Word: calls
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Home Companion, which went off the air almost two years ago. But the shock, for a radio fan leafing through this collection, is to discover, perhaps not for the first or fifth time, that his hero is even more gifted as writer than as entertainer. In a superb story called What Did We Do Wrong?, the first woman major-league baseball player hits .300 but slobbers tobacco juice, gives fans the finger and can't deal with the hot-breathed lunacy of a nation's love. In Meeting Famous People, a country-music star is hunted down and sued, then...
...phone call last December from consumer advocate Ralph Nader spurred Jerry Williams of Boston to help organize a citizens' revolt against the proposed 51% congressional pay raise. Among the tactics: deluging members of Congress with tea bags as a reminder of the Boston Tea Party...
...folks, these are hosts of radio call-in shows. Such programs, of course, have long served as a sort of national party line, a place where average citizens can rant, in blissful anonymity, about everything from the local baseball team's losing streak to the Bush Administration's arms policy. The hosts are often loud and abrasive, with an opinion for every issue and a put-down for every adversary. But in the past few months, a clutch of conversationalists has crossed the line from simply mouthing off to orchestrating nationwide political protests...
...diplomats and aides who offered insights into the workings of both the Foreign Ministry and Shevardnadze himself. In fact, the Soviets have become gluttons for glasnost. One session, conducted in both Russian and English, took eight hours. Says Blackman: "It was John and I who finally suggested we call it a day." At another interview with a top Shevardnadze staffer, Blackman was locked in the room to hear everything the official had to say. "We can't take any chances," an aide explained sheepishly. No problem. We never run away from a good story...
What seemed like an easy victory for U.S. policy now appears to call for a more carefully calibrated approach. In February, while Moscow's troop pullout was in progress, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was looking to salvage some political face. He wrote to President Bush asking for U.S. help in setting up an international conference to end the fighting and create a broad-based coalition government that would include the Kabul Communists. Confident that the rebels' star was in the ascendant, the White House refused the request. But disappointment over the guerrillas' military failure has led policymakers to debate...