Word: fatalism
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...functioning of its own Constitution." The Republican leaders doubtless also had in mind the possibility that Nixon could be acquitted. White House Speechwriter Patrick Buchanan warned that if Republicans forced Nixon out of office and he were later found to be innocent of wrongdoing, it "would be close to fatal for the Republican Party...
...Romantic knowledge stands outside shouting obscenities and muttering about human value spontanity and grace. Pirsig's chautuaquas trace this division of knowledge backward into antiquity. Then they move forward into a "root-expansion" of scientific thinking. He attempts a synthesis that unites Romantic and Classical knowledge and overcomes their fatal opposition...
...million Americans will die in the next twenty years from a cancer-like malignant tumor that they will contract from constant exposure to asbestos, exposure that as urban dwellers they cannot now avoid. This fatal growth, called mesothelioma, can develop twenty to forty years after its victims begin to inhale the asbestos fiber. The tumor attacks the pleura and peritonium--the membrane sacks that surround the lung and abdominal cavities--and can grow whether or not the exposure continues. Most alarming of all, the number of asbestos fibers in the air around us increases every year...
...similar crisis developed in Britain in 1911 after the House of Lords summarily vetoed the domestic reforms of Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. The constitutional confrontation was resolved when King George V, fearing a fatal blow to British democracy from the House of Lords, threatened to appoint enough new Lords to give Asquith a majority. The Lords gave in to the King's pressure, and since then the power of the House of Commons has never been seriously questioned...
Love in these Doris Lessing stories is a disease, often contagious, occasionally fatal. Only the very young confuse it with pleasure. A mild attack of love can drive Lessing women to pray: "O God, make me old soon." It is almost as if love were Mrs. Lessing's version of hubris-a case of overreach for which those who would be like gods must be punished. And, in fact, whether these 17 reprinted tales (first collected in 1957) take place in Mrs. Lessing's own southern Africa or London or Paris, the settings are harsh and foreboding enough...