Word: mattered
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Franklin is not seeking input on whether the President should issue an apology for slavery - a matter that Clinton asked the advisory board to examine - but said he is open to suggestion...
...gets the distinct impression that the perfunctory words of sympathy are but the necessary diplomatic entree to get to the real punch line: telling Israelis that no matter how many of their women and children are lying in pieces on the street, they must continue to negotiate with the very people who harbor and abet these murderers. And honor them: suicide bombers are hailed as shaheed, holy martyrs. Indeed, a poll taken of West Bank Palestinians showed that they approved, by 49% to 38%, of the previous suicide bombing, the March massacre in a Tel Aviv cafe...
...apart from the morality, there is the practical political effect. The message it sends the Palestinians is clear: no matter how great the outrage they perpetrate, the world will demand no price. In fact, pressure will be exerted on Israel--pressure to return to the table and continue its concessions--even before it has buried its dead...
Denis Johnson, the author of four previous novels and three volumes of poetry, has earned an impressive string of literary awards and fellowships, not to mention a circle of devoted readers. But the big commercial blockbuster that all writers, no matter how pure and literary, dream about has so far eluded him. Already Dead (HarperCollins; 435 pages; $25) looks very much like Johnson's bid to hit the charts, with a bullet. Subtitled A California Gothic, a phrase that some may find redundant, this new novel offers just about everything that thriller buyers look for: drugs, booze, sex, murderous violence...
...fine, dreamlike first novel, The Light of Falling Stars (Riverhead; 308 pages; $23.95), J. Robert Lennon does start off with an air crash, not far from a Montana town he calls Marshall. But he declines his own generous offer of melodrama (and of irony too, for that matter) and proceeds to a far more interesting narration that amounts to a kind of anti-melodrama. The plane falls, townspeople grieve and attend funerals. But enemies are not reconciled, deep perceptions are not arrived at, lovers do not see each other more clearly and dearly. Paul and Anita, a shakily married couple...