Word: ancient
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Although most Westerners find it difficult to think of a chicken cast as a fearsome combatant, these feisty birds really can put up a fight. Cockfighters are specially bred roosters trained from birth in the ancient arts of war and fed on carefully concocted diets. The inch-long, hard spurs on each rooster's legs become dangerous weapons when the bird jumps through the air, furiously beating his wings and trying to stab his opponent...
...Lapham calls the "equestrian class," which has multiplied impressively during the decades of postwar American prosperity and which "comprises all those who can afford to ride rather than walk and who can buy any or all of the baubles that constitute the proofs of social status. As with the ancient Romans, the rank is for sale...
...pound at the door like crazy firemen; responsibilities rise like dunes on the Cape; girls in their 20s call him Sir (Oh, call me Captain); and still our hero hopes. Will love come to Captain Midlife? Has it been there all along? Stay tuned as the insomniac, not-yet-ancient mariner rests his head on the railing at a Knicks-Bulls game in which he is Air-Jordaning three feet over the rim | one moment and the next eloping in a Chevrolet Impala with that remarkably attractive blond behind the refreshment stand, the one lathering mustard on the franks...
...responses to the spinning wheel of fortune. Ever since, the rubble of old realms has teased and provoked imaginations. In the 18th century, a visit to Rome inspired Gibbon to write an enduring history of imperial decline. Romantic poets found the gloom and doom of antiquity irresistible. Envisioning an ancient toppled monument in a barren desert, Shelley conceived an epitaph that was both ironic and admonitory: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" In a softer temper, Poe allowed the face of a beautiful woman to transport him back in time...
...accept Kennedy's bittersweet verdict that the U.S. may become healthier in the long run by accepting its diminishing status gracefully. But until it is convincingly refuted by other theorists or the years ahead, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers stands as a fascinating response to ancient questions about the life- span of nations...