Word: shrike
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...insipid and cliched. Worse, Teichmann's attempts at character development partially distort West's intent. In the stage version, for example, the relationship between Miss Lonelyhearts and his sweetheart Betty--which assumes a far more central role than in the novel--is transformed into a typical 50s romance, while Shrike, Miss Lonelyhearts' misanthropic boss, becomes too intrusively a father figure. Worst of all are Teichmann's omissions. Absent from his script are many of West's most pungent passages; missing too are several key incidents which suggest that Miss Lonelyhearts' real impulse in the face of suffering is to destroy...
...unpleasant because of his extreme morbidity; in this production, because of his insipidity. He must emerge, however, as something more than self-parody. Unless he embraces his Christian mission with evident conviction, the painful irony of his demise is undercut, and the play belongs totally to the ever-cynical Shrike...
...aimed at enemy supplies. First there was a denial of strikes farther north, with Defense Secretary Melvin Laird explaining that the bomb damage near Hanoi reported by the North Vietnamese may have been caused by their own missiles fired at U.S. planes. Then, when Hanoi put some exploded U.S. Shrike missiles on exhibit, came the Pentagon admission that there had been a diversionary attack by fighter-bombers to support the P.O.W.-rescue attempt...
Israeli electronic specialists are currently in the U.S. to study American electronic equipment developed to foil enemy antiaircraft attacks during the North Viet Nam bombing. The weapons include three "smart" bombs that can be launched from a safe distance. One is the Shrike, which electronically homes in on the radar units used by SAMs. Another is the Walleye, which is steered to the target by means of a television camera in its nose. The Israelis are also interested in a third system called Pave Way, which employs two planes. One plane, which flies well out of range of enemy fire...
...more he acts like Christ, the more cruelly he is razzed by his diabolical editor ("Leper licker," Shrike calls him. "Still more swollen Mussolini of the soul"). Thinking to help, Miss Lonelyhearts arranges to meet one of his correspondents, a woman with a crippled husband. She rapes him. In the last scene, "his identification with God complete," Miss Lonelyhearts tries to envelop in cosmic pity the crippled husband-who seems to stand for long-suffering humanity. Terrified, the cripple shoots him dead...