Word: railroading
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Chapman has further simplified the quest for the precise word by placing certain terms in useful vertical order, rather than running them in dense paragraphs. Thus about 150 manias, in riveting variety, are listed both by subject (railroad travel: siderodromomania; crossing bridges: gephyromania) and by name (trichorrhexomania: pinching off one's hair; typomania: writing for publication). Similarly organized is a catalog of more than 200 phobias, which only begins to suggest why psychiatrists will never lack for patients. Fear of the Pope is papaphobia; fear of failure, kakorraphiaphobia; fear of the flute, aulophobia...
...walk through an alley filled with gang members," he says. "Aw, man, it was awful. That guy was unconscious after just a few feet." Hernandez doesn't shy from violence easily. In his seven-year career, he's been shot in the stomach, hit in the head with a railroad tie, had his arm broken in a fight, absorbed countless punches, and been jailed twice for auto theft -- not to mention all the unspeakable things he's done to other people. Last May he told his fellow gang members he had finally had enough. His former friends promptly jumped...
That evacuation prompted a local group called Project Freedom to construct a network dubbed the underground railroad to funnel gang members and their families to safety in cases where all else fails. Six former gang members and two families have been shuttled to safety through a patchwork of churches both in and out of the state. The relocations are coordinated with the Wichita police, who check for outstanding warrants. Project Freedom pays for the initial move, while local congregations agree to assume housing costs and arrange for jobs and education for as long as two years. "It's a stopgap...
...underground railroad may be impractical, but so are most of the other options available to a young gang banger who wants out. At least Project Freedom is saving lives. Frances Sandoval, founder of Mothers Against Gangs in Chicago, gets tearful phone calls from parents with kids too scared to leave a gang but terrified of staying in. "Unfortunately, there is very little I can offer them," she says. "In most cases it's hopeless unless they can literally pack up and leave. And we're talking about moving to another state...
...seat arena on the Potomac Yard site in Virginia, just south of Washington, the football teams that play there may have to wear moonsuits. Officials of the Environmental Protection Agency say that after years of creosote soaking and casual dumping of chemical wastes at the onetime railroad switching station, the area is so contaminated it could qualify for Superfund environmental treatment...