Word: tanked
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...crisis over, the helicopters that were withheld in December were sent to Nicaragua at the end of January. Moscow, however, assured Washington that they were equipped for civilian use only. In explaining the Kremlin's decision to send the choppers after all, a Soviet academic at a Moscow think tank offers a lesson in the application of pressure. "To maintain one's influence in a situation," he says, "it is often necessary -- in fact it is usually necessary -- to both give and withhold. Especially in Latin America, where every leader thinks he is some sort of mystic God, diplomacy requires...
...gags come in every size and shape. Small: Marty in full cowboy regalia except for his shoes, which are, incongruously, sneakers. Large: an Indian arrow having punctured the gas tank of their time machine (still that goofily customized DeLorean), Marty and Doc must purloin a locomotive to push the car up to warp speed. Romantic: frenetic Doc smitten by love for -- who else in a western? -- Mary Steenburgen's lovely schoolmarm. Deliciously anticipated: the appearance of Marty's bullying nemesis Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), this time got up as his distant ancestor Buford ("Mad Dog") Tannen, the dumbest...
...vast interior spaces and abundant resources, America is vulnerable to transnational environmental threats such as global warming and stratospheric ozone depletion. "A new kind of international security threat is advancing on us," warns Gus Speth, president of the World Resources Institute in Washington, a leading environmental think tank. "The world's geopolitical systems may be faring better, but its ecological systems are in trouble...
...often dark and cold; prosperity has changed that. Another is that, with prices high, many people prefer the neighborhood cafe to the famous institutions. Still, the 40th anniversary can be celebrated only at the Cafe de la Mairie, and though it has become a bit fancy -- the old goldfish tank has disappeared, along with the chessboard -- it is still a neighborhood cafe. It bears its literary traditions lightly. It hardly remembers that Saul Bellow used to drink here, and William Faulkner too, or that Djuna Barnes set several scenes in Nightwood here. In fact, when the proprietor was once asked...
...find a mission that would justify its continued existence. In what defense specialist Edward Luttwak calls a "geopolitical meltdown," the collapse of the Warsaw Pact has forced the Pentagon to reassess what sorts of war the U.S. may have to fight in the future. Rather than a huge tank-and-artillery Armageddon on the central front of Europe, the most likely outbreaks will be "low-intensity conflicts" such as the American invasions of Grenada and Panama. Although these are precisely the sort of assignment for which the Marines were created, they played no central role in either of them. Their...