Word: spasmed
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...woman's beating on a street corner but softens the blows by dissecting and punctuating them-turning the series of hurt faces into studied caricatures. Paul's slow-motion salutory kiss-which finally reaches his daughter's cheek-becomes at once a tortured eternity and a muscle spasm which lands like a hammer. It is clear these two aren't getting along...
...three syndromes. The most common of these involves nothing more than overworked muscles. Normally, as the body moves, its muscles contract and relax in quick succession. But if they are strained beyond their limit, they rebel. An overtaxed muscle suddenly goes into a sustained contraction, or spasm. It becomes a hard, knotty mass. The tiny blood vessels that bring it oxygen and nourishment and carry off wastes constrict. Soon some of the cells in the stricken muscle die, and the body sends out a distress signal in the form of a sharp pain...
...then in Elsies River near Cape Town-crowds of rioting youths clashed with police on three successive nights. Barrages of stone throwing were answered with baton charges, volleys of tear gas and gunfire. At least 40 people were shot dead by police, and hundreds more were injured. The spasm of riots and violence was the worst since the country's urban black rebellion of 1976. That upheaval, which remains seared in the consciousness of white and black alike, cost 618 lives; the South African government at the time laconically described it as a mere series of "disturbances...
...somebody developed a plan with a good possibility of success, I would be urging a confrontational course to demonstrate that you cannot humiliate the U.S. with impunity. But I would oppose some spasm that doesn't succeed. I would not take a step just to placate public opinion...
...better off in a few years if the president imposed a hefty gasoline tax; however, they say he can't because of "political" considerations. Carter has opted for a World War II-style rearmament drive that will only accelerate inflation. He could just as easily have channeled the spasm of popular support that started with the taking of the American hostages in Tehran and has continued through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan into a crash conservation program...