Word: givens
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...result is that last week some network news chiefs were re-examining whether such events ought to be subjected to the full-blown assault that TV has traditionally given them. Even before the Democratic Convention was over, ABC News President Roone Arledge suggested that Democrats and Republicans, perhaps in concert with the networks, ought to change the present setup and "come up with something more appealing." Observed Arledge: "The political parties are turning off the American public...
...democracy," says Richard Maschal, architecture critic for the Charlotte Observer. "The Overstreet Mall system creates a biracial society." Sam Bass Warner Jr., a Boston University urban historian, sees skywalks as a symbol of urban abandonment, not reinvigoration. They are, he says, "a sign that we've given up on the street. They treat the street as essentially an automobile place. That is going to make for a very poor downtown...
...Given his record, his friends should not have been surprised at his dramatic rectitude when he took office as Governor in 1974. He had schemed with them when they were fighting the entrenched powers -- who were bad men, after all, and had to be treated with some of their own weapons. Now, however, when good men were in office, the old practices would be abolished. The Dukakis people were ready for that. What they failed to anticipate was that Dukakis would not be sure that even they were as good as he needed. Even legitimate dealings with state agencies were...
...White House had given Bush some ammunition early in the week by announcing that the U.S. would pay "compensation" -- everybody avoided the word reparations -- to the families of the 290 people killed aboard Flight 655. The U.S. was doing so voluntarily, said Ronald Reagan, because "we are a compassionate people." The President brushed aside reporters' comments about a poll showing 61% of the American public opposed to compensation. That, said Reagan, was because of the unpopularity of the Khomeini government, and the compensation would not be made to or through that government. Probably it will be routed through...
...Biennale, which began in 1895, is the oldest living, official new-art event. Through the '50s, it acquired an inimitable prestige, and its prizes were held to be enormously important in the marketing of an artist: nothing could have given Robert Rauschenberg's career a faster boost than winning the Gran Premio in 1964. This changed in the wake of '68, when art-student radicals occupied the Accademia di Belli Arti, in protest against the commodification of culture (how many of them, one wonders, are art dealers today?). In panic, the Biennale decided in 1972 to jettison the prize system...