Word: backgrounder
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cruel Realities. The confrontation was inevitable, if long in developing. Restlessly brilliant, Illich has an ironically orthodox background: he has a doctorate in history from Salzburg University, studied theology at Rome's centuries-old Capram'ca and philosophy at the Vatican's prestigious Gregorian University. By the time he was 31, he was vice-rector of Catholic University in Puerto Rico and a monsignor. But in 1960 he disagreed with the political intervention of Puerto Rico's Bishop James McManus when the bishop tried to forbid Catholics to vote for Governor Luis Muñoz Marin...
Unfair to the Poor. The argument has, in fact, been raging for several years. In 1966, Congress passed the Bail Reform Act, which enables federal judges to release a man without bail when a check into his background indicates that he can be counted on not to run away before his trial. But a large number of those freed on bail (estimates in different studies vary from 8% to 45%) have become repeaters even before they come to trial. Some felons, say the authorities, rob a second time in order to pay a lawyer to defend them on the first...
...world of Polish Jewry just before the Nazi holocaust of 1939. To summon up the past, he meticulously compiles scene after scene of scholars poring over the Talmud, women dancing the hora, rabbis lecturing-and finally, Germans plundering. At almost every turn, Cohen, a television news cameraman, betrays his background. Amateur performances only serve as bridges between static reconstructions; when there is action, it is the characters who are moved, not the audience...
...campaign, but because he didn't understand the forces which made 1968 such an abnormal political year. Witcover admires Kennedy's ability to attract students and black support as well as white ethnic votes (Hungarians, Polish-Americans). In his attempt to avoid analysis, however, he leaves all the background threads hanging--unconnected to the facts of the campaign. Thus, Witcover spends 35 pages describing RFK's post-Jan. 31, 1968, re-thinking of his candidacy but he never once mentions the change in graduate school deferments or the gold crisis, or the military heavy-handedness at Khe Sanh...
Much of Halberstam's work appeared in Harper's when he was covering the contemporary political scene for the magazine. His analysis of the background of Kennedy's campaign--the alienation over the war and Kennedy's rapport with minority groups--is acute. He understood what was happening and why it was happening better than many of his contemporaries on the campaign trail...