Word: absurdities
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...number of workers who can find jobs only in the underground economy. (It's not the taxes employers are avoiding, he says. It's the health benefits and safety regulations.) He complains that to reach undecided voters, candidates have to buy ads on American Idol and Desperate Housewives--an absurd context for messages about governing. (But he adds, "You gotta take 'em where they are.") He insists that journalists are clueless captives of the narrow-minded worlds they come from--a number he has been running on reporters for more than 30 years, but it's still pretty effective...
...further discussion of the O.A. is quite to the point—he himself realizes its superiority to any E., however A. His illustration includes one of the key “Wake Up the Grader” phrases—“It is absurd.” What force! What gall! What fun! “Ridiculous,” “hopeless,” “nonsense,” on the one hand; “doubtless,” “obvious,” “unquestionable...
...example of an unwarranted assumption.In the long run the expert in the use of unwarranted assumption comes off better than the equivocator. He would deal with our question on Hume not by baffling the grader or by fencing him but like this: “It is absurd to discuss whether Hume is representative of the age in which he lived unless we note the progress of that age on all fronts. After all, Hume did not live in a vacuum.”At this point our assumption expert proceeds to discuss anything which strikes his fancy...
...pedagogical concerns, forcing children to choose concentrations so early has practical pitfalls. The selection of a specialty is a watershed decision that profoundly affects one’s future, career, and interests. Although this system will force students to start thinking about these critical choices early on, it is absurd to assert that a 14-year-old is prepared to make this decision. Indeed, many college students and adults have difficulty making such decisions and switch between fields repeatedly before finding their true calling...
...They include a couple of formerly well-known French actors (Simone Signoret and Jean-Pierre Cassel), but mostly they have creased, worn, knowing anonymous faces that, to this day, one sees going in and out of the corner tabacs all over France. Melville never comments on the absurd distance between the risks this group runs and the apparent paucity of the results they achieve. Melville has said that at the time his picture covers (1942-43) the underground had only 600 members (more joined later) so there wasn?t much they could do but try to save their own skins...