Word: notions
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...Broadcasting. The veteran nature-series broadcaster David Attenborough, whose critically acclaimed documentaries have appeared on public television in both the U.K. and U.S, insists that wide-spectrum public-service broadcasting still plays an irreplaceable role in British cultural life. So what if some people switch off nature shows? "The notion that you shouldn't pay for something if you don't use it is uncivilized," says Attenborough. It's no different, he adds, from having some of his tax money spent on, say, a public swimming pool or library "even though I don't use either...
...notion that the cacophony of politics can be replaced with the smooth hum of expertise and that all the challenges our society faces can be solved by making the government run more efficiently has a long and generally laughable history. It is not inherently either liberal or conservative. President Dwight Eisenhower actually did hire McKinsey to redesign the presidency. President Jimmy Carter talked endlessly of "reinventing government." He took the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and turned it into two departments. Then there was Ross Perot, the presidential candidate who babbled about opening the hood...
...emphasis on topical humor (exemplified, in varying levels of toxicity, by Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce and Johnny Carson). Young comics of the '70s were as suspicious of Vietnam humor as they were of mother-in-law jokes. Their stuff was apolitical--but radical. It challenged the very notion of making people laugh. When Albert Brooks impersonated a mime so inept he must describe his movements, or Andy Kaufman turned on a plastic record player and lip-synched to the Mighty Mouse theme song, the laughter was uneasy or unheard. Audiences were forced to wonder: Is this supposed to be funny...
...Blade Runner” fans are never satisfied. “Enhance! Enhance!” they have cried since the film’s debut in 1982. New cuts and formats of the film have come out over the ensuing 25 years, constantly feeding the notion that one day, we would have a “final cut” with all the details and clues we seek. According to Scott, we now have...
...Which is not to say that a deeper understanding is not worth pursuing. Nothing in this cut has altered the troubling notion that replicants, with their passions and loyalties, might actually be more human than human. Nothing, thankfully, has altered the question of whether Deckard himself is or is not a replicant (though Scott had insinuated in recent interviews that the Final Cut would give a definitive answer). Nothing has altered the mind-boggling idea of literally meeting one’s maker, and nothing has explained just what replicant leader Roy (Rutger Hauer) is trying...