Word: vainly
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...aftermath of the torching of Norway Field, neighborhood parents rushed out and tried in vain to repair and cover the damage, lest the field be removed completely by the city. They were protecting their children from seeing their playground destroyed. It must have been a heart-wrenching scene, a scramble to pick up burnt pieces and to beg for something to remain in the community, even if it was charred and torn. Maybe then the vandals would allow it to stay...
...even if a U.S. invasion were to succeed quickly with minimal loss of life. Either development might relieve the immediate crisis but raise the ante for the U.S. to help foster enough of a stable democracy in the unhappy island nation to prove it was not all in vain. "Haiti is not a one-day problem," acknowledges Admiral Paul Miller, head of the U.S. Atlantic Command, who will have overall charge of the U.S. forces taking over Haiti. "You have to factor the political, the military, the economic and the cultural into your planning and execution, and then figure...
...legal tender legally. In Washington this morning, a U.S. District judge sentenced the former Treasurer to four months in prison for evading taxes, obstructing justice and conspiring to hide outside income while in the post. Villalpando, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, was contrite and -- voice breaking -- begged in vain for community service instead of jail. BTW: Villalpando caused a stir at the GOP convention in '92 by calling Bill Clinton and current U.S. Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros "skirt chasers." The Bush White House made her apologize...
Humanity once had the hubris to think it could control or even conquer all these microbes. But anyone who reads today's headlines knows how vain that hope turned out to be. New scourges are emerging -- AIDS is not the only one -- and older diseases like tuberculosis are rapidly evolving into forms that are resistant to antibiotics, the main weapon in the doctor's arsenal. The danger is greatest, of course, in the underdeveloped world, where epidemics of cholera, dysentery and malaria are spawned by war, poverty, overcrowding and poor sanitation. But the microbial world knows no boundaries...
...There is an ambush: Forrest saves some of his platoon; others die; his lieutenant loses his legs. A certain horror attends the explosions and deaths but so does a strong feeling that things here are happening by the book. As indeed they are. The grunts have not died in vain: they have died as a plot device, to facilitate Gump's upward float -- and the film's apparent message: act decent, stay positive (brains optional), and everything will be fine...