Word: helplessly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...then blanks off into a sort of abstraction and fitfully wanders, but presently it comes up red and writhing again, straining to get loose. Waiting casts one's life into a little dungeon of time. It is a way of being controlled, of being rendered immobile and helpless. One can read a book or sing (odd looks from the others) or chat with strangers if the wait is long enough to begin forming a bond of shared experience, as at a snowed-in airport. But people tend to do their waiting stolidly. When the sound system went dead during...
...that soon became a torrent: a nationwide food-stamp program, rent supplements for the poor, scholarships for college students, federal grants for the arts, Medicare, Medicaid, higher pensions for federal employees and veterans, subsidized low-income housing, aid to handicapped children. Despite Johnson's intention to help the helpless, middle-and even upper-income groups climbed aboard...
Suddenly Hess interrupted in a flat, unemotional voice, "We have an engine cutoff." Seconds later, NASA officials watched in helpless dismay while their proud young ship sputtered to stillness like a jalopy running out of gas. Concluded Hess stoically: "We have an abort." Nor was that the worst of it. As the astronauts lay strapped in their seats, awaiting instructions, hydrogen gas gathering in the ship's main-engine area burst into flames below them, shooting a tiny inferno through the engine pit. Sprinklers on the launch pad immediately flooded the pit with several thousand gallons of water, dousing...
...into a Broadway show tune in the moments before Moritz commits suicide, but, in another corner of the stage, Melchior sits, horrified, eyes riveted on his friend, seemingly oblivious to the joyous, life-affirming music. Here, Melchior seems to be neither actor nor spectator; he appears merely human and helpless...
...turned back. Armored units had an even harder time. Their Sherman DD tanks were outfitted with devices that were supposed to keep them afloat while they lurched ashore, but of the first 32 launched, 27 sank in the choppy waves and plunged to the bottom, taking most of their helpless five-man crews with them...