Word: point
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...once sent his mother a picture of a red, white and blue electric chair captioned, "Spirit of '76." He wrote letters for illiterate inmates and designed stationery for others, decorating the letterheads with hands clasped in prayer. "If I ever get out of here," he said at one point, "I'll do God's work." He occupied much of each day answering his mail, inscribing envelopes with the message: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MEANS THOSE WITHOUT CAPITAL GET THE PUNISHMENT. Twice a week he was visited by a girlfriend, divorcee Carla...
Even when he was U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara thought the nation had reached "the point at which it does not buy more security for itself simply by buying more military hardware." The greatest threat, he declared in an eerily prescient 1966 speech, comes from rebellious violence in poor countries. During his eleven years as president of the World Bank, McNamara's convictions have deepened, and last week, appearing at the University of Chicago to accept a $25,000 prize for promoting international understanding, the former Defense Secretary declared that "excessive military spending can reduce security rather...
Ironically, McNamara's point was lost on 1,000 protesters, mainly students, who burned him in effigy because they could not forgive his role in shaping Viet Nam War strategy. Their enthusiasm was misplaced; the rioters themselves could hardly have denounced "the mad momentum" of the arms race with more passionate eloquence than McNamara. Said...
Marine biologists point out that lobsters are already being dangerously overfished. Off New England, lobster "pots" -the bait-loaded wooden traps used to snare the creatures-are so densely packed on the ocean floor that a lobster can barely move without bumping into one. Farther offshore, foreign fishermen have been using more sophisticated dredges to scoop up lobsters. In all too many cases, young females are removed before they have had a chance to reproduce; often they are taken under the typical state legal limit of 3 3/16 in. from eye socket to the beginning of the tail, a restraint...
...makes no effort to store up ideas. "It's like analysis; you block out the time and see what comes out." If he writes what he thinks is a bad column, he does not wad it up and start over. He publishes it. "Observer" is not a single point in space but a curving line of ups and downs, and the sagging author figures he will have another shot at splendor in a couple of days...