Word: insists
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...insist and insist again, by Vague Generalities. We abhor V.G.'s, we skim right past them, we start wondering what kind of C to give from the first V.G. we encounter; and as they pile up we decide C- (Harvard being Harvard, we do not give D's. Consider C-a failure.) Why? Not became they are a sign the student does not know the material, or hasn't thought creatively, or any of that folly. They simply make tedious reading. "Locke is a transitional figure." "The whole thing boils down to human rights." Now I ask you, I have...
...titles of six poems in a row, even an occasional date. This, son, makes for interesting (if effortless) reading, and this is what gets A's. Underline them, capitalize them, insert them in outline form; be sure we don't miss them. Why do you think all the exams insist at the top, "Illustrate, "Be specific;' etc.? They mean it. The illustrations, of course, need not be singularly relevant; but they must be there. If we Vague Generalities are anathema, sparkling chips of concrete scattered throughout your bluebook will have you up for sainthood. Or at least Dean's List...
...avoid the death penalty may lie in a kind of Catch-22 that defense experts have already addressed: After the prosecution rejected Kaczynski's offer of a guilty plea, his only way to beat the rap is with a mental-defect defense. Who, then, but a crazy man would insist that he's sane...
With Britain behind it, the deal was nearly set: the E.U. would cut emissions their 8%, the Japanese 6% and the U.S. a nominal 7%. (Administration officials insist that the most realistic accounting scheme makes the actual cutbacks lower; what's called 7% in Kyoto, they say, is really 3% at most.) After Gore twisted Hashimoto's arm, those were the numbers that stuck. Exhausted negotiators took an additional 10 hours to iron out the details--as Japanese workers hovered impatiently, waiting to set up for a trade show at Kyoto's International Conference Hall--but the American negotiating team...
...indeed taught, the fundamental moral equality of all peoples and the fundamental silliness--apart from the immorality--of distinctions based on race. (And we certainly don't help teach our children indifference to race when we perpetuate social and political policies, such as preferential treatment based on race, that insist on the centrality of race consciousness...