Word: downplaying
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...acceptable means of preventing conception. As the Vatican's chief delegate said at the International Conference on Population in Mexico City last August, Roman Catholic teaching not only is unchanged but "has been reaffirmed with new vigor." Despite the hopes of some liberals that the Vatican would eventually downplay or even soften the birth control ban, John Paul has pressed the issue. He wants to establish the church's view strongly for future generations...
Some shark authorities downplay the dangers of Great Whites, which they consider magnificent scavengers that have successfully lived through 30 million years of evolution virtually unchanged. Sharks, they declare, play a necessary role as the garbage collectors of the sea, indiscriminately devouring flotsam ranging from fish carcasses to old tin cans. Most important, say shark admirers, the number of people killed by Great Whites over the centuries is small, far less than those who die from lightning strikes or snake bites. But in the Red Triangle, at least, it is still not safe to go back in the water...
...similar common sense philosophy lies behind the tendency of large computer operation to downplay the location of their computer operations. "You'll never see a computer facility advertising itself. I've seen a lot that have been very low-key warehouse-type buildings and you walk in and see a beautiful ultra-modern computer at Tymeshare, a national timesharing computer network...
Others, however, downplay the damage. "It's competetive, but it dosn't hinder the science," Hunter says. "There maybe is some duplication of work, but you always find out what's going on within two or three months. It's amazing how scientists worry about precedent when it dosn't really make a difference in the long run," he adds...
...first, the Honecker regime tried to downplay the anti-German hysteria and even cautiously challenged Moscow with editorials in Neues Deutschland that supported a policy of detente with the West. During the past two weeks, however, the East Germans have begun to echo Moscow in accusing West Germany of "re-vanchism," the desire to restore the boundaries that existed before World War II. In Leipzig, students returning for the first day of school were asked to display pictures that they had drawn of tanks protecting their homeland from the West. Stories began to spread that Honecker would have to endure...