Word: witness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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More often, Shales stings his victims with wit. Investigative reporters who pounce on their prey in ambush interviews are practicing "bonzo journalism," said Shales. "Naturally one is reminded of the old story about the dog chasing cars -what do they do if they catch one? Wrestle him to the ground? Drag him off to the hoosegow?" Shales ridiculed Dan Rather's histrionic foray into Afghanistan last year for 60 Minutes, dubbing him "Gunga Dan," and noting that Rather's peasant garb "made him look like an extra out of Dr. Zhivago." Some viewers still cannot tune...
Harvard also played a role in isolating the Class of '56 behind a wall of cliches and stereotypes. Relying on its inimitable wit, Cambridge's only breakfast table daily commented on the times with regular fashion features. A fall 1955 caption describes a photo of an attractive woman snoozing through a Sever Hall class: "If a girl intends to sleep during and after a lecture, she will look and feel more comfortable in this twin sweater with wool skirt... Contrast is recommended for government courses, harmony for social relations...
...MOST SUCCESSFUL aspect of this production is Leib's nimble translation. It animates potentially deadly 18th-century dialogue with a vigorous, almost athletic wit that each character seems to have borrowed from the author. Beaumarchais' language springs from that same period of transition which in England created a Samuel Johnson--classically balanced sentences informed with a nascent romantic sense of power and purpose. Leib delivers all the author's aphorisms and anecdotes in contemporary, but not vulgarly "updated," English; and a quick comparison between his version of Figaro's monologue and those of other translators--even that of such...
Throughout, Galbraith is as laconic as an Ontario plow jockey. He offers little about his private life; his wit is a bit too mechanical, as are mordant observations like "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." Yet Galbraith's air of detachment is satisfying. It enables him to place himself in recent history without seeming more or less important than he was. He is one of the few contemporary memoirists who have held the line on inflation...
...Nighthawks is so moronically written and directed, so entirely without wit or novelty, that there is plenty of time to wonder about its many missing explanations. Also missing is the leading lady -Lindsay Wagner, who is supposed to be Deke's beloved but has only two brief scenes. Also absent are the charm and style Billy Dee Williams might have brought to his role as Deke's partner...