And as we approach the end of yet another tumultuous year, 355 mass shootings, 265 deaths of unarmed black women and men by police, continuous loops of video detailing some of their deaths, extremist bombings and attacks, it would seem indulgent to wax philosophically about the need for joy in our modern life.
This summer, as Australian domestic politics hit a tumultuous peak amid mass protests on the government's draconian federal budget reforms, a complex conflict in far-flung lands threw a lifeline to the country's leadership.
Tens of thousands of people gathered on both sides of the border — an election-year lightning rod that represents the tumultuous issue of immigration — to say Mass with the pope and hear his message of the need for fair wages, human dignity and an end to the violence convulsing Mexico.
In the tumultuous year leading up to Cyclone Bhola, mass protests and unrest had become a staple of everyday life across East and West Pakistan.
For Turkey and Armenia, neighbors sundered by a century of bitterness over the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, the tumultuous day illustrated how hard it is to heal the wounds of history.
Further studies of the flow of this gas, Yusef-Zadeh says, may give more precise estimates of the black hole's mass and a better picture of its tumultuous neighborhood.
Cairo is a tumultuous, decaying city with a wealthy élite and great masses of the destitute and the near-destitute.
Indeed, the Oligocene-Miocene boundary was marked by numerous tumultuous geological events, including a collision between the land masses that make up Africa and Arabia on one side and Europe and other parts of Asia on the other.
In our current winter of high domestic anxiety, as in the politically tumultuous American summer of 1969, it is a hit with the national mass audience and elite critics alike.
Faced with the prospect of mass popular resistance (the inevitable crippling strikes and tumultuous demonstrations), Sarkozy had fallen back on crowd-pleasing law-enforcement campaigns, going after illegal immigration and welfare fraud.
