Word: usual
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...there is only one official U.S. flag, would it be permissible to burn an unofficial one -- say, an obsolete model with 48 stars? Since a flag is, by usual definition, made of fabric, should a wooden representation of it be protected? What about little lapel pins or cuff links with flags on them? What if somebody publicly stomped a piece of such jewelry...
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the usual operations have been neglected while Prophet and her followers gear up for surviving the Armageddon she predicted in 1987, when she received a message from what she calls her "ascended masters." This exalted band includes Jesus, Buddha and Guru Ma's former husband the late Mark L. Prophet, who three decades ago founded the religion on an amalgam of Christianity and Eastern faiths...
There were the usual protests, with the usual results, but Hitler's seizure of Bohemia and Moravia had two important consequences. First, Chamberlain finally realized that appeasement would not suffice to restrain Hitler. So when Hitler began talking to the Poles in that same month about the Germans' need to regain the port of Danzig, plus free passage through the Polish Corridor, Chamberlain offered the Poles an unsolicited guarantee of British military support. It was that guarantee that Hitler flouted the following September...
This time around, in writing Clear and Present Danger (Putnam; $21.95), which is being published this week, Clancy got mad. Not at his usual villains, like the Soviets or international terrorists. Instead, what aroused his ire was what the Iran-contra affair revealed about "how the Government makes decisions, what kind of people make those decisions, and what happens when things go wrong." That is what settling insurance claims teaches: how often in real life things go wrong. And when that happens to soldiers and spooks, Clancy says, "very often you get hung out to dry. All those Marines...
...story, recounted in a grinding, realistic style that is unlike Brian De Palma's usual manner of playing fast and loose with death, is simple to describe. A small unit under the command of a Sergeant Meserve (Sean Penn, in an uncompromising performance) sets off on a long-range reconnaissance mission. On Meserve's orders, it stops at a peasant village, where it abducts a young girl and sadistically binds and gags her for the many awful hours of their trek. The girl, who is heartbreakingly played by a delicate newcomer named Thuy Thu Le, will serve as "portable...