Word: life
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Television bears a heavy burden. Unlike movies or books or plays, TV shows are expected to do more than just provide entertainment. They are asked to be socially responsible as well. Because they come into the home uninvited, network programs are supposed to uphold proper moral values and teach life lessons: drugs are bad, race discrimination is wrong, women should get breast exams early and often. Sometimes the second task tends to overwhelm the first: that is, a show is so busy doing good that no one bothers to notice whether it is good. The new season's prime example...
...message has brought the show enthusiastic praise from mental- health experts and TV critics alike. It takes a real grouch to offer a dissent. But even nongrouches may squirm at the sugarcoating this subject has received. Except for a few taunting schoolmates, Corky is drenched in love and support. Life Goes On may have the highest hug-a-minute ratio of any show in TV history. His parents (Bill Smitrovich and Patti LuPone) are unfailingly wise and patient. Only his blunt younger sister (Kellie Martin) worries occasionally about being embarrassed by her brother in school...
...episode Corky enters a "mainstream" high school for the first time. By the second episode he is running for class president. True, the campaign is launched as a joke by cruel classmates, but Corky turns it into a rousing, and rather implausible, plea for the handicapped. "We have a life, we have dreams, we have hopes," runs his big speech at a school assembly. "We laugh and cry, just like you. All we want is a chance to be your friend." Result: a standing ovation and a narrow loss by 47 votes. Says Corky: "That's a lot of friends...
...with Honecker, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as they reviewed a torchlight parade. When he alluded to the current crisis in a televised address, Gorbachev took pains to be circumspect. "We know our German friends well," he said. "We know their ability to think creatively, to learn from life and to make changes when necessary...
...those measured words came too late for the East Germans who had already opted to make a run for a better life in the West. Last week alone some 8,200 fled, raising the total number of refugees over the past five months to 50,000. Some jumped at the opportunity without a moment's hesitation, others agonized over it. "We talked about it way into the night for days on end," said Christiane Weinbauer of Halle, who joined the exodus with her husband last week. "One minute we had decided to go, and the next we were staying...