Word: merest
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...until 1967, when Israel captured the Mount and the Old City. Eager to preserve peace, Israel continues to allow Muslims to administer the site. They permit no Jew or Christian to pray openly on the holy ground, nor will they consider allowing even the simplest synagogue or church. The merest hint of rebuilding the Temple is considered an outrage by the Prophet's followers, who, in the words of an official at Al Aqsa, "will defend the Islamic holy places to the last drop of their blood...
...have inherited his father Evelyn's racism if not his genius, visited Sydney for the Australian bicentennial. "They had no form of civil society at all, beyond whatever social organization may be observed in a swarm of locusts," he wrote of the Aborigines. Their art "must be judged the merest piffle by civilized standards...
...still there is a sense of self-possession, and even stealth, about the kingdom that suggests it will not easily fall hostage to the people it attracts. For perhaps the most alluring attribute of Thailand is its simple ambiguity, the merest hint that its designs are always subtler than any visitor's perception of them. The Thais like to remind foreigners that theirs is the only Asian country never to have been colonized or occupied by a Western power, and even if this reflects nothing but the culture's gift for co-opting foreign influences, it also suggests its facility...
...going on, to break the unvoiced conspiracy of acceptance. Bush and the "student" wince toward each other asymptotically, oozing what the one hopes is concern and the other hopes is deference. "Touch her," says the director, "on the shoulder." Breaking the perimeter of mutual embarrassment, Bush makes the merest contact and murmurs inaudibly something about her family. As a whistle- blower, the Vice President has been miscast...
Eventually, however, the gods smiled on the ambitious endeavor. The rosy- fingered dawn that broke over the Greek air force base at Heraklion last Saturday was accompanied by only the merest zephyrs, perfect flight weather for Daedalus. Temperatures were mild, in the high 60s, ensuring that Kanellopoulos would not burn himself out during the long flight. By 3 a.m., most members of the team were awake. Some made last-minute checks of the weather, while others gently assembled the spindly pink-silver-and-white plane and carried it to the runway. At 7:06 Kanellopoulos eased his 156-lb. frame...