Word: abyss
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Once the German problem has been dealt with," he wrote, "the real problems will become apparent." These haunted his dreams and letters: "For centuries, humanity has been descending an immense staircase whose top is hidden in the clouds and whose lowest steps are lost in a dark abyss. We could have ascended this staircase; instead we chose to descend it. Spiritual decay is terrible." The man who hurtled through the sky with the help of technology felt out of place in the 20th century ("I cannot stand this age"). He argued frequently that modern life had provided people with material...
...price of oil has tumbled to nearly $10 per bbl., Mexico has been in ever greater danger of defaulting on its $98 billion foreign debt, a calamity that would shake the world financial system to its core. But Mexico took a step back from the abyss last week when its Finance Minister, Gustavo Petricioli, flew to Washington to sign an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that could generate $12 billion in new loans to spur Mexico's economy and make up for lost oil-export revenues. The deal was noteworthy because it suggested that the IMF could be moving...
...flags, anthems and accusations of cheating. To the strains of dueling boycotts, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had been avoiding each other on the playground for ten years until last week. Opening the Goodwill Games, Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev referred to "the lurking catastrophe" and "the dangerous race toward the abyss" in his cheerful welcome to some 70 nations, not including Israel or 1988 Olympics host-designate South Korea. "They dodged the bullet on Israel," said Robert Wussler, executive vice president of Turner Broadcasting, "using this excuse, that excuse. They were much more direct on South Korea. They just said...
Many of the people in these pictures do hard physical labor, working in mines, on ranches and in slaughterhouses. Some have tumbled into the abyss: prisoners, mental patients or that hapless segment that Avedon labels simply as "drifter." All of them, from secretaries to millworkers, live in a very different West from the pristine territories of the landscape photographers. Theirs is a place of trials and disappointments, and their faces specify every cent of the cost...
...that moment at center stage. The ensemble's energized acting, an apparent clash with the passivity of the text, emphasizes O'Neill's redemptive theme: that everyone, no matter how close to oblivion, yearns for hope and thrives on dreams. The basic action is Hickey's journey toward the abyss. But the uplifting message is that his potential victims may look, yet are wise enough to draw away before they tumble...