Word: absurd
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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McMullen's tales of I.R.A. activities in the United Kingdom, to which he returned in 1973, are filled with incidents ranging from absurd to chilling. Five years ago, the I.R.A. was plagued by corruption and laxity, McMullen said. Once in 1974 he could not assemble a squad to bomb a British barracks in Northern Ireland because "Sean had to go to Mass and Seamus had to visit his mother and Kevin had to milk the cows. It sounded like one of those Irish jokes...
...Soviets' military buildup in general and their nuclear versatility in particular. The Soviet Union's improving and multifaceted nuclear capacity, he said, not only is making it increasingly difficult for the U.S. to defend against Soviet missile systems, but also is cornering the U.S. into the "absurd" single nuclear option of destroying Soviet cities while U.S. population centers are wiped out in return. The lack of credible lower-level military options, he said, could render the U.S. helpless against Soviet pressure on threatened allies...
...must face the fact that it is absurd to base the strategy of the West on the credibility of the threat of mutual suicide. We live in a paradoxical world; it is precisely the liberal, humane, progressive community that is advocating the most bloodthirsty strategies...
...looks as if SALT II will be endorsed [Aug. 13], as long as the Administration agrees to spend more money on defense. There will be arms limitation, but only if we can have more arms. This is absurd...
IMAGINE A SESAME STREET CIRCUS: demented Muppets in Crayola-Vision scampering around the arena babbling at '78 r.p.m., accompanied by Muzak and Kodacolor slides of Star Market. This absurd vision closely approximates the experience of seeing the Loeb's production of Vladimir Mayakovsky's The Bedbug...