Word: afar
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Even from afar, I have been following with considerable interest the continuing controversy over the realignment of Harvard's Expository Writing program. I believe that any proposal to eliminate some (or all) of the upper level Expository Writing course raises at least two issues that are crucial to the undergraduate curriculum...
...choice, as a reporter, of writing about him from afar--in which case, his rhetoric and public posture made him the most inviting target at which a liberal might wing his eloquence. Or I could pursue him, seek personal contact in order to measure the man I was writing about. This second choice, of course, carried with it an obligation to respect his privacy--and, even more, an obligation to try to understand. I chose the second course...
...Rohmer deals in sensuality as an aesthete. His camera watches events from afar. He takes all the passion out of sex and leaves the tingles in. Emotions are distilled and cooled--the stakes are never high enough, the risks never dangerous enough to justify Frederic's final melodramatic reconciliation. The moral dilemma is but a petty adulterous desire, just the germ of a story. And Rohmer strains it into artistic proportions it doesn't deserve. In the end, Frederic's irresolution makes him into less of a man. He hoards the familiar and circumscribed life he knows...
...AFAR-REACHING trade agreement is about to be signed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Pens are poised, smiles are set-but wait! There is a last-minute snag. By vote of the Politboro, the Russians refuse to sign until the U.S. agrees to integrate all its public schools. This is a matter of principle with the Russians; they will not budge. The American public is outraged. As if busing was not bad enough, to bus on Communist command! Just what anti-busers said all along: it's a Communist plot. Negotiations break down...
...tremendously moving and thought-provoking throughout. Sadly, its creation is never more than an atmosphere. We are never invited into, never engulfed by this world. To the end, Billy Tully, physically and emotionally battered, blames his failures on cheating fighters and on the negligence of his manager. From afar, we are left to speculate on his world of fear and jealousy: we learn that violence is more than absurd--it is tragic. But while we are permitted to reflect on his desperate illusions, we are never fully engaged in the actions in which he moves. We think about how deeply...