Word: usefully
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...lost the use of my heart / But I’m still alive,” sings Sade Adu on the titular track from “Soldier of Love,” Sade’s first album since 2000. For an impressively constructed album based on and made for “love,” this line seems more of a curious apology from the band than a testament to love from a wayward lover...
...emotional peaks for which it aspires. A smoky upright bass pattern lightly supports the Sunday-afternoon strumming of the laconic acoustic and the waves of organ that sweep through the wide-open spaces of the song like wind in fields of grain. Adu pulls off some memorable melodies, making use of her powerful and malleable voice, but the track somehow feels distant and merely pleasant. The instruments still sound prepackaged and the chord changes, while effective, remain obvious. The production, though nearly flawless, places more of an emotional divide between the band and the listener than there should...
...feeling that I was stumbling around had a word, and it was “obsequious,” with all its ugly and uncomfortable connotations. And also “ungrateful,” shameful overtones in tow. The thank-you writers seemed to make full use of the scrap paper, just so they could meander the line between the two words carefully...
...result of this increased use has been that in 2009, the Senate spent more days in session than in any other year in the previous decade. It held more Saturday and Sunday sessions than any Congress of the past 20 years. Altogether, Congress spent 1,420 hours in session—the third busiest year dating back to 1991. And yet, it passed fewer measures and public laws than in any year of the previous decade, with the exception...
Both parties bear some responsibility for the filibuster’s increased use, which has been facilitated largely by “Rule 22,” which allows opponents to threaten a filibuster without ever having to execute it, sparing the minority of many of the political consequences of stalling legislation while getting to characterize the other side as ineffectual. But its dramatically increased use over the last three years coincides with the arrival and firm entrenchment of European-style, party-bloc voting by the Republicans, such that the filibuster has become a major impediment to the conduct...