Word: raines
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most airports are only equipped with a navigation and approach system called VOR-DME (for very high frequency, omnirange, distance-measuring equipment), which guides a plane into the traffic pattern. But it is the final letdown through fog or rain that produces the tensest moments for pilot and crew. Then more than VOR-DME is needed. The Air Force relies on a system called PAR (for precision-approach radar). Because it places decision making in the hands of the ground controller, it is not popular with airline captains. In the past 14 months, PAR systems have been abandoned...
...doubtful that all the snow, rain, heat or gloom of night in the world could have stayed outgoing Postmaster General Marvin Watson, 44, from his self-appointed rounds. With perhaps an eye cocked to the 1970 gubernatorial election in his native Texas, Watson let it be known that he has visited 198 post offices in 48 states and covered a total of 89,000 air miles since his appointment last April. At most stops, Government-paid photographers snapped pictures of Watson shaking hands with postal employees while an aide clicked a counter each time Watson pressed the flesh. Last handshake...
...penalties for breaking the rules can be serious. Even minor infractions provoke them. Goffman has described the restrictions imposed on suitable behavior in the rain. A man in a trench-coat will naturally pass muster. So will one who is coatless, as long as he suggests by his deportment-hunched shoulders, an impromptu newspaper umbrella-that he is alive to his predicament. So will arm-locked young lovers, sublimely indifferent to their drenching. But someone who walks along unprotected and apparently unaware of the downpour is likely to evoke a startled and uneasy response...
...reason, says Goffman, is that he offends the hidden code of behavior to which all "normal" people subscribe. The man oblivious to the rain is guilty not just of a trivial impropriety, but of the greater sin of social unpredictability. No one can guess with any assurance what ceremony he will next profane. No one can be sure of his respect of public order, without which society would regress to the jungle. Goffman is still exploring the patterns of behavior at social gatherings, which he believes have all the systematic qualities of a language. He is also at work...
...moonshot tells us is that we are pressing forward into space. Like the invention of electricity and the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, the moonshot is one of those dramatic events that reminds us that the conditions of our lives are always changing. Our civilizations, like a rain-muddied road under the feet of a retreating Union army, is having its very nature reshaped...