chattering classes (often derogatory term for a well-educated segment of society that debates social, cultural and political issues) “But outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.” (page 22)
nemesis (a source of harm or ruin) “And the doubters faced a newly powerful nemesis.” (page 24)
op-ed (opposite a newspaper’s editorial page, where the opinions of guest writers are placed) contingent (a gathering of people representative of a larger group) glib (superficial) “Virginia’s Michaels echoed that idea in a 1997 op-ed in The Washington Post, describing ‘a growing contingent of scientists who are increasingly unhappy with the glib forecasts of gloom and doom.’ " (page 24)
empirical (based on experiment and observation) “To reinforce the appearance of uncertainty and disagreement, the denial machine churned out white papers and ‘studies’ (not empirical research, but critiques of others’ work). (page 24)
vetted (carefully examined) “The IPCC report issued this year, for instance, was written by more than 800 climate researchers and vetted by 2,500 scientists from 130 nations.” (page 25)
cabal (an often secret group trying to carry out a plot) “And as studies fingering humans as a cause of climate change piled up, he had a new argument: a cabal was silencing good scientists who disagreed with the ‘alarmist’ reports.” (page 26)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-31” author: “June Byrne”
rhetoric (effective, persuasive speech or writing) “Infuriated at the injustices awaiting her generation, she becomes an instant media celebrity with a gift for incendiary rhetoric.” (page 44)
purveyors (providers of goods, services or information; sellers)
hawk (to offer something for sale by calling out, as a peddler) “But not the kind with green leaves and roots, and certainly not the sweet little specimens that “carbon offset” purveyors hawk as away to balance out the carbon dioxide emitted when you tool around town in a Hummer.” (page 65)
ambient (surrounding or encircling ) “The idea is to suck carbon out of the ambient air …” (page 65)
back-of-the-envelope calculation (an approximation based on rough data) “Cost is unknown, but a back-of-the-envelope calculation yield $80 to $100 per ton of carbon captured.” (page 66)
hedonism (belief that pleasure is the greatest good) “California’s Hummer-loving governor is turning the Golden State into the greenest in the land, a place where environmentalism and hedonism can coexist.” (page 51)
de facto (in reality) “In the absence of clear guidelines from the Bush administration, Schwarzenegger has emerged as the nation’s de facto carbon ambassador, carrying the green banner across the nation and the globe.” (pages 52-53)
assuage (soothe) “While some offsets are legitimate, others amount to mere ‘green-washing’ that allows consumers to assuage their carbon-stained consciences, without tightening their belts.” (page 59)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-07” author: “Alexander Boggs”
etiology (origin) “But the unasked, and perhaps unanswerable, questions show the new sophistication of research on the etiology of violence.” (page 40)
paradigm shift (a significant change from one worldview to another) “Since the early days of research on the brains of violent felons, however, neuroscience has undergone a paradigm shift.” (page 42)
aberrant (deviating from the normal) “That raises the possibility that killers’ aberrant brain activity is itself the result of experiences they had or thoughts they thought, rather than something that was wired in at birth.” (page 43)
groundswell (a rapid, spontaneous growth) partisan (based on parties or factions) “This groundswell is not partisan or regional.” (page 47)
Eureka (marked by a sudden, triumphant discovery) “Since Kelso’s ‘Eureka’ moment, his archeological detectives and other scholars have been changing the public’s understanding of Jamestown, which may have been heavily influenced by Walt Disney’s cartoon ‘Pocohontas’… (page 62)
denizens (inhabitants) “By the time Jamestown gave way to Williamsburg as Colonial Virginia’s capital (1699), its denizens had mortgaged themselves to tobacco-growing and African-American slavery.” (page 62)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-27” author: “Edgar Helf”
crucible (a severe test) “The crucible for GoLoco will be whether people are willing to open that car door.” (page 20)
wan (pale or feeble) “The players were clearly less than impressed with Imus’s wan explanation that ridicule was his job.” (page 32)
magnanimity (generosity) “The magnanimity of 10 women athletes … provided a stark contrast to the ire and invective on both sides of the Imus debate…” (page 32)
vacillated (moved from one side to another) contrition (a feeling of remorse for a sin) umbrage (a feeling of anger caused by being offended) “While the shock jock turned media power broker vacillated between contrition and umbrage … the women of Rutgers schooled their elders in civility and grace.” (page 32)
apocalyptic (relating to a prediction of doom) “Sen. John McCain … warns of apocalyptic consequences if there’s a pullout.” (page 36)
draconian (harsh or severe) “Others are draconian suggestions tied to fears of disastrous events…” (page 38)
grass-roots protest (originating at the ground level, with ordinary citizens) “The resulting grass-roots protest grew to include scores of Latino organizations and members of Congress.” (page 47)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-18” author: “Claire Kahaleua”
elided (omitted or abridged) inchoate (formless, incoherent) “Painful details are suppressed; context is lost; events are elided, often unconsciously, in order to make the inchoate choate.” (page 27)
egress (exit) “That left south into the houses our only direction to egress.” (page 38)
neoconservative (a political stance whose supporters argued, among other things, that the United States should expand democracy in the Arab world) circumspect (cautious) “Many of his neoconservative supporters have been less circumspect.” (page 60)
benchmarks (standards used for marking progress) “And as it happens we have a series of benchmarks that have been set out at various points by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.” (page 60)
de-Baathification (the process of purging Saddam Hussein’s party members from the Iraqi government and military) “The Los Angeles Times reported in February that Baghdad had abandoned plans to reverse de-Baathification.” (page 60)
moribund (near a state of death) “The amnesty law also appears moribund.” (page 61)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-03” author: “Hannah Croteau”
du jour (French for “of the day”) “Twitter has become the viral craze du jour and traffic is booming.” (page 26)
sword of Damocles (an impending disaster, from the Greek legend of Damocles sitting beneath a sword hung by a single hair) “Many will never achieve remission at all, while the lucky ones like me get to live with a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.” (page 32)
stoicism (real or pretended indifference to pain) “American culture rewards cheerful stoicism, a quality that cancer patients usually display in public but find difficult to sustain in private…” (page 32)
Catch-22 (a no-win situation, from a rule in the Joseph Heller novel by the same name) “The more I knew, the more frustrated I grew at the Catch-22 of oncology, which is that the most cutting-edge therapies are used only for the sickest patients, when it’s often too late.” (page 33)
regime (a government in power) “The sanctions are targeted not at the general population but specifically at the regime.” (page 45)
existential (relating to human existence) angst (a German word meaning anxiety or anguish) “…Robert Bloom was driven to existential angst when asked to explain his car choices over the years.” (page 64)
mores (customs that include the fundamental values of a group) “…They often used their first paychecks as a way to reject the motoring mores of their parents. " (page 71)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-29” author: “Frances Gilchrist”
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-26” author: “David Wolff”
genocidal (related to the deliberate killing of people based on ethnicity, nationality or religion) “The aid workers on the scene, at the edge of a conflict the U.S. government now calls genocidal, could not agree more.” (page 38)
attest (to witness or affirm to be true) entourage (a group that follows and attends to an important person) “Even now, as aid workers on the ground attest, she travels with no entourage.” (page 40)
accoutrements (equipment carried and worn by a soldier; from a French word for “to equip”) “But despite all the accoutrements, this was hardly Fallujah, and these troops … were only weekend warriors. " (page 51)
claymores (land mines whose blast is aimed at the oncoming enemy) “Seth Weiland … arrived with an arsenal of paintball-enabled rocket launchers, claymores and explosive mines.” (page 51)
inferred (concluded based on evidence) “…Our species’ genealogy was inferred from stones and bones.” (page 54)
begat (to cause; in the Bible, to be the father of someone) “…Toumai is valuable because he undermines the ‘begat’ model of human evolution….” (page 55)
cognitive (related to conscious intellectual activity) “Some kind of cognitive advance was required, probably in language or working memory.” (page 58)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-08” author: “Elizabeth Beall”
genocidal (related to the deliberate killing of people based on ethnicity, nationality or religion) “The aid workers on the scene, at the edge of a conflict the U.S. government now calls genocidal, could not agree more.” (page 38)
attest (to witness or affirm to be true) entourage (a group that follows and attends to an important person) “Even now, as aid workers on the ground attest, she travels with no entourage.” (page 40)
accoutrements (equipment carried and worn by a soldier; from a French word for “to equip”) “But despite all the accoutrements, this was hardly Fallujah, and these troops … were only weekend warriors. " (page 51)
claymores (land mines whose blast is aimed at the oncoming enemy) “Seth Weiland … arrived with an arsenal of paintball-enabled rocket launchers, claymores and explosive mines.” (page 51)
inferred (concluded based on evidence) “…Our species’ genealogy was inferred from stones and bones.” (page 54)
begat (to cause; in the Bible, to be the father of someone) “…Toumai is valuable because he undermines the ‘begat’ model of human evolution….” (page 55)
cognitive (related to conscious intellectual activity) “Some kind of cognitive advance was required, probably in language or working memory.” (page 58)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-21” author: “Jeffrey Vice”
atypical (unusual) “Albert’s situation is probably atypical.” (page 35)
concede (to acknowledge grudgingly) “But people inside the system do concede there’s a shortage of mental-health workers at many of the VA’s hospitals and clinics across the country.” (page 35)
myriad (a large number) “‘The VA, in its budgeting process, carefully prepares for future costs so that we can continue to deliver the quality health care and myriad benefits veterans have earned.’” (page 37)
deconstructed (taken apart in order to reveal the basis of something) “If you’ve ever puzzled over why packaged foods contain ‘polysorbate 60’ or ‘mono and diglycerides,’ Ettlinger’s new book, ‘Twinkie, Deconstructed,’ is a treat you’ll want to try.” (page 50)
profligate (wildly extravagant) “This had the advantage, environmentally speaking, of saving on construction materials and transportation…and the corresponding disadvantages of having to retrofit a building that was designed and built decades ago when profligate energy use was the norm.” (page 66)
gratuitous (unnecessary) “And none of this would seem noteworthy or gratuitous or cruel.” (page 78)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-31” author: “Johnny Jones”
ardent (intensely enthusiastic) “Ed Koch, the former New York mayor who’d supported Giuliani in the 1993 and ‘97 campaigns, became an ardent critic.” (page 29)
churlishness (the quality of being difficult to deal with) “…his resolute conviction sometimes leads to churlishness and a tendency to divide the world into good and evil, with little apparently in between.” (page 33)
hybrid (combined components) “General Motors and Toyota were once neck-and-neck when it came to developing high-mileage gasoline-electric hybrid cars.” (page 42)
audacious (bold, disposed to take risks) “Instead, Okuda did the unthinkable: he went public with an audacious target to capture first 10 percent of the global market, and then 15 percent.” (page 44)
vanquish (conquer) “‘I don’t view Toyota as an insurmountable obstacle that GM can’t vanquish,’ says Lutz.” (page 44)
euphemistically (using an inoffensive term instead of one that might offend) “Thatcher was promoted to what the sorority euphemistically called ‘alumnae status’ even though, as a size 8, she made the unofficial weight cut.” (page 47)
eclectic (mixed, diverse) “Cindy Babington, DePauw’s dean of students, may have given a clue in describing DZ as filling ‘a great eclectic niche.’” (page 47)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-15” author: “Sandra Davis”
breaching (breaking) venality (characterized by financial corruption) inexplicable (incapable of being explained or accounted for) subsidies (government-provided financial assistance) “But it’s safe to say that oil’s breaching three figures last week was explicitly not due to the venality of ExxonMobil’s bosses, or to our inexplicable hesitancy to drill for methane in the Grand Canyon, or to the lack of subsidies for schemes to process bacon fat into diesel.” (page 23)
macroeconomically (referring to the performance of the economy as a whole) “But we matter less and less each year, macroeconomically speaking.” (page 23)
stagnating (standing still) “Even with demand in the United States stagnating, global demand for oil is booming.” (page 23)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-12” author: “Chester Brockman”
ascendancy (the state that exists when one person or group has power over another) showmanship (the ability to present something in an attractive manner) The GOP’s long ascendancy in American politics was based on performance, not just showmanship.
squandered (not used to good advantage) President George W. Bush has squandered that trust.
cowards (persons who show fear or timidity) Critics and naysayers were scorned as ditherers or cowards.
disavow (refuse to acknowledge; disclaim knowledge of) The candidates are generally careful not to publicly disavow the president while scuttling away from his record. Mitt Romney is a case in point.
salvage (save from ruin, destruction, or harm) What can the Republicans do to salvage their party fortunes and show they have learned from Bush’s experience?
humble (cause to be unpretentious) But the GOP candidates can embark on a more humble mission: to show, in effect, some humility.
unduly (harsh punishment) There is something practical about Romney; he does not seem to be unduly weighed down by ideology.
quibbling (evade the truth of a point or question by raising irrelevant objections) Romney later quibbled about the meaning of the word “saw,” saying he used it in a “figurative sense.”
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-04” author: “Victor Gibson”
curtly (bluntly or gruffly) “Yet when reached by phone, four local officials curtly denied reports of a protest, arrests or a curfew.” (page 26)
tin-pot (insignificant or inferior) petulant (easily irritated or annoyed) “In recent weeks China has been acting less like a budding superpower than a tin-pot dictatorship—petulant, preachy, defiant.” (page 28)
truncheon (a short, stout club used primarily by police officers) quell (suppress or crush) “Global audiences have seen images of truncheon-wielding riot police, sent to Lhasa and other Tibetan areas to quell anti-Beijing protests that began on March 10.” (page 28)
agitprop (propaganda, distributed mainly through literature, drama, music or art) “Each new clampdown—and the shrill agitprop that accompanies it—seems guaranteed to antagonize not only China’s restive Tibetan and Uighur minorities but also the nations scheduled to compete at the Olympic Games in Beijing this August.” (page 28)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-08” author: “Sonja Butler”
composite (a conceptual whole made up of separate and related parts) “(Some of the characters, he points out in the introduction, are composites.)”
intuit (understand or work out by intuition) “Old friends contacted by NEWSWEEK who were present during the time he changed his name recall or intuit a mix of reasons—both personal and social.”
poseur (a person who habitually pretends to be something he is not) “By Obama’s own account, he was, like most kids at that stage of life, a bit of a poseur—trying to be cool.”
trajectory (the path followed by an object moving through space) “The identity quest, which began before he became Barack and continued after, put him on a trajectory into a black America he had never really known as a child in Hawaii and abroad.”
incendiary (arousing to action or rebellion) “He could, for a time, shrug off Wright’s more incendiary views, in part because he knew that whites, in their private worlds, often expressed or shrugged off bigotry themselves, partly because of fears that might seem irrational to African-Americans.”
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-19” author: “Nora Rose”
disparaged (insulted; put down) “Commas are disparaged as literary clutter.”
discretionary (left to one’s own judgment) “These and other usages have slowly become discretionary or unacceptable.”
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-17” author: “Thomas Matthews”
analogous (similar in the quality or feature that is being considered) “Significantly, one of the more notable cases in America—the young men from upstate New York, dubbed the Lackawanna Six, who were arrested in 2002 and pleaded guilty to having trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan—grew up in an environment somewhat analogous to that of Europe.” (page 27)
secularism (skeptical of religion or opposing religion in public affairs) “(The devout prime minister of Turkey, a Muslim country with a tradition of militant secularism, actually sent his daughters to America for college so they could continue wearing their scarves.)” (page 28)
viscerally (emotionally) “‘When I say to an evangelical Christian, “It’s prayer time,” they might question the way I pray, but they understand viscerally the importance of prayer,’ says Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago.” (page 28)
hunkered down (took shelter) “The Muslim community itself was partially responsible for this isolation—like the Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants before them, many hunkered down in ethnic enclaves.” (page 28)
affinity (a natural attraction to or connection with something) “There are so few homegrown Muslim clerics in America today—and almost no institutions for training them—that prayer in most mosques is led by a scholar fresh off the plane from Lebanon, say, or Saudi Arabia, someone with no connection to America and no affinity for its culture.” (page 29)
tenuous (thin or slight) “So far, connections between Saudi influence and the handful of suspected terror plots hatched here since 9/11 have been tenuous, according to the public record.” (page 30)
dormant (inactive; quiet as if asleep) “And while the community lived and worshiped together peacefully for almost two decades, Hakim’s new stance elicited powerful, dormant feelings about whose Islam is authentic.” (page 31)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-28” author: “Wallace Davis”
astute (sharp and insightful) confounded (frustrated) “While I pride myself on being a rocker, baby-boomer mom (open-minded and astute like no other mom before me), I’m confounded by the rash, youth-driven choice that Alec has made—not just once, but repeatedly—and the permanency of it all.”
aplomb (poise, confidence) “Was I wrong to have drilled into him the importance of being true to himself, relentlessly nudging him to be who he is, to rise about his inhibitions and face the world with aplomb?”
hindsight (perception of an event after it has happened) “But, oh, the agony of hindsight: the woe of the ‘if I only knew then what I know now.’”
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-09” author: “Lewis Brunson”
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-13” author: “Kevin Skidmore”
chadors (large cloths worn as veils or shawls, usually by Muslim women in Iran) “But many Iranian women have long since cast off their chadors and gone defiantly chic, despite an abortive attempt by the government this past spring to reassert strictures on modesty, when it sent carloads of basij—or young paramilitaries—out to harass females who dared show too much skin or hair.” (page 32)
recourse (turning to someone for help) “The clerics who still control Iran can upset lives at any time, however, and without recourse to legal appeal.” (page 33)
causes célèbres (issues or people who become objects of widespread interest and concern) “Azima (who’s out on bail) and three other Iranian-Americans who have been detained at Tehran’s Evin Prison on similar charges have become causes célèbres back in Washington.” (page 33)
fealty (loyalty) “If you want to run for office but run afoul of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Intelligence or Iran’s all-powerful Guardian Council—which ensures Islamic fealty—you won’t be arrested in the dead of night and taken to a secret prison.” (page 33)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-24” author: “Clarence Deforest”
rogue nations (U.S. term applying to nations that sponsor terrorism) “We have become a nation consumed by fear, worried about terrorists and rogue nations…” (page 23)
besieged (surrounded by hostile forces) “The strongest nation in the history of the world, we see ourselves besieged and overwhelmed.” (page 23)
porous (full of holes, allowing passage in and out) “Iraq’s borders have never been more porous.” (page 28)
quarantined (forcibly isolated for health reasons) “Speaker … is the first person to be quarantined by the federal government since 1963.” (page 38)
virulent (highly lethal) “…[I]f he did happen to transmit the more virulent XDR-TB to others, it was likely to kill them.” (page 40)
cull (gather) “At the Facility, researchers have also learned to cull evidence from bodies that have been burned, dismembered or blown up.” (page 50)
Hiroshima (Site of the first use of an atomic bomb, dropped by the United States in the war against Japan in 1945) “Other current projects include calculating … how bones from the nuclear age are different from those of people who died before Hiroshima.” (page 52)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-16” author: “Kenneth Hall”
rebuff (rejection) “It is also, along with the quagmire in Iraq, a historic rebuff” (page 24)
uptick (increase) “Hamas is not the Taliban, and it knows that an uptick in rocket attacks against Israel will be met with a harsh response.” (page 24)
stymied (put an obstacle in the way of something) “In Iraq, the sect-based parties that came to power in the 2005 elections have created a bloody nightmare, and stymied any attempts to forge a truly national consensus.” (page 24)
anoint (to choose, as if with divine authority) “‘Look at us in Iraq—how much difficulty we have in saying we will anoint people to run the country….’” (page 27)
deterred (discouraged or prevented) “‘Does anyone think the Romans or the Brits would have been deterred?’ he grumbled.” (page 27)
chimera (illusion) “Nor did many hard-liners in Washington ever fully understand that using raw power to ‘impose’ democracy on peoples who were not ready to seize it for themselves was a chimera.” (page 27)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-04” author: “Michele Haynes”
histrionics (deliberate displays of emotion for effect) “Under oath…she seemed shy and a little overwhelmed, more Rosemary Woods than Madame Defarge, although she never got rattled or resorted to histrionics.” (page 26)
burgeoning (expanding) “Winning this medical war is crucial, and not just for the sake of the soldiers, who are far from the only burgeoning new group of pain sufferers.” (page 40)
pervasive (everywhere) intractable (not easily relieved or cured) “Chronic pain is one of the most pervasive and intractable medical conditions in the United States, with one in five Americans afflicted.” (page 40)
semantic (relating to language) tectonic (having a widespread impact) “This is far more than a semantic change, Rowe adds: it’s ’tectonic.’” (page 42)
on the wane (dwindling) “But multidisciplinary clinics are on the wane.” (page 46)
machinations (schemings) “Accidents of geography, forces of industry and the machinations of politics may all play a role in who gets water…” (page 52)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-30” author: “Marvin Vossler”
Platonic (pure or unrealistically perfect) “The case of the now sainted Truman, the Platonic presidential ideal of 2008, is an example of just this phenomenon.” (page 25)
privation (act of taking away food or other rights) “McCain chose to stay in prison—and endure torture and privation for another five years.” (page 26)
glower (an angry stare) “The shopkeepers glower as an American military patrol rumbles past…” (page 42)
in effigy (a public display of a crude image or dummy representing a hated or disliked person) “The women’s deaths led to several days of protests by hundreds of Afghans who chanted ‘Death to Bush’ and burned the American president in effigy.” (page 43)
per se (Latin phrase meaning “itself”) " ‘It was not really cheerleading per se,’ says Karl Olson of the USASF.” (page 56)
permutations (potential alterations of a given set of objects) “The same process gave rise to the dozen or so permutations of Coke on the market…” (page 60)
contentious (involving controversy) “The role of diet sodas in weight loss is a contentious area of research” (page 61)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-02” author: “Rosario Brooks”
denigrate (belittle; attack the reputation of) “Such stories have not caused more outrage because of widespread reluctance to denigrate the Army.” (page 37)
narrative (story) “The Army insists that pressure from politicians and the hero-hungry media led to the phony narrative.” (page 37)
dogma (an established, widely-accepted point of view) “That dogma went unquestioned until researchers actually looked at oxygen-starved heart cells under a microscope.” (page 56)
shun (avoid) “It means getting meat from ranchers who not only shun the use of antibiotics and growth hormones, but also raise their animals humanely and in a free-roaming environment.” (page 68)
foie gras (liver pate) “As for foie gras, my customers and I can easily live without it.” (page 68)
purveyors (suppliers) “I’ve hired someone who will police my purveyors.” (page 68)
secular (not religious or church-related) “But the same poll found that 36 percent of troops found themselves at official gatherings at least once a month that were supposed to be secular but started with a prayer.” (page 28)
title: “Words And Terms In The News” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-01” author: “Matthew Irons”
policy wonk (a person obsessed with the details of an issue or topic) “Don’t expect Bill Clinton—a formidable political strategist and policy wonk—to hover quietly…” (page 32)
eschew (avoid) “That isn’t to say Bill Clinton would eschew the kind of social causes … that First Ladies typically embrace.” (page 33)
consummate (masterful) schmoozer (someone skilled at conversation) “A consummate schmoozer, he could easily embrace traditional First Lady tasks…” (page 33)
AWOL (military term for “absent without leave” or without permission) “It isn’t just the politicians that are AWOL.” (page 39)
assimilation (process in which a group gradually adopts the characteristics of another culture) “There are legitimate concerns about illegal immigration and about the need for assimilation especially among Mexican immigrants.” (page 39)
rust belt (region in the northeastern U.S. whose economy was formerly based on heavy industry and manufacturing) “A small city in the old rust belt, Binghamton experienced job losses and increasing numbers of low-income families.” (page 54)
