Word: earthwards
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...assistant, who lit its fuse with a blowtorch attached to a long stick. For an instant the rocket did nothing at all, then suddenly it leaped from the ground and screamed into the sky at 60 m.p.h. Climbing to an altitude of 41 ft., it arced over, plummeted earthward and slammed into a frozen cabbage patch 184 ft. away. The entire flight lasted just 2 1/2 sec.--but that was 2 1/2 sec. longer than any liquid-fueled rocket had ever managed to fly before...
Another potentially planet-destroying asteroid is hurtling earthward, and it must be destroyed or diverted from its deadly path. Another group of astronauts must be dispatched into space to nuke it into some less antisocial mode. Again, an anxious world prays for deliverance...
...guys, how's this for a twist? Let's take the end of the world seriously. Geez, how square can you get? No postmodernist, pre-apocalyptic ironies; a not-entirely-improbable cataclysmic threat--a giant comet hurtling earthward with no funny aliens anywhere in sight; special effects that serve the story plausibly; and a certain largely understated courage, as representative examples of humankind attempt to resist or try to accept the awful fate awaiting them. There's something curiously refreshing in the soberly inspirational way Deep Impact embraces the conventions of the old-fashioned disaster movie. You find yourself hoping...
That probably won't happen. O'Neill, a lifetime .268 hitter, will glide earthward and be hitting an imposing but not epochal .310 or so in October. But this spring, baseball has been bustin' out all over. Home runs have increased 26% over last year; runs batted in are up 11%. And a cluster of young stars threatens to smash offensive records set when George Burns was still in Little League. Seattle's Ken Griffey Jr. is on a pace to hit 65-plus homers. So is Frank Thomas, the Chicago White Sox's baby-faced behemoth. Thomas scored...
...nimbus of television light around his charcoal hair, the man enveloped in utter stillness, the most thorough self-possession I have ever beheld. Does 27 years in prison make a man so calm? As I listened to Gunter Grass (a stolid German with some huge gravity pulling him earthward) discussing the Nazis, my mind drifted to Vaclav Havel, who I decided is an alert woodland creature. Jimmy Carter shines with a likable sweetness, but he is tougher than you may think...