Word: skillful
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America never stops moaning about the absence of heroes--"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"--yet when it has someone who daily displays grit, generosity, spirit and skill, not to mention incredibly blue eyes, what does it do? It looks this generation's gift horse in the mouth. Robert Lipsyte, the respected New York Times columnist, recently suggested that Ripken take a seat rather than sully Gehrig's memory. And the hate mail that Ripken has received this summer has been of such volume and venom that Major League Baseball has had to beef up the security around...
...labor exchange. But the sight of hungry Mexicans spooks Kyra's clients, and she sees to it that the exchange is shut. Delaney's liberal beliefs crumble, and he votes with other residents to build a wall, with a gate, around their development. The author, mistrusting his skill and the reader's acuteness, relentlessly flashes irony alerts. Candido gets work constructing the wall, knowing well enough whom it is intended to keep out. Coyotes eat the nature writer's lapdogs, Osbert and Sacheverell. And when a mud slide sweeps Delaney toward mucky death, let there be no doubt whose brown...
...writes criticJohn Skow. Some writers can carry this off; Boyle definitely can't. His new novel (Viking; 355 pages; $23.95) has possibilities in its discussion of the shuddering distaste of California's Anglos for the Mexican illegals who perform the state's stoop labor. But the author mistrusts his skill and the reader's acuteness. "This is weak, obvious stuff," says Skow, "worth a raised eyebrow and a shrug...
...carried forward from ATF's moonshine-hunting days. "With ATF it's always been the good ole boy system, white males from the Southeast," Albritton says. The generation of ATF officials who hired today's senior managers were typically men hired for their knowledge of Southern mores and their skill at outwitting deep-country bootleggers. Once these woodcraft experts reached positions of authority, says Larry Stewart, assistant special agent in charge of ATF's Atlanta office, "they hired people who looked like them, who talked like them, who had the same habits." As soon as Stewart began reporting acts...
...ordeal and rescue. However, I agree with the captain in asking for recognition for the many other pilots and service personnel who continue to put their lives on the line for the U.N. peacekeeping effort. What kind of role model is the media presenting to pilots who have the skill-and good fortune-to keep their jets intact and continue flying the same dangerous missions day after day? Get shot down, and you too can have lunch with the President? Alan Cardenas Breckenridge, Colorado...