Word: french
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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History's biggest oil spill despoils the French shoreline
...face of this major ecological disaster, French officials were helpless. Winds howled so furiously for most of the week that plastic barricades failed to contain the drifting slicks. Emergency crews were reluctant to use detergents to break up the oil because they feared long-term toxic effects on marine life. Instead, fishermen worked day and night to move valuable oysters and scallops to other waters or to rush them to market...
Understandably outraged, the French opened a full-scale investigation into the calamity, which was apparently caused by the failure of the tanker's steering gear. Possibly because of a dispute over the towing price, the ship's captain-who was charged with negligent polluting by the French-may have delayed enlisting the help of a nearby tug or sending off a distress signal. When a rescue was finally attempted, the sea and winds were so heavy that even the powerful tug could not pull the disabled giant back into the shipping lanes. One immediate result of the spill...
...further in that direction. The odd titles, which sound like surrealist whimsy- Mysterious bird of Ulieta, or, in a sardonic little pun, Steller 's albatross- were birds' names picked from an ornithological textbook. The paintings court vulgarity every inch of the way. Their forms, based on the French curves used by architectural draftsmen, are cut from honeycombed aluminum. But they are loaded with color, blaring with the kind of greedy, apoplectic vitality. On first sight, they look as though a squad of glue-snorting graffitists had been let loose with crayons, spray cans and party glitter...
...England. The disease, which can also be transmitted by handlers, makes it difficult for a mare to conceive and carry a foal for the full eleven-month term. Still, neither the British nor the Irish made too much of the malady when the USDA inquired. Neither did the French. According to Ralph Knowles, the department's chief staff veterinarian, the French told the U.S. that the sickness was not highly contagious and that they could certify horses sent to the U.S. as being free from the disease. Unconvinced, the USDA sent a team of inspectors abroad in early September...