Word: strained
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...forms varied, of course. There was the strain of Islamic Wahhabism incubated in Saudi Arabia, exported to Afghanistan and wreaking havoc in Iraq. There was Shi'ite theocracy, centered in Tehran, made more terrifying by the apocalyptic worldview of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the West, the dominant form of Christianity was Fundamentalist Protestantism, gaining new converts and, fused with the Republican Party, flexing powerful political muscles. And in the Vatican, the conservatism of John Paul II found its natural successor in the austere and more thoroughgoing orthodoxy of the new Pope, Benedict XVI. There seemed no stopping this cultural surge, just...
...vote was taken, and United 93 won by a slim margin. Which might be thought to speak to the home-team strain in this year's voting. We New Yorkers chose a movie about events that left a hole in the city that still hasn't been filled. The Boston Society of Film Critics picked Martin Scorsese's The Departed, which was shot in Boston. And the Los Angeles Film Critics Association went for Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, shot in California. But don't make too much of local favorites. The New York Online Film Critics chose...
...representative Joseph K. Cooper ’07, who inspected a party in Currier House this weekend. “Had I not been assigned investigator, I’m sure I would have shown up anyway,” Cooper said of the legislation’s potential strain on his social life—and of the hours spent checking in on a particular party. UC Treasurer Ben W. Milder ’08, who checked in on several shindigs in Mather House this weekend, compared the experience to that of a “restaurant critic...
...country also harbors a hardy strain of entrepreneurs like Dayani who have sparked an economic revival of sorts. Afghanistan's average annual per capita income has almost doubled from $180 in 2002 to $355 this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF also estimates the economy grew 17% in 2006, and it's projected to grow 11.7% in 2007. In Kabul, the capital, new shops open every day, and construction is altering the city's low-rise skyline, which not long ago consisted mainly of bombed-out buildings. More than 1.5 million Afghans own mobile phones, six independent...
...short, the Amman summit did little to persuade Iraqis that things are about to get better anytime soon. But if there was a silver lining in the gloom - and you had to strain your eyes to find it - it was in President Bush's unambiguous thumbs-down to the idea of separating Iraq into three ethnic or sectarian enclaves. Partition may be an intriguing parlor game for foreign-policy wonks in Washington, but like most theoretical plans for Iraq, it was never likely to survive direct contact with ground realities. Save a few fringe figures and Al-Qaeda in Iraq...