Word: whips
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Foreigners held three times as many dollars as the U.S. was capable of redeeming in gold, and they were demanding more and more gold because they were losing confidence in the U.S.'s will or ability to whip its economy into order. To prevent a run on Fort Knox, the President thus declared that the nation would no longer exchange dollars for gold...
Perhaps the most discouraging feature of Ulster's bloody week was the fact that the militants on both sides, who hold the whip hand, were growing in strength while moderates stood helplessly by. As Ivan Cooper, the only Protestant M.P. among the Ulster Parliament's Catholic opposition, says: "In this country, moderate is spelled coward. We have too much religion and not enough Christianity." Ulster's problem is also that it has all too many extremists, sometimes spelled bigots...
...sequence, with all passengers flying standby. As soon as one plane was filled, it would take off and another would be rolled out-like a shuttle system. The problem would be in persuading the airlines, many of which are suffused with national pride, to agree. The lines might also whip the overcapacity problem by paring down overscheduled routes, as U.S. lines have attempted on domestic runs. The North Atlantic carriers could well drop some of the 17 to 23 daily flights between New York and London...
There is nothing subtle about the book. Every scene is played for maximum impact, culminating in Daniel's imagined re-creation of the execution: "My father snapped back and forth, cracking like a whip. A hideous smell compounded of burning flesh, excrement and urine filled the death chamber." Occasionally Doctorow overdoes his aggressiveness. There are too many stray references to "volts" and "currents," too many gory inserts about earlier methods of execution. Both detract from the starkness of the tragedy. But these are quibbles. Doctorow has produced a relatively rare commodity: a serious novel on a distasteful subject that...
...Hers is far from a great natural voice, but it has the deceptive thin strength of a whip antenna. Its basic hue is a Canarsie twang that suggests Judy Holliday negotiating The Party's Over. But hue is one thing and cry another, as proved by Carole's pile-driving thrust in a number called Smackwater Jack, or her tender, searching way with the line, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again...