, Westernization. The House of Saud has clung tenaciously to Wahhabism, the puritanical strain of Sunni Islam that was the driving force of Abdul Aziz's victorious Ikhwan (brethren) movement. The royal family, as well as most Saudis, believe Wahhabi fervor unifies the kingdom's diverse tribes. Though King Fahd is known not to relish meeting his subjects, he devotes an entire day each week, Monday, to conferring with the ulama, the country's religious scholars...
...networks seem more comfortable pandering to baby-boomer parents than to their children. Yuppie characters and issues are proliferating, as usual, but with a new strain of self-criticism. The extended family that is the focus of CBS's Sons and Daughters includes a twentysomething couple trying to adjust to a new baby. Mom is exasperated at having to breast-feed so often, while her callow husband is more excited about his automatic tennis server. The same sort of problem seems imminent for the expectant parents of Married People, an ABC sitcom about couples in a New York City apartment...
...more than two years. In France, Action Directe, a far-left extremist movement, appears to have been crushed. Experts warn, however, that a new menace may be looming: the ethnic and religious conflicts springing out of the dissolution of the Soviet empire could give rise to a new strain of the terrorist virus. The Soviets appear to be so worried about that possibility that they are sending two retired KGB generals to London this autumn to attend a conference on terrorism...
...knows finally in what direction that remarkable mind of Souter's might take him. But these nomination struggles may be evolving a new strain of Justices: bland men and women who will seldom depart from the familiar ruts worn by the politicians who elevated them to the court...
Since his release from prison, Nelson Mandela has traveled 63,350 miles in 84 days to 23 countries, urging the retention of sanctions against South Africa and raising hackles by his refusal to denounce Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries who have supported his cause. The strain is showing: last week Mandela came down with mild pneumonia in Ethiopia. Mandela, who turns 72 this week, is considering a vacation that could raise some eyebrows: a three-week Caribbean sojourn as Castro's guest in Cuba...