Word: vastness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That is about as self-pitying as This Boy's Life ever gets. Wolff's main interest is not the harshness of his childhood but the strategies of survival he learns, tutored by domestic eccentricities and the promise of a vast land where memory is short and every morning promises a brand new life. Though separated by a continent, he remains his father's son, a princeling of deception: "I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others." Hence he adopts a name, Jack, that he feels suits him better than his real one. An indolent student...
...Blue, the sumptuously spectacular $5 million revue that opened last week on Broadway. If Fred and Ginger had been black and still able to live in that elegant fantasy world, their shows might have looked a lot like this: rows of tap dancers in tailcoats or scarlet evening gowns; vast sets like lacquered jewel boxes gliding across the floor and opening to reveal a kick line; a singer in a swing, wearing a cloak that billows 18 ft. down to the floor...
National service -- the image of a vast civilian army of fresh-faced young people embarking on a crusade of good works -- has always held romantic appeal for adults safely beyond draft age. Utopian visionary Edward Bellamy originally broached the notion more than a century ago. Philosopher William James alluded to it in his famous 1910 essay, "The Moral Equivalent of War." Franklin Roosevelt in 1943 spoke of a postwar America where young adults would make a "year's contribution of service to the Government." At the height of the Viet Nam buildup, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara proposed compulsory national service...
...Sharstein's insensitivity further promotes the misunderstandings to which he himself has succumbed. The actions of certain radical groups may be considered deplorable, but this should not be allowed to influence one's judgement of the philosophies and intentions of non-violent groups, such as PETA, which constitute the vast majority of the "movement." The $400 which PETA spent in rescuing lobsters, which Sharfstein suggests could have been used more productively, is less than what many students probably spend in a year for alcohol or in a week for a vacation, yet Sharfstein does not refer to the "perverted values...
...both continents are worried that the transatlantic range war has got out of hand, but so far no one is budging on the beef issue. The E.C. insists that no compromise is possible unless the U.S. accepts the hormone ban. And from the St. Paul stockyards to the vast feedlots of the Southwest, them's fightin' words...