Word: inertia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Chernobyl calamity occurred, ironically, in the course of a safety test. According to the report, workers were trying to determine how long the reactor's turbine generators would continue to operate as a result of inertia in the event of an unforeseen reactor shutdown. To prevent the automatic safety systems from interfering with the experiment, the technicians disconnected them, opening the way for a chain of fatal mishaps. The consequence was an explosion and fire that for more than a week spewed streams of radioactive material into the atmosphere above the Soviet Union and across Eastern and Western Europe...
...however, is only the beginning. As every contemporary composer with a once-performed piece moldering on the shelf knows, subsequent readings are hard to get. But new works need not be masterpieces to deserve further hearing; indeed, it is unreasonable to compare them immediately with their glorious predecessors. The inertia of the repertoire makes the path to acceptance an especially difficult one, requiring of both performers and listeners open minds and open ears. But it can be done. "I like the involvement with what is happening now, and with being a part of the sifting and winnowing-out process," says...
Disgusted by official inertia and determined to see everyone associated with Duvalier brought to justice, Haitians took matters into their own hands. Hundreds of students joined together to march on the National Palace late last week. Even after the new government was announced, angry crowds confronted military patrols. One sergeant was reportedly dragged from his automobile on Friday and killed. Said Gesner Armand, director of an art museum in the Haitian capital: "The people made the revolution. Now they have immediate needs that this government can't satisfy. They want work, and the government has no jobs to give them...
...will teach children about coal mining? I can remember only one good book about coal miners, and that was written 30 years ago." Delegates were not surprised to learn that Petrov was a retired miner. Valentina Plenova, 55, a spunky factory worker, took the floor to complain about the inertia at many industrial enterprises. Said she: "We still work like yesterday." Later Plenova's deeper feelings surfaced. "I'm in love with my leader," she blurted. "In love!" She then paid Gorbachev, the object of her affection, the ultimate compliment. During the 5 1/2-hour speech that he delivered...
...restorers," his account of environmental problems is neither glib nor blindly optimistic. His desciption of the clean-up of the devastated site of a Hooker Chemical Company plant in Michgan tempers hope for restoring a savaged ecosystem with a realistic sense of what can't be done--of political inertia and of the irreparable harm that has already been done...