Word: comprehend
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...what do we do to part the sea of beseeching hands? We lie. We lie our heads off. I become a mute, signing that I don't understand, as if anyone could fail to comprehend what they're asking of me. My translator makes great speeches about how we're going to see what's holding the aid up (true), how there's huge problems in its distribution (true) and how we're going to rail against the aid agencies, the Afghan authorities and the governments of the world, and, if we have to, physically force them to bring food...
Take religion. Religion exploits a simple bootstrapping problem unique to humans: we are unable to understand the nature of our death or non-existence, because our understanding of this state presupposes that we exist to comprehend it. There is no way to wrap our heads around the concept of our demise, and thus most religions, in their many guises, offers us a way out of this logical impasse by offering a solution: we never die. Or, more accurately, those who share the meme will not die. Aye, and here is where the replication comes in. Those harboring the little virus...
...Afghans still don't understand what this war is really about. They can't comprehend the enormity of what happened on Sept 11, nor why our wrath has fallen on them. Remember: the Talibans don't believe in TV or newspapers. Afghans haven't seen those horrifying images of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. An aid worker friend was in Afghanistan at the time, trying to explain the dimensions of the calamity to Afghans. "They couldn't understand what the fuss was about. They thought the World Trade Center was a few shops at a caravan crossing...
...friend noted how quickly a question about one’s friends and relatives became a platitude. One needs not say more than “Is everyone...?” and the questioned would comprehend. If the question were uttered between friends, aware of a household in one of the affected states, it would most certainly be the first part of a greeting. Otherwise, perhaps it was inserted after inquiries about the summer or even at the very end of a conversation. How would you react if the person had said, “Yes, my father was killed?...
...Evil brings evil upon itself," he exulted. "This is Allah's punishment for the wrong that America has done to Muslims." It is easy for Khan to understand the mentality of the airline hijackers who unleashed their apocalyptic destruction on New York and Washington. He can comprehend how 19 educated men, despite having seen the world in all its wondrous multiplicity, can crash airliners into skyscrapers because, in his heart, Khan is one of them. Yet Khan doesn't fit the profile of a typical Muslim terrorist. He's not a vengeful Palestinian youth whose brother was gunned down...