Word: usual
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Outside, the summer afternoon waned. Cicadas whirred. We drank tea and talked. Yuan's daughter came out to play. Some workers arrived to install an extra bed. Then we left with all the usual polite exchanges. Understandably, Yuan didn't step over the lintel to see us out, as usually happens in China. On our way to the front gate, we passed the policeman, who had found himself a folding chair and was slumped in it, Buddha belly bulging. He waved to us and called out a cheery...
...Sanctuary Movement, the usual roles are reversed - liberals sling chapter and verse, while conservatives argue that the true "sense" of scripture contradicts them. When Sanctuary proponents cite the verses below, they go to pains to contextualize them, both Biblically and in terms of secular morality. Nonetheless, as a religious movement, a lot of their oomph comes from being able to rattle off the following...
...both parties join forces to form a new coalition ready to tackle Japan's problems, but the revolution seems unlikely. Less than two years after Koizumi electrified the nation by calling a snap election to defend his reform plans, voters seem resigned to the return of Japanese politics as usual. Back at the Minato welfare office, 71-year-old Asako Hamada sees little reason for hope. "I don't know anything about politics, but I know things are not well at the present moment," she says. "That neither the LDP nor the opposition parties have been able to offer...
...refund. Some people just love to play the game hard. I remember standing behind one of these chronics while on line at an airline counter. He wouldn't give up demanding compensation for something ridiculous, and the agent wouldn't give in, until he finally got to the usual ultimatum: "I'm never flying this airline again." I found myself rooting for the airline. Hey buddy, I said, why don't you start today...
...foreign policy since 9/11, it has not produced the results some of us hoped for, and there are many legitimate criticisms of the Bush Administration's performance. But, in fact, despite the gloom and doom from critics left and right (including, occasionally, me), the world seems to present the usual mixed bag of difficult problems and heartening developments. In Latin America, there's Hugo Chávez eroding democracy in Venezuela--but there's also pretty good news from the democracies in Mexico and Brazil. In Europe, the U.S. fares badly in public opinion polls--but the people of Germany...