Word: discern
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Lawyers--who are the doctors' competitors, mind you, in this insurance scenario--argue that litigation pressure keeps doctors "on their toes." If one were anachronistically fascinated by the myth of laissez-faire capitalism, one might discern some sense in the lawyers' "fairness" argument. But this forgets that the AMA has openly advocated investigations into the capabilities of its members; it has never argued that medical malpractice suits per se are unjustified. The AMA points out that the constant threat of inquisition restricts the accessibility of quality medical care, as doctors flock to states with more relaxed laws, and promotes...
...would be surprised to learn that they had ever left the Balkan countryside in their lives. In fact, all of the dialogue is in Serbo-Croatian. The only time the subtitles present a problem to the unattentive viewer is at the film's beginning, when it is difficult to discern which characters are central, and which characters are central, and which are only of brief importance. This problem is attributable to the script, however, and is a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent screenplay...
...intensive scrutiny. To astronomers, a comet is a sort of flying museum stocked with precious artifacts from the very earliest moments of the solar system. They hope that by peering into Halley's cold heart and sniffing out the dust and gases that stream from its surface, they can discern the conditions that existed at the birth of the sun and the nine planets some 4.5 billion years ago. That in turn could reveal how common an occurrence the formation of planets around other stars may be, hence how likely it is that extraterrestrial life exists. "Comets are like...
Just where the hijack fallout left the Middle East peace process was harder to discern. After all the grief and travail of the previous two weeks, the U.S. might feel like excluding the P.L.O. from the peace process. Israel strongly supports such a stance. For very different reasons, Syria's Hafez Assad and, for the moment, Jordan's King Hussein are content to use this opportunity to hammer Arafat...
Peking Bureau Chief Richard Hornik found particularly valuable his five years of experience as a journalist in the Soviet bloc, including an assignment as TIME's Eastern Europe bureau chief (1981-83). Says Hornik: "That background was really useful as I tried to discern how far its economic reforms have taken China from orthodox Marxism-Leninism." Stationed in Peking since April, Hornik has traveled widely: to Shanghai twice, to Canton and to Shenzhen, one of China's foreign trade and export zones. Perhaps his most absorbing trip was to the huge heartland province of Sichuan. Says Hornik: "It gave...