Word: herbert
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...NOOSE OF LAURELS: ROBERT E. PEARY AND THE RACE TO THE NORTH POLE by Wally Herbert; Atheneum; 395 pages...
...belie ten years of New England schooling. They seek his autograph as eagerly as they do the players'. Bush scribbles on a baseball, a hat, a scrap of paper. On this warm summer evening, not one sportswriter or spectator asks about his relative with the extra middle name, George Herbert Walker Bush. In Arlington the White House feels about as far away as Tiananmen Square, both in distance and in culture...
Probably it is necessary for us to have heroes so that, by inoculation, we will learn to distrust heroes. Baseball idols peddling autographs at $15 a scribble provide this useful disillusion today. A few decades ago, the clay feet -- frostbitten, of course -- were those of polar explorers. Wally Herbert, who reached the North Pole by dogsled in 1969, writes knowledgeably about two of the most fascinating of the fakers: Robert E. Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook, archrivals in heroics and fraud...
...boys near the shore of the Arctic Ocean, stayed there for a number of days, then returned home and announced success. Peary tried repeatedly, with all his energy, and in 1909, at the age of 53, nearly made it. But the speeds and distances he claimed to have traveled, Herbert demonstrates, were far beyond the ability of men or dogs. Peary's diary, withheld from historians after his death until Herbert analyzed it, proves that he fell short by as much as 30 to 60 miles. So when this strong and single-minded man returned home from his final trip...
Plastic surgeon Elizabeth Morgan, 41, has committed no crime. Yet for almost two years she has been in prison. Reason: she refuses to permit her six-year- old daughter Hilary to visit the child's father, Eric Foretich, 46, who she alleges raped Hilary during previous visits. Judge Herbert Dixon sent Morgan to prison for contempt when she refused to reveal Hilary's whereabouts. Relief may be on the way: prompted by the Morgan case, the House of Representatives last week passed a bill to limit civil contempt-of-court sentences to twelve months. Based on the idea that...