Word: manful
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...little doubt that the presence of Ligachev, a hard-liner known for his resistance to Gorbachev's reforms, could not help reassuring intransigent East Germany that its ties with Moscow remained solid. If East Germany was also quietly being urged to adopt a more flexible posture, Ligachev was the man to deliver the message...
...reason for the picture's impact is its straight-ahead melodramatic structure. At its simplest level the movie functions as a well-constructed mystery story. A black man, a gardener named Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona), comes to his employer, Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland), asking him to help find his son. The boy was taken into police custody during the Soweto protests of 1976 and has disappeared. Du Toit, a calm and rational man, believes this is surely just a bureaucratic muddle that can be easily ameliorated by a solid citizen's firm but polite intervention...
...Ngubene family is well particularized and their torments set forth unblinkingly, not to say horrifically. And Ben is provided with a guide to the realities of life on the other side of the color line: the tough, suspicious, ultimately compassionate taxi driver named Stanley (Zakes Mokae). He is a man who turns up in surprising places in unpredictable moods. He provides the bestartlements that shake Du Toit, who is appropriately all stunned introspection...
...most indelible image of the spill is that of dead and dying creatures. The body count so far includes 34,000 birds (among them were 139 bald eagles) and 984 sea otters. (One man also died, crushed in the dumbwaiter of a ship in the Exxon cleanup fleet.) Scientists believe the actual wildlife toll is much higher. Recovered bird carcasses, for example, may represent only 5% to 10% of the victims. Many dead otters disappeared under the water, and searches for other animals were limited to the high-water marks on some of the affected islands to respect the wishes...
...nothing will ameliorate the reality of harvesting cane by hand. It is boring, backbreaking work, carried out in oppressive heat, surrounded by the dangers of poisonous snakes, fire ants and whirling, razor-sharp scythes. Some of those who suffer these miseries take pride in their work. A man from St. Lucia tells Wilkinson, "Cutting the cane in itself is also a skillful task, you must be skillful at it. When you cutting the cane you must have a free mind...