Word: poisonous
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...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...
Carlucci also has his adaptable and diplomatic side. As Secretary of Defense, he has drained away most of the poison that his predecessor, Caspar Weinberger, left behind in the Pentagon's relations with Congress and the State Department, largely by the simple expedient of respecting their turfs and their opinions. Coming from the National Security Adviser's job, he has retained a major role in foreign policy. In the past month he has turned up all over the globe: chatting with top Soviet defense officials at the Moscow summit; visiting Tokyo, where he urged Japan to share more...
...about the same time, Iran launched what at first appeared to be a successful offensive into northern Iraq. The push was stopped by a counterattack in which the Iraqis, according to the Iranians, used poison gas; hundreds of Iraq's own civilians perished in the city of Halabja. Iran Expert Shaul Bakhash of George Mason University says the combination of Iraqi missile and chemical attacks disheartened the Iranians. "It brought home to them for the first time that they were exposed and alone...