Word: pilings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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, one does not give D's. Consider C- a failure). Why? Not because 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...
Artful equivocations are even worse; lynx-eyed sly little rascals that we are, we see right through them. (Up to exam 40. Then our lynz eyes droop, and grading habits relax. Try to get on the bottom of the pile.) Again, it is not that A.E.'s are vicious or ludicrous as such; but in quantity they become sheer madness. Or induce it. "The 20th century has never recovered from the effects of Marx and Freud" (V.G.); "but whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is difficult to say." (A.E.) Now one such might be droll enough...
...Leykis of Los Angeles prefers more dramatic measures. When singer Cat Stevens expressed support of the Ayatullah Khomeini's death threat against author Salman Rushdie, Leykis donned a hard hat and crushed a pile of Stevens' records with a steamroller...
...Washington standards, a little strange. First, there is the uniform draped with gold braid he insists on wearing. Before he became famous, it prompted people at airports to pile him with baggage and ask what time the flight was leaving. Then there is the big, clunky hearing aid that he takes out and fusses with right in the middle of a conversation, as if it were a pipe, and the canvas tote he uses as a briefcase, and his habit of loudly cracking his knuckles. On top of that there are the Old Testament beard and the preacher's voice...
...coat of oil had destroyed the insulating ability of their fur; 42 have died. Animals dead on arrival steadily filled up a white refrigerated truck trailer parked nearby. A black-tailed Sitka deer carcass stuck out of a 32-gal. garbage can, and dozens of otters lay in a pile, covered with plastic. Uncounted other victims will never be retrieved. A preliminary beach survey indicated an average of 80 oil-coated ducks and other kinds of birds per 100 meters. Bald eagles have been scavenging the contaminated birds, and the sound's population of 3,000 eagles may therefore...