Word: poison
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When such blights occur in coastal areas, the result can be devastating. Last November a red tide off the coast of the Carolinas killed several thousand mullet and all but wiped out the scallop population. Reason: the responsible species, Ptychodiscus brevis, contains a poison that causes fish to bleed to death. Brown tides, unknown to Long Island waters before 1985, have occurred every summer since; they pose a constant threat to valuable shellfish beds...
...Making this decision was more deadly than drinking poison," Tehran radio quoted him as saying. "I submitted myself to God's will and drank this drink for his satisfaction...
...entropy in Shepard's West are as inevitable as passin' out after you drink eight Pabst Blue Ribbons in 15 minutes. Part of th' reason is that th' characters are all so damn self-destructive. Curse is about a family whose members have what one of them describes as "poison" in th' blood. They're alcoholic, they're violent, they're venal, they're ornery...
...reason they're doomed, besides th' "poison" in their blood, is what one of 'em calls th' "creeping disease" that infects th' whole West. That means these people are poor and stupid. You know they're poor 'cause their fridge is empty, n' you know they're stupid 'cause they open th' fridge door about every three minutes, as if somethin' would have appeared in there since th' last time they looked...
Emma is th' only one in th' family who has more brains than God gave a chicken, but she doesn't realize that she, too, is doomed 'cause she carries Dad's "poison" in her veins. Ella, of course, doesn't carry it, but she makes up for it by bein' self-righteously angry at th' rest of her brood. This is th' archetypal Western family, says Shepard; th' Cleavers or th' Huxtables they...