Word: subjects
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...scoff, saying they have clear evidence that Barbouti was the key broker for the chemical factory. Though they have yet to find proof that he knew the Libyans planned to make nerve gas there, at least one official flatly labels Barbouti "the central villain" of the plot and "the subject of intense scrutiny for some time." In fact, both the Swiss and West German governments are conducting criminal investigations of his role in the Libyan project, and tax authorities in England and Scotland are looking into his Byzantine business affairs...
Since, as Barbouti explains, he wants neither to lie nor to tell the truth, the details of the story he relates may be subject to considerable refinement. He says he was born to a wealthy Iraqi family, studied architecture in Zurich and Vienna and received a doctorate in West Berlin (hence "Doctor"). He taught architecture at Baghdad University in Iraq, ran a private consulting business there, invested in banking, insurance and industry, and served as a sometime government adviser. In 1969, a year after the Baath Party came to power, Barbouti fled the country, fearing that he might be arrested...
Underlying Ball's embattled tenure was one of the central conflicts in the history of the regional movement. Is a city's theater the actual building and the bureaucratic institution, and thus a public trust conventionally subject to accountability? Or is the theater instead the work onstage, which rises or falls according to the individuality and vision of the company's artistic leader? Ball, who regarded the ouster of an artist by a board of directors as a kind of theft, stipulated when A.C.T. came to San Francisco that the local board must serve only as fund raisers, with scant...
...being a pretty depressing human endeavor, has never been a favorite subject for network entertainment. The Viet Nam War, being pretty depressing even as wars go, would seem to be nearly untouchable. Not only was there too much R-rated action (drug abuse, massacres of civilians) but the story had an unhappy ending. Such recent movies as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket could immerse their audience in the muck and moral quicksand for a couple of hours and then let go. But TV series must keep viewers coming back week after week, adhering to standards of "family entertainment" along...
...credit is due: no other dramatic shows on TV deal with such relentlessly uncheery subject matter. Tour of Duty is the more conventional of the two, an L.A. Law-style mix of characters, subplots and issues that are introduced and neatly resolved by episode's end. The show's flaws are familiar: characters who are too simplistic (the hotdogging helicopter pilot, the streetwise black private), and plot twists that are too patly "illuminating." When a battle- fatigued soldier is sent back into combat before he is ready -- over the objections of his sergeant and a psychiatrist -- you can bet that...