Word: telling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Bible says, 'Ask and you shall receive,' " notes Brown, 35, and he has taken the injunction to heart, especially when fortified with a few shots of cheap vodka and beer ("When I'm sober, I have my pride"). He cannily tailors his pitch to his victims. "I can tell right off if they'll give me money," he says. "If they look like they might halfway give me something, then I run a sympathy line on them. If they look like they won't, then I give them a worse sympathy line...
There are many considerations, ranging from the practical to the high- minded. For one thing, it does little good to tell panhandlers to go get jobs that do not exist or for which they are not suited, or urge them to use services that are either inadequate or actively feared. Moreover, walking away from a beggar can be a risky proposition; the back turner must worry not only about what will happen to the panhandler but also about whether his own conscience will become calloused. Every time someone walks away from an importuning hand, he risks becoming a little harder...
...Catholic Church in Chicago. "We have been taken so many times. They come in here with tears in their eyes and ask for exactly $82.33 for bus fare because their father is dying. I automatically call the bus station and find out it's one big story. I just tell them...
Tuesday morning, just before boarding the helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base, Bush told his top advisers that he had made up his mind, but he refused to tell them who it was. The Vice President had decided on Quayle without ever questioning him face to face; Bush had faith in Kimmitt and the process. On the two-hour flight to New Orleans, Bush discussed the timing of the announcement with aides. There were rumbles from New Orleans that both the delegates and the press were growing restive over the now tedious game of "I've got a secret." Bush...
...manager named Isabelle Grossman, is made to look tired and behave with moral myopia. Can't Isabelle see that the European author (Jeroen Krabbe) who courts her is just one more serpent-eyed wordsmith who would flatter a pretty woman's intellect to soften her resolve? Can't she tell that sweet-souled Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), a pickle salesman from the old neighborhood, is the guy for her? Isabelle's Yiddishe grandma (Reizl Bozyk) can tell, in cliches that fall from her lips like ripe plums...