Word: birdness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...another photograph we see a woman, dressed in an old-fashioned skirt and blouse, staring off to the right at something beyond our vision. She is standing next to an old stone bird bath, and the ground around her is strewn with dead leaves. This image is superimposed on a broken pane of glass whose pieces form a jagged jigsaw puzzle. The glass is at once a mirror and a window; whether we see an illusion or reality is left as enigma, as is the identity of the woman and the meaning of the scene...
During the three-week trial it was apparent that Connally was not the average defendant-a point underlined by the character witnesses who had been marshaled to testify in Connally's behalf. Among them were Lady Bird Johnson, the Rev. Billy Graham, World Bank President Robert McNamara, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan -all large in their praise of the defendant. "Some folks don't like him," Lady Bird said, and after gales of laughter from courtroom spectators had subsided, she added, "but I don't think any of them doubt...
...dilemma that Bird underscores in dozens of interviews with students, parents and college administrators is that "the great majority of high school graduates aren't sure what they want to do." Indeed, there is no reason why they should be, or why a college freshman has to sign up for a major that from the day he sets foot on campus narrows his possible options and his choice of careers. Most young people simply have not experienced enough variety in jobs or life-styles to be able to make an intelligent choice about then-adult career when they graduate...
...Bird is at her weakest in overstating the financial advantage of not going to college. She plays games with statistics, arguing that if a high school graduate invested the equivalent of four years' college costs in a lump sum in a savings bank and went to work, his lifetime income (including compound interest) would exceed the earnings of a college graduate. The greatest fallacy in that line of reasoning is the fact that high school seniors do not have the $25,000 or $30,000 representing their college costs in a lump sum to invest. Nonetheless, Bird is correct...
...Bird suggests relaxing the lockstep that forces millions of young people to march automatically to school year after year, from kindergarten to graduate school. She notes that top educators have already called for alternatives to the traditional college education. Yale President Kingman Brewster, for example, has warned against the "assumption that formal education is best received in continuous doses," while proposing that students leave the campus after their sophomore year to live abroad. Chicago Sociologist James Coleman's White House report on youth suggests giving vouchers worth four years of college tuition to young people; the vouchers could...