Word: contentions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Must we really extend the principle of free speech to blatantly racist or sexist communications that are so offensive to others, so inflammatory, so devoid of intellectual content that they could not conceivably contribute to the pursuit of truth and understanding...
...statements are deplorable, they are presumed to be protected under the Constitution and should be equally so on the campus as well. Why? The critical question is. Whom will we trust to censor communications and decide which ones are "too offensive" or "too inflammatory" or "too devoid of intellectual content?" Past experience suggests that the task of censorship often falls into the hands of people who eventually begin to suppress communications that others consider worthwhile. Besides, should we not trust the members of our community to decide for themselves whether ideas are good or bad instead of allowing someone else...
Scientists, though, are irritated by a series of recent government reports down-playing the dangers to the ozone. One study has it that fluorocarbons will reduce the ozone content by only two to four percent by the end of the century; previous estimates put the figure at as high as 16 percent...
...seems that the day is coming when publishing will proliferate past the vanishing point; individual volumes will be obsolete before they reach the binders, and turning pages will be a literal waste of time. "Are we not threatened with a flood of information?" Lem asks. "Such vastly multiplied content in collision brings no credit to thought, but rather its destruction...
...Nunn's staging is an elephantine parody of his wondrous work on Nicholas Nickleby and Lloyd Webber's Cats; and the composer, who until now seemed an inexhaustible fountain of inventive melody, has devised a bluesy score that is sere and predictable. Lloyd Webber is no longer content simply to write musicals; now he must mount spectacles for theatergoers who will accept something big in place of something good. The performers, led by Stephanie Lawrence and a break-dancing blur named Jeffrey Daniel, are energetic troupers whose relentless "high spirits serve to underline the inspiration, and ultimate destination...