Word: avuncularity
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DIED. JOHN BAHCALL, 70, avuncular astrophysicist whose pioneering work helped explain why the sun shines; of a rare blood disorder; in New York City. In addition to solar physics, Bahcall was a forceful proponent of the Hubble Space Telescope, despite the program's many early glitches. "We can take pride in an achievement that no other nation could even consider," he told TIME in 1995, describing the Hubble as being "like our pyramids--but a whole lot more important...
While Soviet news coverage of the Geneva summit was lively and thorough by past standards, the story was still carefully tailored for domestic audiences. Soviet TV's news team was led by Valentin Zorin, 61, the gray-haired, avuncular dean of Moscow's on-air political analysts. Zorin's background reports came principally from Georgi Arbatov, the Kremlin's top-ranking Americanologist. Like other Soviet journalists, Zorin adopted a tone of cautious optimism once the summit was under way, telling his audience of 150 million on the 9 o'clock nightly newscast Vremya (Time), "If the two leaders manage...
When Peking announced this summer that Jiang Zemin would replace the avuncular Wang Daohan as Shanghai's mayor, the choice seemed a bit odd. No one doubted that Jiang, 59, was a man of high accomplishment. A Soviet-trained electrical engineer fluent in four languages, Jiang distinguished himself in China's Administrative Commission of Import and Export Affairs for three years before becoming, and excelling as, the Minister of Electronics Industry. But Jiang, as he is the first to admit, had never run a municipality before, let alone his country's largest industrial city (pop. 12 million). "I'm inexperienced...
...year-old academic and author, condemned to international celebrity by his 1980 debut novel The Name of the Rose, is not without thorns. Today's discourse - ranging from his newest work of fiction, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, to politics, religion and neckties - bristles with sharp observations. Avuncular he may seem, but this famous European intellectual has not mellowed with age. Age, memory and nostalgia are, however, the central themes of Queen Loana, Eco's fifth novel, just published in English translation. Struck by amnesia, the narrator, an antiquarian book dealer, begins to dig through the paper trail...
...Over the past 20 years, Macau has been reinvented. One of the most relentless building programs of modern times has transformed this onetime Portuguese enclave from a backwater of crumbling villas, sleeping dogs and avuncular priests into a shiny pleasure zone that is the envy of southern China. From across the Pearl River estuary, Hong Kong's worldly denizens once snickered pityingly at their small-town, Macanese cousins. Now the latter are having the last laugh, unveiling bombastic showpiece after showpiece-from dazzling casinos and resorts to a new sports arena and (in the works) a lavish theme park complete...