Word: direness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Many in the West, especially among the intellectual elites, had begun to absorb a deep conviction, laminated in the soul, that the problems of the world were intractable, that the future lying ahead was an ever darkening road. Worldwide famines and dire overpopulation loomed, people murdering for bowls of rice. Global pollution. The death of the rivers and oceans. The earth itself became the raft of the Medusa...
...gone out too ironic not to answer. A gala N.B.A. all-star oldtimers' game, which he found easy to ignore when the proceeds benefited the Players Association, has shifted its cause to the codgers themselves. "Sort of an old actors' fund," he says, "for prepension guys in dire need." The game is not until Feb. 9, in Indianapolis, and maybe some will start shooting around a week or two before, but not Cousy. Meanwhile, saying "I feel I still have another good year to give," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 37, has changed his mind about quitting after this season...
...Caron tends to generalize statements, he also tends to use words lightly. Supposedly I said that my "studies mean freedom from oppression and stereotypes." The word "oppression" should only be used to describe dire circumstances, not the experience of middle class students who go to Harvard. I would never use that word to describe my own situation and neither should Caron...
...lack of a unified stand by Harvard students is especially disappointing when one considers the dire need for coherent action and the tremendous potential for awakening the world to the problem. Amnesty International reported recently that in the Phillipines alone over 70,000 people have been detained for political reasons since 1972. Three thousand of the detainees have remained in prison while the United States has given $900 million in aid to the Phillipines. Furthermore, thousands of death squad murders committed for reasons varying from political crimes to petty economic crimes are occurring annually all over the world...
...pluralism for almost half a century, is now widely seen as a creaky conglomeration of self-interested constituency groups, alternately dithering and carping. The wholesale rejection of Walter Mondale, who tried to stitch the New Deal coalition together yet again, demonstrated both the weakness of that strategy and the dire nature of the party's condition. Bullied by interest blocs, the Democrats showed themselves without clear leadership and devoid of a solid ideological or geographical base...