Word: discernible
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Like World War II, the civil rights struggle of those years has acquired an aura of almost romantic purity. The goals were clear-cut and indisputable, the heroes and villains easy to discern, the achievements tangible and lasting. As the documentary points out, Selma was not just a culmination but the end of an era. Soon to come were the big-city race riots, a more militant strain of student protest and a breakup of the coalition that had driven the campaign for racial equality. Eyes on the Prize recalls the days when the sheer rightness of the cause...
...take risks. No one claims that safety rules have been relaxed. Indeed, the vast majority of controllers, pilots and federal inspectors are working hard and competently to avoid accidents. But, says Jerome Lederer, founder of the private Flight Safety Foundation, "from now on the problem will be to discern who is obeying the rules. When passenger safety vs. profits is involved, these are questions of conscience." One pilot, speaking anonymously, sums up what he perceives as the all too common attitude in airline executive suites: "It's a business. Make the buck and take the chance...
...final 40% of the $100 million in aid for the contras that it approved last year. The fear that Congress might cut off aid to punish the White House for slipping Iranian arms-sale profits to the contras has faded; reliable nose counters like Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole discern a majority in favor of continued help. But it is an extremely thin one -- perhaps 51 to 49 in the Senate -- and vulnerable to any change in the political winds...
...they take their leave of Capitol Hill, they cast a fond eye at the past and discern troublesome aspects of the present.The three Senators seem to mourn the loss of the gentlemanly quality of the old days. They are disturbed by the all-importance of money in the political process and dismayed by the impatience of their younger colleagues. Each is proud, somewhat battered but unbowed. In their faces and in their careers is writ the recent history of the nation...
...moral of this play is not too hard to discern. When things are tough, a unified front maintains us. When things are easy, self-interest consumes us until we have too many love affairs or build too many nuclear weapons, and things get tough again. The second-act party turns into the Great Deluge and by the time we're in the third act, war has left the Antrobus home a fortified fallout shelter...