Word: avoid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have perfected their radar for telling each other apart and for knowing when they've strayed too far into hostile territory. Every morning, I watch an Arab worker quicken his pace as he traverses to the Israeli side of my street. He lowers his eyes to the pavement to avoid trouble from Israeli cops who are frequently waiting there, checking IDs. On Hebron Road, he flags down a cramped, Arabs-only bus because if he boarded one of the big, air-conditioned Israeli ones, passengers might think he was a suicide bomber. For their part, Israelis avoid the Arab side...
...Game for my last time as an undergraduate, my more cynical 20-year-old self reconsidered this pro-Harvard prejudgment. After all, there’s nothing so unique about our Square, where I regularly cut through the seating of Cambridge’s ABP so that I can avoid Spare Change Guy and the colonial-style bricks that destroy my heels. With the storefronts of my two former favorite coffee shops still vacant because of Harvard Real Estate’s prohibitively high rent, I am hard-pressed to remember what I liked about the area...
...shampoo and skin-care products she used daily. But after reading about a possible link between cancer and some cosmetic preservatives, Marrone began hunting for organic solutions. Surprised to find that even hair conditioners carried by the local natural-foods store contained the same preservatives she was trying to avoid, Marrone had an epiphany: with her medical training, she could seek out organic, preservative-free skin- and hair-care products and sell them...
...drop in violence are still unclear. The militia's recent stand-down may be just an attempt to wait out the U.S. military, which will begin drawing down its numbers in the next few months. After suffering heavy losses in pitched battles in 2004, the militia has sought to avoid open confrontations with U.S. forces. The Americans must eventually leave and the Mahdi Army will remain in some form. Still, says Sauer, "Every day that goes by without violence is a win" - a window of opportunity for American troops and their Iraqi allies to weaken the militia's grip...
...Wedding, studies a putative wedding involving an even more dysfunctional (and witless) family. Margot (Nicole Kidman, muting her starry presence, but unable to find a plausible alternative) is the literary figure here, a writer of grim stories that I'm pretty certain I'd run miles to avoid reading. She appears, glumly sardonic, at the island home of her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to witness her marriage to a slacker named Malcolm (Jack Black), who spends most of his time either bursting into tears or bursting into angry flames. The two women don't much care for each other...