Word: benignantly
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...zone around the vast Panguna copper mine. The villagers who fall inside his territory are denied essential services, and face a fragile security situation. Blundering by corporate jet into this dysfunctional society came an eccentric Australian businessman. His arrival brought hollow promises of multi-million-dollar business deals and benign health programs, and coincided with Musingku's growing influence over Ona. Says the head of the U.N. Observer Mission to Bougainville, Tor Stenbock: "Ona has lost touch with reality...
Upon arriving at Harvard, first-years find their introductory semester to be replete with ridiculous, if entertaining, traditions. These time-honored pastimes range in absurdity, from the rather benign obsession with John Harvard’s toe to the more risqué disrobement of Primal Scream. We like to think these quirks add to a sense of camaraderie and community—essential to the experience of every college student. And there was a time when every Harvard student had the opportunity to annually don a bib, clutch a fork and impale his or her very own large, red crustacean...
...Such benign bias has its limits, of course. Professors should always question their students, but never heckle them or mock them. Students should not feel, in general, that they cannot get good grades without abandoning their true political views. But the number of cases of biased grading practices on account of political leanings is surely less severe than the problem of teaching fellow ignorance or poorly worded exams. Until cases of the persecution of conservatives appear on its campus, a college should refrain from exerting undue influence on a professor’s right to free and open expression...
...Detractors point to abundant evidence that authority in Britain is not always benign: racist police botch major investigations; faulty government databases regularly cause chaos; people are imprisoned for crimes it later turns out they did not commit. When the heat of his struggle with Quinn subsides, Blunkett - if he survives as Home Secretary - will be standing in a landscape littered with evidence that even good people can do screwy things. The next time Britain's top cop is writing a bill to stiffen punishments or restrict liberties, that's something he would do well to remember...
Regardless of the intentions of the writer of that subject (whether malicious or benign), the situation highlights a greater issue—the imposition of “Masters” on Harvard students is grossly insensitive and instigates conflict that can easily be avoided...