Then things started falling apart.

然后，事情开始分崩离析。

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Median household income, adjusted for inflation, was higher in 1980 than it had been in 1976. But gas lines and double-digit inflation made people feel that things were falling apart.

然而，即使1980年排除通货膨胀因素的中产阶级家庭净收入要高于1976年，天然气管道爆炸事件[注1]和两位数的通货膨胀还是让人们感觉不是那么回事。

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He was the personification of stability and permanence, even when, in Gitlin's words, his message was "that things are falling apart."

他是安定和永久的化身，即使(用季特林的话说)他说“那个东西四分五裂了。”

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The best song from 2004's Violence in the Snowy Fields, "To Destruction" (audio), perks up only slightly, finding a glimmer of a sliver of a hint of a silver lining to things falling apart.

NPR: Finding Comfort in Feeling Trapped

How do we keep things from falling apart?

FORBES: 7 Things You Can Do To Make Your Boss Think You're Wonderful

In a medium where the notion of community rarely gets explored beyond a hug and a neat wrapup, and in a season when the safe, tame comedy of Jay Leno has wiped five hours of drama clean off the board, the producers of FNL have dug after something deeper: The idea of decay, of things breaking apart and falling away.

FORBES: Death, decay and 'Friday Night Lights'