Word: upbeat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...respectable middle-class Catholic family. Still, it was far from an easy life. There was never enough money; they moved frequently in search of lower rents; and his father, a civil servant and illustrator, was an alcoholic who had to be institutionalized. Yet the early letters are surprisingly upbeat, concerned mainly with food, clothes, allowances and schoolwork. At 14 came his first unforgettable visit to London, including Madame Tussaud's, where he was "delighted with the room of Horrors, and the images of the murderers...
...pairing, not least because Roberts comes off as upbeat as a roomful of Rotarians, while Johnson, despite his vast accomplishments--including singlehandedly compiling the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language--was haunted by the inevitability of disappointment. The poem, "The Vanity of Human Wishes," is a devastating reflection on remorseless fate. "Life protracted is protracted Woe," the poet says...
...time user tinkering with Garage Band, layering effects until the subtlety of the song’s skeleton is lost. What work best on the album are, as usual, the moments that capture bare-bones Beam. “Lovesong of the Buzzard” wisps along on an upbeat percussion line, with effects reminiscent of “Highway 61 Revisited” rising in and out of its shadows. “Resurrection Fern” is gorgeous, glimmering like a moonlit reflection of older song “The Trapeze Swinger,” and the album...
...racial makeup of the current Springbok squad sparked weeks of anguish among politicians back home, concerned about the image it projects to the world, but divided over how to address the problem. Despite the government's upbeat post-apartheid "rainbow nation" theme, official statistics underscore the persistence of harsh inequalities: last year more than 60% of black South Africans scraped by on less than $100 a month, up from 50% in 1996. By contrast, only 4% of whites earn that little. "At the very top there is a lot of integration," says Frans Cronjé, head of development...
...ground in Iraq with General David Petraeus, but it was not a recent visit. It was back in 2005, when Petraeus was in charge of training the new Iraqi army. An aide pulled out a blown-up photograph of the Senator and the general. "You were so upbeat, General," Boxer said. "You said, 'You're about to see some terrific troops.'" There were 100,000 of them "ready to go ... You were as optimistic as anyone I've seen on the planet ... and I believed you!" The stage was set for Boxer to point out that the Petraeus effort...