Word: tragic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...summer that the earth struck back. Amid an unnerving global heat wave, scientists took the planet's temperature and debated whether the greenhouse effect had already begun. At the beach, syringes replaced seashells. The wholesale destruction of forests in northern India and Nepal helped spawn a tragic flood in Bangladesh. Sturgeon were infected by toxic wastes in the Soviet Union, threatening the caviar supply. And, belatedly, the environment returned as a compelling political issue...
...THEBAN PLAYS (PBS, Sept. 16, 23, 30, 9 p.m. on most stations). Sophocles' tragic Oedipus trilogy gets world-class treatment in a BBC production starring Anthony Quayle and Claire Bloom...
...then, and this is now. Twenty years later, almost every cause that animated the '60s has been repudiated by the revisionism of the sedentary '80s. The interplay between Ronald Reagan and shifting cultural attitudes has created a new orthodoxy of patriotism and restraint: Viet Nam (a noble if tragic cause), drugs (just say no) and sex (play it safe). As the pendulum swings to the right, woe betide any baby-boom politician who spent the '60s doing anything more daring than swallowing goldfish and doing the Frug. Before the nation gives way to a new slogan, "Don't Trust Anyone...
...legendary 19th century Military Theorist Karl von Clausewitz called it simply the "fog of war," that unfathomable combination of human personality, weapons performance and just plain luck that makes battle so unpredictable. This "fog," the Pentagon declared last week, was largely to blame for the tragic decision by the U.S.S. Vincennes on July 3 to shoot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians...
That Reagan failed even to try is perhaps the most tragic part of the legacy. By the beginning of his second term, Reagan had enough credibility to use his inspirational skill to talk straight to the American people. He could at least have attempted to confront the inequities and flaws of Reaganomics by investing some of his capital as the Great Communicator. But he passed up the chance, making it even harder for any successor to bear bad tidings...