Word: absurd
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Ethical Practices Committee of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. that might get their whole brotherhood thrown out of the big union. The heart of their problem was best illustrated by the fouled sparkplugs brought along by the four biggest of them: bellowing Dave Beck, newly harassed (he cried) by some absurd vendetta of the income tax people; Minneapolis Teamster Vice President Sidney L. Brennan, convicted of accepting a bribe; Western Conference Chair man Frank Brewster, convicted of contempt of Congress; and, with topmost billing in the news, James Riddle Hoffa, chairman of the Central States Conference of Teamsters, struggling to keep...
...What is demanded,'' added Princeton's Philosopher Jacques Maritain, a Roman Catholic, "is to get rid of those absurd prejudices which can be traced back to the Renaissance and which banish from the blessed land of educational curricula a number of authors and matters under the pretext that they are specifically religious, and therefore not 'classical,' though they matter essentially to the common treasure of culture. The writings of the Fathers of the Church are an integral part of the humanities as well as, or more than, those of the Elizabethan dramatists." The traditional classical...
...Peking People's Daily, which published it as an example of the kind of criticism Chairman Mao does not welcome, all this was nothing but "queer talk and absurd theories." But perhaps Ko's remarks had some bearing on the most startling admission in Mao's no longer secret speech: "The question of whether socialism or capitalism will win [in China] is still not really settled...
...made of a nylon stocking stuffed with paper). Mother catches her at it: "Whatever were you burning? It smells very funny." Most readers will agree, but Daddy is recalled to his responsibilities, the Labor Party and Mother. Novelist Murdoch's plain moral: better a dull fate than an absurd adventure. But the figure of Rain, that Audrey Hepburn sprite, has become an obsessively recur rent character in Iris Murdoch's work, suggesting that inside every female philosopher there is a pixy struggling to be let out to play...
Many of the question, of course, are just stupid. Many important questions are not asked; although the Yearbook is interested in numbers of future progeny, it could not care less about future vocations. Absurd questions, which could have been answered freshman year (where is home, family income, reasons for coming) take the place of questions which could only be answered, if at all, by Seniors. Some of the right questions are asked, of course, but in a way which allows all significance to escape with a quiet hiss. Seniors are asked whether they believe that labor unions have become...