Word: notions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...implies a kind of moral embrace, a clearing of the books, that is difficult if not impossible in the context of Nazi Germany. Reconciliation is a transaction that can occur between two nations. But forgiveness is between individuals, or between an individual and God. Just as one rejects the notion of collective guilt, so one recoils at the idea of collective absolution. Deeds are done by individuals and must be judged individually. One of the evils of the 20th century has been the practice of totalitarians who create collective categories of people (the "bourgeoisie," for example, or "enemies...
...been much more immediate. One measure is the ferocity of debate it has generated in the past few months among eminent researchers, at conferences and in the letters-to-the-editor columns of major newspapers and staid journals alike. Supporters of the Milky Way proposal dismiss the Nemesis notion as "unlikely" and "ad hoc," and death star advocates are scornful of the galactic concept. Many consider all the newfangled extraterrestrial scenarios to be half-baked takeoffs of H.G. Wells. Says an indignant Dewey McLean, a paleontologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute: "It's science gone absolutely bonkers...
Among the various astronomers who considered and promptly rejected the galactic carrousel notion was California's Muller, a scientist obsessed by periodicity. If a familiar cosmic mechanism could not account for the cyclic nature of extinctions, he decided, something completely different would have to do. During Christmas break in 1983, Muller and fellow Astronomers Marc Davis of Berkeley and Piet Hut of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton were brainstorming about stars and periodicity, when Muller noted that more than half the stars in the galaxy are thought to be binaries (pairs of stars that orbit a common center...
Much of the value of Lonsdale's book lies in the interesting people he introduces to us. A great concern among literary men of this time was the burden of the past the notion that earlier poets had expressed everything original that was to expressed about man and his existence, and had done it so well. While we do not associate the eighteenth century with the most prolitic periods of creative endeavour, it should be recalled that Wordsworth, Blake and Coleridge were all children of the age. And although their craft may not be quite's scintillating as the more...
Reagan's evolution from hard-line Soviet baiter to softer-line summiteer dates to an Oval Office parley last fall with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Says a White House aide: "Reagan's notion of personal diplomacy took off from that meeting." He was nudged along by Wife Nancy, a believer in the irresistible magic of her husband's personality, and by master Image Maker Michael Deaver. Both felt deeply that Reagan's warmonger image...