Word: pointlessness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...accent. When the French talk among themselves, however, Kahn has provided them with a French translation of Shakespeare's text. While they spout French, a man and woman at the downstage extremities simultaneously speak the English version into microphones--as though broadcasting a United Nations caucus. This is utterly pointless, a good example of Kahn's gimmickry-for-the-sake-of-gimmickry. When Shakespeare wanted people inn his play to speak French--and he did on occasion--he wrote in French himself...
...judge from the article dealing with the activities of the British "ethologists" Christopher Brannigan and Dr. David Humphries [June 13], their work is charmingly pointless and absurdly pseudoscientific. They can, of course, make a lifetime out of cataloguing human facial expressions and bodily gestures, even in England. If they run out of material there, they can always shift their attention to Italy, where they could find enough to last through several lifetimes. I perhaps should not say that their work is pointless, for when they have completed the catalogue, a lover who finds his beloved smiling at him mysteriously...
Building Belief. Depression is most likely to afflict the wives of servicemen if they think that their husband's absence is pointless. Navy Rear Admiral John M. Alford, a personnel expert who conducted a recent one-year survey of Navy life, says that when the tone of a husband's letters about his work changes from eagerness to boredom, wives swing from resolution to discouragement. So far, no systematic study has been made on the effects of wifely missives. New Haven Psychiatrist Houston Macintosh found that the spouses of Air Force men, virtually all of whom volunteer...
This outlook has its effects on Calkins' approach to Harvard. Back when the University's failure to invest in ghetto business was a hot issue. Calkins explained the Corporation's reluctance. The gesture was pointless, he said. Harvard simply did not have the power of solve the problem. If students really cared about helping the ghetto, they should put pressure on the government to wield its might there...
Resisting the first supoena would have been stupid and pointless. McClellan would still get the information, but Chase Peterson and the other deans would go to jail. But when the committee starts looking for information that is not already sitting in government files, the University's decision will be more important. Fifteen years ago, the Administration denounced Communists but also tried to thwart Joe McCarthy. President Pusey has built part of his reputation on that stand. If he and the members of the Corporation still believe in those principles, they should make it clear that they will not play along...