Word: decentering
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...almost too obvious to be worth noting: two southern hillbillies with no business in the national spotlight, much less the national consciousness, amble confidently into positions of immense power. And as if their poor backwoods pedigrees weren't enough reason for damnation, both seemed the enemy of all things decent: Elvis was sex, and Bill Clinton, if not the embodiment of libido himself, never really wanted to, or could, totally evade the truth about his womanizing. Writing of Clinton, Marcus notes that "many still can't believe it, any more than in 1956 they or others, those horrified and those...
...bear to listen to lawyers droning for so long? The campaign itself went on for two years more than it should have, and the pettifogging afterblather is more than decent citizens should be asked to endure. I have pulled the covers over my head. In the month since the election, I have reread "War and Peace," interminable and still the greatest novel. No one ever described the fog of battle better than Tolstoy. I have lately been comforting myself with the Book of Proverbs, which I carry around in a pocket edition from Grove Press and dip into whenever...
...been in vain; judges farther down the food chain had had their fairness challenged, even as they ruled for the Democrats one day, the Republicans the next. Maybe the nation's highest court would be able to guide us home. "The Supreme Court is the only decent way out," said a Democrat who has worked for three Presidents in as many decades. "That would at least give the next President some legitimacy...
...loses, Gore should disconnect himself completely from power for a couple of years--the power that addles his judgment and scrambles his more decent instruments. He should move far from Washington (not to Tennessee) and find a job among real people. He should take a vow of political silence. He should grow a beard, discard his ego and, for two years, listen to people. He should learn to walk like a normal human being...
...pulls away. When an object suddenly appears in front of it, Kismet quickly withdraws and flashes a look of bewilderment. Most winningly, the robot is able to engage in a babbling "conversation" with humans in its midst. When it "talks," it takes turns with its human interlocutor, a decent representation of a conversation between an adult and an infant. By one measure, Kismet is a clear success: people love it. When visitors arrive in the lab, they are drawn to the robot. When Kismet engages them, they are invariably charmed. "It's human nature," says Breazeal. "They are very concerned...