Word: vitality
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...starvation advances, the body tries to conserve energy by limiting all but the most vital processes. Cell division slows drastically. Even hair stops growing. Reduced fuel burning drives body temperature down; that, combined with the loss of insulating fat, can lead to death from hypothermia -- a threat on a cool Somalian evening. The shutting down of the intestines can lead to the paradox of death by diarrhea. Reduced production of white blood cells weakens the immune system, a kind of starvation-induced AIDS that turns diseases like measles into killers. Eventually the body begins burning muscle tissue wholesale: victims become...
...with the Soviets, the U.S. gained the opportunity to put more emphasis on its ideals than on its interests. But so far, it has mainly focused on the latter. American troops went into Panama to stem the flow of drugs and into Kuwait to protect the flow of oil -- vital national interests indeed. In both cases, President Bush stressed America's moral motivations. But James Baker made the gaffe (defined as a politician's accidentally telling the truth) of admitting that the reason for going into the Persian Gulf was "jobs, jobs, jobs...
...over a little history ("Jesus Christ. Man broke my heart and I needed the loot"), runs down some collaborators ("The dirty bum," she says of her producer, Norman Granz. "I hate that son of a bitch") and in general gives a strong account of the spirit that kept her vital even as her body was giving...
...must admit/You're lost/ But really you must not lose the way," she writes of the human condition. This can refer to losing the "way" of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but the poem suggests a further, broader meaning: by losing the connection of poetry to history, we lose a vital way of understanding our past...
...precedent. For the U.N., it is the first intervention without even pro forma permission in an independent country. For the U.S., it is a major military action in the name of morality: addressing a situation that does not threaten American national security and in which the U.S. has no vital interests. It is, as Bush said, a purely humanitarian action. But then why in Somalia and not in Bosnia? Or Liberia or Sudan...