Word: benignities
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...burly party secretary, Bettino Craxi, 46. Three weeks ago, Craxi unexpectedly announced an alliance with the Social Democrats and brought them into the coalition as an additional, fourth partner. Finally, in exchange for policy concessions on labor and the economy, Forlani may have secured the prospect of a comparatively benign opposition from the powerful Communists (30% of the vote), who were unremittingly hostile to Cossiga...
...have been the trigger for the combination of the first DNA molecules. Eventually some 300 more papers would follow, including a particularly brilliant bit of deduction about the planet Venus. At the time, many scientists still regarded Venus as a kind of sister planet of the earth with a benign climate. But radio emissions from the planet were hinting at puzzlingly high temperatures. Sagan pointed out that a Venusian atmosphere of carbon dioxide and water vapor would trap solar heat, create a "greenhouse effect" and raise surface temperatures far above those of the earth. His prediction was soon confirmed...
Fashions in movie genres hit Hollywood in successive waves of benign silliness. Remember the gang-war cycle, the roller-disco pix, the movies about movie stuntmen? Now there's another improbable genre: Noah's ark meets the road movie. Within the past year, three films have told the story of a salt-of-the-earth guy and a sugar-and-spice gal who meet, fight and find true love while trucking cross-country in the company of large animals. Robert Redford and Jane Fonda liberated a Thoroughbred in The Electric Horseman; Burt Reynolds and Sally Field midwifed...
After all, the author never quite grew up. His prose style may have matured over four decades. But Bradbury, the benign father of four daughters who peers at the world through thick if not always rose-colored glasses, remains the quintessential boy, bemused by his ability to whip out a story (he does most first drafts in a matter of hours) and thrilled by his success. Most people lose the capacity for wonder as they grow older. Not Bradbury. "I'm one of the few people I know who still say 'Gee, whiz,' " he admits...
...outside European villages to gobble up grandmothers. They trailed troikas across the frozen steppes, waiting for some tender Muscovite to be tossed their way. They howled through the Canadian wilderness on the heels of succulent trappers lost in the snow. All that has changed. Now wolves are seen as benign and useful citizens of the ecosystem. They protect nature's delicate balance by keeping down those troublesome caribou herds and even practice birth control. Wolves do still howl, of course, but, as Michael Fox reassuringly points out, this is often to express "their unity and kinship through song...