Word: semis
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Precarious Paradise. But this sort of thing is a social disguise for the heft of Cheever's work, which moves between tragedy and farce and realism and fantasy to present a heavy parable of American life-especially the life of the semi-migratory U.S. bourgeoisie and the uncertain ecology of their nesting grounds in the U.S. suburb. Suburbia, which in its modern form is barely a generation old, has so far lacked the kind of precentor or poet that the South, the West, the City, and the Small Town long since acquired. In John Cheever, Suburbia has its first...
...least in theory, it is now possible for a semi-illiterate to enter the U.S. Army and come out a college graduate, with the Pentagon paying 75% of the tab. To apply its fabulous technology, the U.S. military has become an extraordinary teacher of everything from astronautics to electronics to nucleonics to teaching itself. Now the Defense Department even has a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Education. He is Edward L. Katzenbach Jr., a driving man of 44 who runs a $350 million-a-year empire that spurs learning throughout the armed forces, although it does not control such elite professional...
...play. In a triumph of style over substance, it serves its mental hash like Beluga caviar, pours its intellectual eyewash like Dom Pérignon. This sleight-of-hand artistry succeeds for two reasons. Playwright Enid Bagnold loves the English language with rare fidelity, and in the present semi-illiterate state of the U.S. stage, pure English makes an irresistible lover for an audience. Equally indispensable is an actress who can do no wrong from first entrance to final curtain. Margaret Leighton's eyes are wounds of inner pain, her hair is a glimmering tiara, her voice is Baccarat...
Last year when Paz gained the upper hand, Lechin chose semi-exile as Bolivia's Ambassador to Rome. Paz then set about reorganizing the nationalized mines that normally produce 90% of the country's export income. To win $35 million in foreign help (from the U.S., West Germany and the Inter-American Development Bank), Paz reformed the mine management, reduced the power of the unions, and boldly fired more than 1,000 unneeded miners...
Another sweeping promise of the Mexican revolution was agriculture-land for the landless and food for all. Yet half a century later, less than one-tenth of the country's acreage is under cultivation, much of it in the semi-arid north and much of that belonging to the controversial ejido collectives. Peasants are guaranteed a plot of land, but the farms are small, dry and often uneconomic, rarely exceeding twelve acres. Peasant families have trouble feeding themselves, to say nothing of providing food for a nation whose population grows by 3.5% annually...