Word: central
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There was a time when the Black Sox Scandal was central to the moral education of young American males. The fact that it involved baseball players -- members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox -- who conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series (no less) struck at the very center of boyhood. The fact that the consequence of the act was so dire -- permanent banishment from baseball -- in comparison with the paltry rewards (a few thousand dollars to each man) imparted ironic force to the story. And then there were the poignant sidebars: the little boy crying...
More power, then, to John Sayles for insisting on the continuing relevance of the scandal and for bringing it to the screen despite the narrative problems it presents. These include lack of a heroic central figure; hard-to- dramatize subtleties in the relationships between teammates (and between players and their cheap owner, Charles Comiskey) that ripened some of them for corruption; the fact that the ballplayers were legally exonerated yet exiled from the game by a commissioner hastily recruited to spruce up baseball's image...
Jaruzelski seemed to signal a shift in mood late last week at a special meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, when he called for a "brave new turn" and the "courage to break stereotypes" in dealing with worker grievances. Jaruzelski's remarks followed a television address by General Czeslaw Kiszczak, the Interior Minister, who offered to open talks with representatives of "different social groups" to end the unrest. While there was speculation that the Kiszczak statement hinted at possible talks with Solidarity for the first time since 1981, the offer was greeted with skepticism by Poles, who have heard...
...flulike symptoms. Under pressure from state agriculture officials, the chemical's manufacturer, Rhone-Poulenc, stopped selling the substance to grape growers. This year Rhone-Poulenc is carrying out a controversial test in which it paid 25 college students as much as $1,500 for one week to harvest a central California vineyard that had been sprayed with Zolone. Since the picking was concluded two weeks ago, none of the students have become...
While the G.O.P. legions were massed in New Orleans, Michael Dukakis was waging a guerrilla campaign deep in Republican territory. He popped up in Alabama, Florida and Texas, contrasting what he later called his attachment to Main Street with Republican roistering on Bourbon Street. The incursion was central to his strategy. For weeks Dukakis has been traveling to states as small as North Dakota and as large as California that have gone Republican in recent presidential elections. He even told Floridians, in defiance of all conventional wisdom, "I believe we're going to win here...