Word: assertation
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...decrepit continent. In "The Ghosts of August," a family travels to an Italian castle owned by a Caribbean writer. The writer has remodeled certain parts of the castle, and thus metaphorically left his mark on Europe, but there are deeper and more ancient powers in the castle that assert themselves in the swift and brutal denouement. In "The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow," a Colombian woman goes into a Parisian hospital to be treated for a minor cut and is never seen again. The protagonist of "I Only Came to Use the Phone" ends up in a Kafkaesque...
...haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking peace pansies"), and his logic can be unforgivably specious (against the pro-choice argument for abortion:"Can a woman choose to steal, using her own body?"). But in fact his views on abortion are relatively nuanced. Nor is it kooky or even wrong to assert, as Limbaugh has, that the risk of heterosexual AIDS and estimates of the homeless population have been exaggerated for political reasons, that increased school expenditures don't necessarily produce better education, that means testing for Social Security would be a fine idea, that taking responsibility for one's own life...
...that unequivocally supports or deplores homosexual love would bruise the our personal integrity by telling us that we had better come to the right moral conclusions about homosexuality, fast. By taking an official stance on the issue, Harvard could say that homosexual life is completely unproblematic, or it could assert that homosexual life is hopelessly compromised. Both statements are unconvincing and patronizing. It is like saying either that abortion is completely acceptable or that abortion is in all cases unacceptable. Either way, one denies moral complexity and rejects ambivalence as an option...
...Clinton needs now that he's finally getting his presidency on track is another messy battle over a "marginal" issue that will distract him and the nation from his crusade for health care reform. On the other hand, if he were to win such a battle, Clinton might finally assert some authority over a renegade Democratic Congress, which has demonstrated little respect for the Democratic president it awaited for so long. Besides, the decision to contest a ruling that he would have praised a year ago underscores the schizophrenia-bordering-on-hypocrisy that has plagued Clinton's actions (or inaction...
...would very strongly assert that pre-medscare about this issue," said Jesse M. Furman '94,one of the coordinators of the meeting. "[Thatmore pre-meds did not attend the meeting]indicates a tremendous amount of fear that anyinvolvement will be held against them...