Word: descente
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Your report "Descent Into Madness" depicted the mob incidents in Jakarta in the context of ethnic and religious hatred [WORLD, Dec. 7]. This is a mistake. Since President Suharto's resignation in May, Indonesia has entered uncharted territory marked by the guarantee of political freedom, a free press and the establishment of new political parties on an almost daily basis. We are facing huge challenges as we transform a society that has had over 30 years of authoritarian rule into one that is democratic. But the transition to democracy requires time and effort. We appreciate those who show their sympathy...
Benefits from this new era are coming fast. Prenatal screening has helped to reduce more than 95% the number of Tay-Sachs births among American Jews of East European descent, a high-risk group. As a result of early identification, a few congenital conditions, such as spina bifida, a disabling hole in the spinal cord, are being treated in the womb by experimental surgery at about seven months. Sex-selection techniques based on in-vitro fertilization can reduce the risk of giving birth to a baby with sex-linked disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy and hemophilia, which affect only...
Less amusing is the number of intellectuals, businessmen and political leaders who gave eugenics their blessing or fervid support. The list begins with Darwin, who in The Descent of Man praised his cousin Galton and decreed that genius "tends to be inherited." Other champions included the young Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Alexander Graham Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Theodore Roosevelt and the usually taciturn Calvin Coolidge, who declared during his vice presidency that "Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races...
Only minutes after the probes hit the ground, the lander will follow, descending by parachute and braking engine. Bristling with cameras and sensors, it will study Mars' terrain and weather, snapping pictures both during its descent and on the surface. It will also carry a microphone to record for the first time the sound of the Martian wind. More important, the ship will be equipped with a robotic arm and scoop, much like the arms carried aboard the Viking landers in the 1970s. Unlike the Vikings, though, which were able to paw just a few feeble inches into the Martian...
...dust jacket bears an amazingly striking picture of author T.C. Boyle: rebellish earrings, a shock of red hair, a devilish goatee and those piercing green eyes. A compilation of his previous four collections of short stories (Descent of Man, Greasy Lake, If the River Was Whiskey and Without a Hero) plus a smattering of new stories, Stories holds in one volume the complete spectrum of Boyle's writing. The satiric and the strange, the touching and the tender, the stories always have one trait in common: Boyle's characteristically piercing view of humanity...