As Kafka said, what somewhere else "provokes a brief flurry of interest, here brings down nothing less than a life-or-death decree".
Early in the Obama Administration, Secretary of State Clinton provoked a brief diplomatic furor by raising the concept of an American nuclear deterrent to protect our allies in the Middle East.
From there Kafka arrives at this startling observation: "What in large literatures goes on at a lower level and constitutes a not indispensable basement of the structure, here takes place in bright light; what there provokes a brief flurry of interest, here brings down nothing less than a life-or-death decree".
Yet it is a blunt instrument and may escalate the matter that required a block in the first place.Twitter provoked a brief firestorm in December when it unilaterally and abruptly changed block behaviour to allow blocked users to follow and see tweets from public accounts, although those accounts wouldn't see the blocked parties.
Visiting the troubled firm's subcontractors in Toulouse this week, Dominique de Villepin, the centre-right prime minister, provoked a brief fall in the euro by saying: "We cannot allow the European Central Bank to act alone on rates".The surging Paris stockmarket, however, suggests that the corporate sector is in good health.
The shots provoked a brief acceleration of the heart rate.
During his time in command of Nereide, Corbet had already developed a reputation as a strict disciplinarian, regularly beating his men for the slightest infractions, to the extent that he had provoked a brief mutiny on Nereide in 1808.
In Bucharest itself, as Fuat prepared to lead his troops into the garrison on Dealul Spirii, a detachment of firemen met him with resistance, provoking a brief exchange of fire, during which several soldiers on both sides were killed.
Precise needling of myofascial trigger points provokes a brief contraction of the muscle fibres.
But the sly sense of humor always returns: near the end, there's an interlude called, "What You Want," in which a nagging lover's phone call provokes a brief, aching ballad of resentment.
