Word: absurdity
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...Skating Rink” is only a crime novel in the loosest sense. Like all of his novels, with the exception of “2666,” it begins under the pretense of a conventional plot whose conventions, either totally diminish or, like in Beckett, become so absurd as to be rendered superfluous. The narrative perspective alternates fluidly between its three protagonists: Gaspar Heredia, a Mexican night watchman at a camp ground in the Spanish coastal town of Z; Remo Morán, a Chilean novelist running several businesses in the town; and Enric Rosquelles, a deputy...
...popular arguments against radical human enhancement is that you shouldn't meddle with nature. Do you agree with this view? The view that the human genome is perfect just the way it is, is absurd. Even a cursory look at human history reveals there is also much in human nature that is horrifically bad. When a species with our track record thumps its chest and declares itself to be already perfect - with zero room for improvement - it is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. However, it doesn't follow from this that we will necessarily improve things...
Meanwhile, Berlusconi's repeated claims that he is Italy's' victim No. 1 of the media strike many as absurd, or downright Orwellian. His ownership of and influence over some 90 % of Italian television is again on bright display, as commercials have been banned on all major TV stations of a new Swedish movie that criticizes Berlusconi's media control...
...stymied by Suzie's sweatpants, he ends up at the sports bar at the nearby Marriott, the aptly named Sidelines, where his old pal Dean (Ben Affleck, shaggy as a bear) tends bar. Dean believes Xanax is the cure for everything, including the common cold. Their conversations head in absurd directions - Dean thinks Joel should hire a gigolo to seduce Suzie so he can sleep with the alluring Cindy guilt-free, a suggestion that ultimately does more damage than Cindy does - but at the same time have a real naturalism. Imagine Pulp Fiction's Jules and Vincent sitting...
...back in Washington. One sign in the small town of Adel read "Thank God Patrick Henry Did Not Compromise." Over the course of the recess, Grassley began sounding less like a potential Obama ally and more like the enemy army. When the Iowa Senator actually gave credence to the absurd notion that the House version of the legislation might allow the government to decide when, in his words, to "pull the plug on Grandma," Democrats decided he was past the point of any hope. And then came Grassley's late-August coup de grâce, a campaign fundraising letter...