Word: harmless
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...initiated into the sacrament of penance and its promise of forgiveness from God. The results, many Catholic educators agree, were often disastrous. Some young penitents became haunted by the fear of mortal sin and going to hell. Others developed false consciences, accusing themselves of sins that were only the harmless exuberances of a child. Still others dreaded the whole experience so fiercely that they gave it up for good as soon as they were able to. Those who continued to receive the sacrament were sometimes spiritually stunted, unable to go beyond the rote recitation of childhood formulas: veteran confessors recall...
...disarmament. I would scout out each new face for insecurity blemishes. And I'd play up to that particualr lack of confidence in a seductive effort to waylay its defensive instinct. I would, in other words, convince them that I was unworthy of their attack, that I was harmless. At first this meant telling funny stories at the dinner table about the various fuck-ups in my private life: about being paralyzed with fear when a beautiful sailor tried to seduce me; about trying, bravely in the now or never spirit, to throw away my virginity one night, and waiting...
...pilot's eyes have changed; the world he sailed, all childish bravura, has grown more dark. Shall we pretend that his darkened seas are a harmless phantasy?...Alas, my friend, he's turned the Argo's prow to the void. We'll watch and wait, follow him into the darkness and through...
...guys doin' here?" the hero asks at one point-the film makes no attempt to synchronize speech to lip movements, and a character can go on talking long after his mouth has closed. Not that it matters, considering the low level of the dialogue. Still, the picture is harmless fun, and the violence seems no more real-or scary-than the POWs and WHAMs in a Tom and Jerry cartoon...
...then developed a particularly fast-multiplying new strain, which they named "RAG-1."* Bred in salt water enriched with phosphorus and nitrogen compounds, the strain gobbles up the paraffin (waxy) content of crude oil, leaving only small droplets of dewaxed oil that break down quickly in nature and become harmless carbon dioxide and water...