Word: graveness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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None of this is particularly grave, but it is emblematic of a more dangerous problem. Repeated catch phrases and stock observations are dissonant, but repeated preconceived notions about subject matter can destroy the value of the kind of writing Hemphill does, and a collection of magazine pieces can make such notions painfully obvious. Hemphill runs the risk of dealing in preconceptions more than most writers, because his turf, the South, is defined in the national eye almost exclusively in preconceptions...
...play is saved from being overly grave and melodramatic by Horowitz's fine ear for both the poetic and comic rhythms of natural speech. His characters speak that elliptical language made familiar by Pinter--a series of monologues that only rarely intersect, made up of short-circuited sentences, non-sequiturs and repetitions. The special idiom of the absurdist play demands from its actors a particular sensitivity to the purely aural qualities of speech as well as split-second timing and O'Brien never lets his cast miss a beat...
Typified by the understated eloquence of South Carolina's gentle James Mann, the remarkable House Judiciary Committee last week completed its unwanted task of bringing Richard Nixon to public account for grave violations of his oath of office and injury to the U.S. Constitution. Through two more days of largely decorous televised debate on impeachment, the committee's fragile bipartisan coalition strongly approved a second article of impeachment and narrowly approved a third. By large margins, the committee then rejected two other charges against the President...
...there are three years thereafter that this Administration, including the President, lied to the Congress and lied to the American people without any justification ... Congress may very well have approved it. But... it was the right of Congress to have known ... Deceit and deception over issues as grave as... waging war cannot be tolerated in a constitutional democracy...
...Hermens, professor emeritus of the University of Cologne, concluded that "whenever real tyranny exists it is exercised by a minority." The men of Philadelphia greatly feared gusts of passion in momentary majorities and embedded all kinds of checks and balances in the Constitution to avert them. In as grave a matter as convicting an impeached President, they required a two-thirds Senate majority. Beyond that, how far can a democracy go in conciliating a minority view with out rendering itself impotent...