Word: bleakness
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Wuer remains resolutely optimistic about his country's future. "Events in Europe and in the Soviet Union have proved that when the people are determined, the government must give in," he says. But he recognizes that in the short run, the outlook is bleak. Recently, Wuer received unconfirmed reports that his father, a Communist Party member, had been placed under house arrest in Beijing...
...desire to promote tolerance can hardly be faulted, but by itself it will do little for the people at the bottom who are most directly harmed by racism. The blacks and whites most often involved in racial violence have things in common: poor educations, no job skills and bleak, depressing futures. "You are seeing what happens when the possibilities for low-income people are cut back," says Madeline Lee, executive director of the New York Foundation, which supports community projects for the disadvantaged. "They turn on each other...
That is the hope. However, it is by no means a certainty. The prospects for economic recovery are bleak. Moreover, even if reform does succeed, it may not outweigh the divisive forces that are now so evident. Politics, after all, is not just a rational accounting of assets and liabilities. All too often, the national aspirations that drive politics take on a wholly irrational character. Even if the central government applies massive and benign economic leverage by offering all sorts of inducements to the republics to stay, it may not deter them from trying to secede...
...Fernando, my alma mater, is fairly typical of the sprawling L.A. Unified School District, the nation's second largest. And typically, it is in deep trouble. Despite vigorous efforts by a strongly committed core of teachers and administrators, the school's vital indicators are startlingly bleak. The yearly 20% dropout rate is more than double the California average, and a quarter of the student body is absent on any given day. In reading and math, San Fernando seniors rank in the bottom 5% statewide...
...After a bleak Easter, the future of Mideast Christians is dimmed by civil war, Muslim pressure and emigration. Even the Holy City could turn into a mere Gospel museum...