Word: hardened
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...every dream deferred dries up like a raisin in the sun. In politics it can sometimes ripen and harden into a tough kernel of ambition, as the unimaginable slowly becomes transformed into the attainable. Such a gradual course requires patience, guile and discipline, rather than flamboyant words and heroic poses. But the subtlety of these stratagems should never mask the majesty of the dream or the boldness of the dreamer...
...fines and 1,200 hours of community service in an antidrug program for inner-city youths. (The Navy promptly suspended North's $23,000-a-year pension but recommended that the Comptroller General restore it when the matter comes before him.) Incarceration, Gesell explained, would only harden the "misconceptions" that had led North into wrongdoing. In Gesell's sight, North was a "low-ranking subordinate" ordered into illegal activity by "cynical superiors" in the White House's "elite isolation." Said Gesell: "You're not the fall guy for this tragic breach of public trust...
...occupied territories with stiff conditions that seem to doom the peace initiative. Almost before the players could grasp the political implications, a fanatic Palestinian wrenched an Israeli bus over a cliff, killing 14 passengers in what was described as an act of vengeance. Those civilian deaths will only harden hearts against thoughts of peace. Once again the small steps being taken toward peace were shoved rudely backward...
This impatience often expresses itself as a disdain for activist rhetoric, and chants like "Derek Bok, get the word, this is not Johannesburg" only harden the president's resolve not to cave in to outside pressure...
...precocious sexual initiation at 15, but no dramatic confrontations or full-orchestra effects. Instead, Powers works through a series of small, sharply observed moments. Joe gradually opens up to his curate, forging a paternal relationship that is a form of love. But as his emotions soften, his principles harden. Implicitly, he encourages an antiwar draft dodger, the son of a jingoistic local columnist. "I have to follow my conscience, informed or not, and you do," Joe tells the boy. "That, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is the mind of the Church...