Word: hopelessness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Bell, now a senior correspondent in Boston, went to Kenya in 1959 and was told by British colonial servants that Kenyatta was confined, or "rusticated" as they put it, near the Somali frontier. The militant Mau Mau leader was said to be a "hopeless alcoholic." A year later, Bell met Kenyatta in a village in northern Kenya. He was tall and dignified, and Bell remembers him manipulating a fly whisk with great style and grace. At first he spoke haltingly, "not because he was a gone alcoholic," Bell recalls, "but because he hadn't spoken English in seven years...
...then repeat their tales to Willie, who would fashion them into stories. When his lover died of tuberculosis in 1944, Maugham was incurably stricken. "For 30 years he had been my chief care, my pleasure, and my anxiety," he told Robin. "Without him I am lost and lonely and hopeless ... I am too old to endure so much grief. I have lived too long...
...tired and frustrated at his hopeless America as he watched Rick Burleson strike out. The bottom of the ninth was coming up after another beer commercial, and the commercial was so boring (another "Schlitz Light" jobber -- only this time they decided to change the Coburn character a little, mellow him out; they took all of the "tough" out of him) that Bobby just nodded out in front of the tube, his hand falling limp, spilling beer all over the synthetic carpet...
While the examples and words may be new, this sort of view is hardly original. Every decade in this century has been condemned by someone as the worst, most hopeless period of history; at the very least, each period was compared unfavorably to the past. That is a symptom of Americanism that dates to the Jacksonian Era. I do not suggest any of that; even so it is difficult not so sound like (God forbid) Eric Severeid. It is the general, but by no means pervasive, comfort of America today that makes the '70s so inert and dangerous. But every...
Even better, Jackson and Project EXCEL have drawn national attention to the fact that reform of inner-city schools, often regarded as hopeless, actually can be achieved. HEW has awarded EXCEL $400,000 next year to expand into four more cities, and the National Institute of Education is funding a study to determine EXCEL'S effectiveness. Indeed students everywhere can learn a lesson from Jesse Jackson: "When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through...