Word: heroic
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...toward Third World dictatorships. Always, we all but ignore the practices of these governments as long as they remain our friends. Always--Russians or no Russians, Cubans or no Cubans, Libyans or no Libyans--the people of the country wake up, gain courage from some depth of faith, some heroic example, some pitch of opression too horrible to bear. Always, the people quickly make the connection between American and their dead brothers and uncles and their empty tables and their dirty clothes. Usually, our government then begins ot request some token reforms from the regime in question; never are they...
Forman, who inherited this project after Robert Altman was removed by Producer Dino De Laurentiis, is an actor's director. In Ragtime he has .elicited many fine performances: from Olson and Steenburgen, models of rectitude and discreet strength; from Rollins, who carries the film with a heroic charm that sours into fatal righteousness; from Debbie Allen as Walker's doomed love; from Ted Ross and Moses Gunn as two eloquent veterans of injustice who try talking sense and restraint to Coalhouse; and from James Cagney, back on-screen after a 20-year lapse and cool as a leprechaun...
Skeptics have abounded from the start. Coolidge has never been heroic history. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. keeps reminding readers that Coolidge was noted for sleeping twelve hours a day. Schlesinger, who served John Kennedy, knew of no other President who spent that much time in bed sleeping...
Gossip has always been one of the evil pleasures. It is unworthy, nosy, hypocritical and moralistic, a sort of participatory nastiness. But does it play a heroic moral role hitherto unnoticed? Is gossip merely a swamp that breeds mosquitoes and disease? ("Each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies," wrote Tennyson.) Or does it have higher functions in the ecosystem...
...with the West, recognizing that a sense of shared values is a more certain spur to support than a defiance based on striking poses. He eschewed romantic posturing in favor of attainable steps. And he shaped the attainable with a fine sense for the dramatic. He understood that a heroic gesture can create a new reality...