Word: barrens
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Ever since Chinese authorities seized the Soviet-operated Chinese Eastern Railway (TIME, July 22) and expelled Communist agents from Manchuria, Chinese and Russian soldiers have scowled at each other across Manchuria's barren border, fired occasional shots, made desultory raids. Last week tension snapped. Soviet strategists, choosing a moment when civil war wracked half of China, sent four modern divisions, complete with tanks. over the line. Two divisions moved west from Vladivostok, two east from Chita to clamp Manchuria in a Soviet vise...
...unfortunate aspect of this fading power is not that Harvard will eventually lose its firm grasp on the American stage, but that what was once a fertile field of capable dramatists has suddenly become barren for want of cultivation. The tradition which established theatrical activity has fortunately not had time to become extinct as is definitely indicated by the recurring undergraduate efforts to cause some sort of dramatic revival. But the impetus necessary to materialize these feelings must come before the fire is smothered in the obliterating blanket of opposition and neglect...
...presentation that involves letting the curtain fall every five minutes. But this straight revue method fortunately prevents any attempt to graft the customary inane plot on the picture. The individual scenes are introduced by Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel, who for the most part are successful in making this barren role humorous. The acts themselves are excellent, with the exception of a peculiarly irritating sob-ballad by Charles King...
...average voter of Boston doubtless feels somewhat non-plussed. His into directs him to choose among men who, with smooth-flowing words and in all seriousness, call each other liars, thieves, and murderers. The get out-the-vote campaigns of the newspapers this year are operating with somewhat barren material. It is fairly easy to call out the citizenry when it feels the presence of party needs, great issues, distinguished candidates. It becomes increasingly difficult as each of these matters is in turn obscured by the very men who are seeking office. Perhaps the best way for voters to show...
...democracy carried too far. Proceeding on the assumption that all men are created equal, and should therefore receive equal doses of education, the founders of American public schools are necessarily constrained to keep scholastic standards down to the level of the lowly, but unfortunately ample, ranks of the barren-witted. And as a result, those students whose mental capacity is greater are virtually invited to coast through their school years on their inherent superiority...