Word: dire
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Facing up to this dire possibility, Fuel Minister Lloyd told an anxious House of Commons that British industry must drastically wean itself from dependence on coal for power. By 1960, said Lloyd, British oil refineries (expanding at breakneck speed) will provide enough fuel oil to replace 25 million tons of coal a year. Thereafter, he added, he is counting on atomic power to drive out "the specter of the coal...
...spiritual meaning. The Swedes regard the church as a proper place to marry in or be buried from; only a handful go to Sunday worship. The bishop with whom I spoke-one of those who signed the notorious letter-personally opposes abortions and birth control "except in cases of dire medical necessity." But he admitted to me that he had never spoken out against either of these things in church, because he "did not think it would be proper, as long as they are legal." Whatever the cause, sexual moral standards in Sweden today are jolting to an outsider. Statistics...
...novel, The Confidence-Man is a near miss, one of those pregnant and provocative failures that prove more rewarding to read than a whole litter of lesser writers' tidy but empty triumphs. Austere and philosophical, it sometimes seems all head and no tale. Despite its dire point of view, the book jests and jostles with life, and really belongs with the sardonic comic charades of Swift, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, and Ben Jonson's Volpone. Like them, it is a kind of cosmic hangover suffered by a man who-having drunk overfull of the human race...
Part of The Public Philosophy is standard Walter Lippmann. He has written this new book in his usual scholar's style, which means that it will reach only a very small percentage of the people who, he believes, are in such dire need of knowledge. But the basic tone of The Public Philosophy is new. In his day Lippmann has been a champion of the New Deal's invented and chosen theories, a writer admittedly guided often by "hastily improvised generalizations." Never before has he shown such firm and specific regard for the natural law and for basic...
...thing, he misunderstands FOR's petition. He writes, "I will suggest that . . . they circulate the same petitions demanding that the surplus foods be circulated to South Viot Nam, where more than 350,000 homeless and hungry refugees, driven from their homes by the well fed Reds, are is dire need of subsistence." The Harvard FOR petition asked that the President send surplus food to all the needy, "regardless of political persuasion, particularly to Chins." The last three words would not have been added except for the insistence of the Dean's Office. No "homeless and hungry" people, including the refugees...