Word: cruder
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That is an almighty freedom, absolute. We imitate it as we can, but human freedom is a cruder business. We sometimes manage to make the miraculous happen. But we have to work at it. Earthly freedom, where it exists, is a turbulent medium, full of rough winds and ironies. It is bracing and potentially dangerous. Freedom is a powerful animal that fights the barriers, and sometimes makes people wish for higher fences...
...resolution of a controversy involving the first book printed with movable metallic type. Most experts have awarded that honor to Gutenberg's two-volume, 1,282-page Bible, printed some-time between 1450 and 1455 with 42 lines of type a page. But doubts remained because of two cruder works of the mid-1400s: a rare 36-line Bible and a scrap of paper known as the Sibyllenbuch fragment, also printed in 36-line type. The question that has nagged scholars for years is whether these works were produced by Gutenberg or by someone known only as the 36-line...
Weinberger argues that the U.S. tests are needed to catch up with the Soviets, who have a much cruder ground-based ASAT system in operation. For their part, the Soviets threatened to break their unilateral moratorium on ASAT testing if the Pentagon proceeded. Ironically, the system that was tested last week is not necessarily the one that the U.S. is most likely to deploy. A ground-based model, possibly using laser technology, is favored by many military scientists...
...clouds gather over Europe, a cross section of the English nobility gathers at Sir Randolph Nettleby's estate for a weekend's shoot. The symbolic correlation between the mass destruction of feathered innocents and the slaughter soon to ensue in France seems a little cruder onscreen than it did in Isabel Colegate's subtle novel of manners, as do the human dramas played out around the mansion. But as Sir Randolph, the late James Mason, whose last performance this was, is superb in his distracted eccentricity, especially in a scene with John Gielgud, who plays an animal- rights enthusiast dangerously...
...nature of superpower deterrence. The global nuclear balance is maintained not by the mere possession of atomic arsenals, but by weapons systems that are relatively secure from enemy attack. In the Middle East, or in any other Third World context, atomic weapons and their delivery vehicles would be cruder and more vulnerable. Hence there is a dangerous possibility that open proliferation could make the use of nuclear weapons more, rather than less, tempting...