Word: blanket
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...only doing what they have to do in the face of academe's changing needs and hardening realities. Moreover, laymen and even some independent-minded faculty scorn tenure as a refuge for the insecure or the marginally competent. But the fact is that tenure or some analogous security blanket is basic to the role of the university as an arena of open inquiry. Scholars must be free within wide bounds to teach, write and research in accordance with their convictions, whether or not these convictions are congenial to their superiors or to society at large...
Even Christmas brought no respite. Ronald and Nancy Reagan exchanged gifts (a red robe for her, a horse blanket for him) and on Saturday flew off to Palm Springs, Calif., for a week's vacation, but in the Oval Office the President kept a low profile. Perhaps the holidays would quell the furor over the Iran arms scandal, if only temporarily. But Iranscam offered only more grim tidings: continued inertia and infighting at the White House, increased squabbling between the Administration and Capitol Hill over how to clear up the mess, questions about the health of CIA Director William Casey...
...months ago, 15 scientists flew into McMurdo Station, Antarctica, to investigate a mystery: What causes a thinning in atmospheric ozone above the frigid continent, a phenomenon that has peaked each October since it was first observed in 1983? It was hardly an academic question; the ozone layer is a blanket of oxygen molecules that protects the earth's surface from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation, a form of light just beyond the human range of vision. Speculation on the reason for these "holes" has ranged from weather patterns and solar activity to the action of man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs...
Tropical rain forests blanket about 7% of the planet and support nearly 50% of earth's known species. A single hectare (2.5 acres) of this lush arboreal growth may include more than 100 species of tree, each with its own interdependent colonies of plants and animals. But in the past several hundred years, the area of the globe covered by rain forest has decreased by some 44%. According to one U.N. study, 23,000 sq. mi. of rain forests are cut down every year -- an area about the size of West Virginia. One World Resources Institute staffer calculated that developers...
...just 90 court-approved requests in 1982 to more than 150 in each of the past two years. The various investigating agencies, including state and local police, have found novel places to hide their bugs: in a Perrier bottle, a stuffed toy, a pair of binoculars, shoes, an electric blanket, a horse's saddle. Agents even admit to dropping snooping devices into a confessional at a Roman Catholic church frequented by mobsters, as well as a church candlestick holder and a church men's room. All this, agents insist, was done with court permission...