Word: strains
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...determined dictator, 52, has vowed time and again to stay on until his current six-year term expires in 1981. At a press conference following the Sandinista assault, Somoza, under obvious strain, insisted that he did not intend to change his mind. He said he had capitulated "to save human lives," and warned that "ideologies other than traditional ones" threatened to divide his country "into democratic and Communist peoples." But concern is growing that his failure to step down will provoke more strife. At week's end his political opponents launched a nationwide general strike that they hoped would continue...
...Isaac, the wrinkles stack on my face like the inches I used to measure the years by, and there is no more game in provoking your cornered authority. You strain toward the desert shadows, seeing something I don't see. Maybe your god speaking to you. Drawn not by love, I settle beside you, my breath light so I won't disturb you. With my presence you rage like a young falcon and beseech your god that my death be slow...
...game is ubiquitous. Corporations strain to invent short, arcane names. Married women have begun to resist taking their husbands' surnames. Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad Ali in midcareer. Sambo is a target of only one minority; Italians hate the name Mafia. Rock groups, such as Jefferson Starship (né Airplane) and the Grateful Dead, have stretched the art of naming to surreal heights and depths. The President's wish to stick to Jimmy as his official name perhaps ingratiated him more with the public than any other step he has taken-and may, in the end, have hinted more...
...Street, one of Springsteen's best songs, who "stares off alone into the night/ With the eyes of one who hates for just being born." Intimations of guilt and the dim promise of salvation shade and deepen the darkness, but for every casualty it claims, there are others who strain against it. "Badlands, you gotta live it every day," Springsteen sings in the opening number...
...great if it would help an author produce a worthy novel. While suggesting possible improvements to one writer, he spun out a letter 30 pages long. He managed finances, patched up family troubles, soothed egos and never complained about the demands made on his patience and energy. The strain hastened his death...