Word: precious
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...environment is so precious that it must be preserved from not only the bulldozer but from evil spirits as well," Halprin said, adding that the design process can be thought of as an exorcism of evil spirits...
...finally there are the Others--those who are "in trouble," as the euphemism goes, who must somehow be fitted in somewhere by somebody so the clubs can again point with pride to the precious statistic 100 percent--"100 percent of those wishing to join a club did so"--the number by which alone the system can be justified. It must be able to claim the fact of 100 percent no matter how often or how strangely 100 percent must be redefined...
...region's biggest payoff will probably come in natural gas. Drillers are already having considerable success in tracking down uptapped pockets of the precious fuel. In 1978 the Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. struck gas in Mineral County, W. Va., with a well that gushed 10 million cu. ft. of the fuel per day. A year later, the company tapped into a second natural gas gusher producing 8.8 million cu. ft. daily. Such start-up production levels are comparable to major wells in gas-rich Louisiana and Oklahoma...
Such concerns, however, are minor compared with the issue of military security. To Israeli government officials, the Sinai has above all been a strategic early-warning zone, affording precious time to react to any military moves against Israel's western border. Most of all, they are preparing to mourn the loss next year of two multibillion-dollar air force bases at Eitam and Etzion. The supersecret and formidably protected Etzion field is described by U.S. experts as "the finest tactical fighter base in the world." During the 1973 October War, Israeli Mirage interceptors scrambled from the field...
This delightful yet damnable lack of substance is why these stories fail to make a lasting impression. One admires the disciplined craftsmanship of the prose, but the stories remain precious objects under glass domes, sealed in pretty things of not much consequence. Like eleven mirages, the collection has a shimmering, evasive beauty that gives pleasure at first but soon makes one feel teased and irritated. The stories glimmer with promise and technical polish and they dazzle for a minute--but suddenly one suspects that it's all a false promise and the real thing has been forsaken for the fool...