Word: modernness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Beyond new statutes and energetic reinforcement, the nation needs another, stronger weapon: public indignation. There is not nearly enough of that in the U.S. No other Western, industrial country in modern times has suffered criminal abuses on such a scale. America's porous, pluralistic and permissive society offers extraordinary opportunities, chances to hide and to advance, for the enterprising and imaginative criminal. But, most fundamentally, U.S. society helps the criminal by toleration (occasionally even admiration) and by providing a ready market for his services. Illicit gambling thrives because of the popular demand for it. Politicians of questionable integrity remain...
...large measure, the modern Mob lacks the traditional justification for crime?the bitter spur of poverty. It also lacks the occasional, near-heroic dimension of defying law and the established order for the sake of rebellion. It is by and large a middle-class sort of Mob, more or less tolerated by the affluent. Among the public there is often a certain psychological hypocrisy. Rage is great over conspicuous criminal acts, but there is less anger over the far more harmful depredations that are the specialty of organized crime. Until there is a popular revolt, La Cosa Nostra will probably...
...undeniable that these years were apocalyptic. Mahler's compositions were sui generis, employing a musical language of the utmost originality and resilience. He was Schoenberg's closest friend and most powerful advocate, but unlike so many lesser composers, took refuge in neither self-indulgent derivativeness nor in the most modern romance of the despairing, artist. Everyone stresses Mahler's bitterness, his nervous, lachrymose nature; Yet he was one of the most disciplined, and magnanimous composer who ever lived, with the most sensitive ear for orchestral nuance since Mozart, and the most profound intuition of musical as drama since Beethoven. Regardless...
...Heyerdahl collected for later analysis, are roughly the size of a pea. Oily and sometimes encrusted with tiny barnacles, they smell like a combination of putrefying fish and raw sewage. Heyerdahl hopes that his experience will stir the U.N. to propose new international regulations to keep the oceans clean. "Modern man seems to believe that he can get everything he needs from the corner drugstore," says the explorer. "He doesn't understand that everything has a source in the land or sea, and that he must respect those sources. If the indiscriminate pollution continues, we will be sawing...
...first maze was the human body. To primitive man, a victim's convoluted intestines were proof that the labyrinth form contained life. Through history, the maze evolved into a means of fortification, an obstacle course designed to protect the castle within by trapping enemies seeking entrance. Modern man reduced the notion to a geometric style of gardening, an intricate network of hedged alleys that can lead a visitor to an open space in the middle-if he makes all the correct turns. Still, mythology lent the maze heroic proportions: it took a Theseus to tackle the labyrinth at Knossos...