Word: underpinned
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Perfect Wagnerites know that the operas are built from short musical phrases, called leitmotivs, that symbolize characters and ideas. There are themes for Siegfried's sword and Wotan's spear, for renunciation of love and for its redemption. Artfully intertwined, they underpin Wagner's own libretto, based on the sagas of Norse and Germanic legend. In presenting what the composer called a "stage-festival play," Kupfer found physical leitmotivs to complement the musical ones and give his production a visual as well as a musical unity. Characters do not just stand and sing; they stand and deliver, fighting with fury...
Hence, Kennedy detects a pattern repeated over and over: "Wealth is usually needed to underpin military power, and military power is usually needed to acquire and protect wealth." While worrying about their foes, states playing in the world arena must constantly maintain a delicate internal equilibrium. Armies are required for security, but they cost money. Military superiority by itself is often deceiving, since it may be weakening a state's ability to compete economically and fund future conflicts...
Such attitudes are not altogether unknown in the 3,000-member Mustang Club, an S.M.U.-based organization whose dollars have helped underpin S.M.U.'s record as a jock palace (three Bowl games and a No. 2 national ranking in the past six years). Says one faculty member: "Only being No. 1 counts for anything . . . getting there is all that counts as long as you don't land in jail." Advocates of this hard-line boosterism hoped that S.M.U. could skate past the death penalty and be back to business as usual in '88 after the probation ends...
...export area, the Reagan Administration can claim that its cooperative approach has achieved mild success. Last year South Africa assured Washington that it would administer its nuclear program in line with the "spirit, principles and goals" that underpin the nuclear suppliers' trigger list. The Pretoria government promised that it would not supply nuclear technology, materials or equipment to any other country without International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards or the equivalent provided by the European atomic community, known as EURATOM...
...already strained beyond their limits companies may be reluctant to expand and hire new workers, since they may not be able to get to work. Warns the Council of State Planning Agencies in a disturbing new report entitled America in Ruins: "The deteriorated condition of basic facilities that underpin the economy will prove a critical bottleneck to national economic renewal during this decade unless we can find ways to finance public works. " The worst infrastructure ills...