Word: diminisher
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...time, you are ignored, even if, as a parent, you hold all the theoretical power. The helicopters signaled that we were still on the Sandinistas' side. They already believed we weren't. If that impression stuck, our ability to influence their decisions would diminish. And at that time, when the question of their actually transferring office was very much in doubt, our influence was more crucial than ever...
That the Earth Day image has been hijacked by cheap merchandise does not in itself diminish the importance of Earth Day. But by treating the event as if it were the Super Bowl or Head of the Charles Weekend, its message is obscured, and support for environmental conservation is reduced to a mere fad. Earth Day now more resembles the Simpsons or Batman than a crucial consciousness-raising event...
Last week Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, reaffirmed the death sentence against Rushdie proclaimed a year ago by his predecessor, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. "Mercenary hands which try to diminish Islam by cultural plots like writing blasphemous books," Khamenei said, would be punished...
...seems possible to wonder whether so intense a concentration on the sinfulness of abortion does not in some way diminish the church's self- proclaimed role as teacher and guide. Is there any other offense, even the defrauding of widows and orphans, for which a Mario Cuomo would today be warned about the risk of eternal punishment? To ask this is not to deny that abortion is a serious matter, or that its casual use as an ex post facto contraceptive is a national scandal. But to decide whether an individual is guilty of committing an act deserving of hell...
Whether attitudes like Olson's diminish American competitiveness is unproven. But taken to its extreme, anti-intellectualism demonstrably impedes technological progress. During the Cultural Revolution, for example, when professors were ridiculed and universities were shut, China suffered a "lost generation" of technical experts and academicians, a loss it is still trying to make...