Word: gangly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...second to the Paris mass-circulation daily France-Soir. In the messages, the group boasted of its ties to the skyjackers and set out its demands. Among them: the release from West German prisons of eleven convicted urban guerrillas (including Andreas Baader, co-founder of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang); the freeing of two Palestinian guerrillas from Turkish jails; the transporting of the prisoners to Viet Nam, Somalia or South Yemen; and the payment of $15 million in ransom as well as $43,000 for each of the eleven guerrillas...
What turned the heat on the sons of the samurai bandits was an unprecedented outbreak of warfare among the gangs. Six yakuza have been killed and 34 wounded since the first of the year in gun battles that terrorized whole communities. Worse, one innocent bystander and two police officers were wounded in gross violation of the ancient code. According to police undercover agents, the warfare erupted because of the waning health and authority of Crime Czar Kazuo Taoka, 64, leader of the 11,000-member Yamaguchi-gumi, the biggest yakuza gang in the country...
...Osaka, the police and public are cooperating in the same strategy of calculated humiliation. Local activists have picketed known gang headquarters. Landlords have tried to evict mobster tenants. For their part, the police have been summoning gang leaders to appear at the police station for tongue-lashings in an effort to shame them into giving up crime. "We are trying to change the waters the gangsters swim in," said a police officer. Perhaps the most devastating weapon the communities wield against the yakuza is social ostracism. Parents tell their children not to play with those of the gangsters; shop owners...
...their part, the gangsters still seek to defend themselves as a traditional part of society. Speaking last week in the outskirts of Kobe under the eyes of police guards, one local gang boss out on bail defiantly described the yakuza as "lotus flowers on a sea of mud." Said he: "We're flotsam of society, but we're dedicated to our own code of honor at the cost of our own lives. If I as a boss didn't control my boys, the city would be worse off-call us a necessary social evil." Increasingly, it appears...
...curse upon Idomeneo was not easy to lift. Its setting is ancient Crete, where King Idomeneo and his gang are squirming under the rule of a choleric god. Stormbound at sea while returning from the Trojan War, Idomeneo has begged Neptune for deliverance. In return, he will sacrifice the first person he encounters on shore. Straining the long arm of coincidence, Idomeneo steps on land-and meets his son Idamante. Such subject matter is a problem for 20th century audiences, but not the only one. Idomeneo is written in the style of opera seria, the stilted, ritualistic 18th century Italian...