Word: pseudo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Stars, however, is not the unlikely birth of its hero, but the birth of the novel itself. In 1997, civil war erupted in the Congo between the supporters of rival presidential candidates (derisively referred to in the novel as “Professor P-75,” the pseudo-scientist and “Tata Tollah,” the maniacal religious demagogue). The author, then a professor of chemistry at the University of Brazzaville in the Congo, rushed back to the Congo from a sojourn in Connecticut to search for his 14-year-old daughter. Soon, Dongala himself...
...after all the hoopla, Mother Nature did not listen to the meteorologists. Certainly, the storm did wreak havoc in isolated locales, including the beachfront of Massachusetts. Yet, overall, the nor'easter was a pseudo-blizzard. Mother Nature has once again humbled the National Weather Service and the Weather Channel. The meteorologists reminded us of political pundits on election night--a little too certain, a little too fast. The raw power of nature to confound human expectations and defy human control was revealed, not in an earth-shattering storm, but in the lack...
...principle of operating within both the letter and spirit of the rules aside, the pseudo-isolationist attitudes expressed by Ivy-skeptics is as bewildering as those espoused by Pat Buchanan. The Ivy-skeptics' underlying ethos, that student governments act as recluses, is bizarre. Some Ivy-skeptics argue that withdrawing from the Ivy Council would save much-needed money, which could then be used for cash-starved student groups. But casting aside one's natural allies would not be a thoughtful strategy for reducing expenditures...
...then there's "breaking news." Does news really ever break? Yes, there are real events such as earthquakes, but most news consists of what Daniel Boorstin once called "pseudo-events," concocted stories that are news only because we say they are. News organizations like to boast that they "cover" the news, but in fact, we all make the news because there is no news without us. With apologies to genuine metaphysicians, if an event happens and no one covers it, did it really happen? I'd say no. We in the media give events significance by how we play them...
Hungry from their active schedule as pseudo-Harvard students, your parents will likely want to stop and eat. Take them to the luncheon in the Houses. For just one meal Harvard University Dining Services will let you have a taste of what they've been preparing at the faculty club while you've been served up generous helpings of General Wong's Chicken and Emerald Beef. Savor the penne with artichokes, take seconds of the endive salad, but do remind your parents that it's back to Sharon's Chicken on Monday and that the care packages should keep coming...