He writes himself into a narrative and emotional impasse, from which retreat is the only option.
The danger is that 'Catalanismo' could lead its people into a violent impasse from which they may struggle a long time to recover from".
The spending gyrations by Congress are the result of a budget impasse from last year that left the annual appropriations process in tatters.
If Cavafy's poem blamed national inaction and a too-easy fatalism on a long and tortuous history of invasion from without, León seemed intent on exploring ways to survive this period of gloom and impasse from within.
Washington now faces three potential outcomes to the fiscal impasse, lawmakers from both parties say.
The impasse stems from a disagreement about the economic future and its impact on tax revenues.
On Monday, the financial markets reacted poorly to a political impasse resulting from national elections in Italy, which left no single party in control.
The impasse stems from elections last June 13 in which a separatist party led by Bart de Wever emerged triumphant in the north, Flanders, and Socialists won in the south, Wallonia.
After surveying the impasse here from the Palestinian perspective today, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, the Bush administration's new envoy, declared, "Both sides have suffered far too much in the last months".
The talks, at the prodding of civic groups and diplomats, centered on the impasse resulting from parliamentary elections last May and the November presidential contest, which was boycotted by the opposition and many voters.
Sometimes the impasse results from bad chemistry, each party to the conflict getting under the other's skin, pressing, as we say, the other's buttons, so that tiny pinpricks, as in domestic disputes and breakdowns, become infected wounds, even bones of contention.
