Word: pessimistic
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...pessimist, I'm getting ready for an atavistic, pre-petroleum winter. I stand in the yard, knee deep in bright orange maple leaves, and study the grain of the firewood, lazily choosing the straight grains first, the ones without knots or ropy torques that will clutch the blade and hold it, stuck like Excalibur. Splitting wood is a crude, rustic version of diamond cutting. Read the grain right, strike it there, and the wood bifurcates (chunk!) with algebraic cleanness...
Maybe now we'll take Alan Greenspan seriously. A perpetual pessimist, the Fed chief has for the past year been nipping at inflation he sees hidden in the economy's weedlike growth. Last week, though, he got serious, boosting interest rates a convincing half a percentage point, to 6.5% on the benchmark short-term federal funds target rate, and making it clear that more increases are to come...