Word: punch
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...because he is lazy about his columns. Within his self-imposed parameters, he succeeds more often than not. But like most writing composed between a late lunch and a 5 p.m. Capitol Hill reception, his merits little more than a quick read. Skim until you find the punch-line, scan the letters to the editor for someone you know and then chuck the whole thing into the garbage. Has anyone ever cut out and saved more than one Buchwald column...
Nonetheless, there are several problems with Mismeasure. When he departs from his string of examples and analyses and attempts to philosophize or use high-level technical terminology, the book loses its punch. His statistical sections demand too much from a popular audience and bog down the narrative, especially in his discourses on linear algebra. When he sticks to careful analysis of the I.Q. examiners, he is on much more solid ground...
Furthermore, Gould's abstract theorizing--mostly in the introduction and conclusion--detracts from the punch of the book. He writes of the issues of cultural beliefs affecting scientific research and of the simplification of intelligence into a one-dimensional characteristic; he uses intelligence testing, he says, to prove this larger point. However, his scientific jargon and awkward writing style in this part hinder clear presentation of these valid points. The beautiful narrative style evident in the bulk of the book is not evident in his hypothesizing...
...DISTANCE, Larsen Hall looks like a single, enormous brick. The building, which squats on a small parcel adjacent to Radcliffe Yard, is not in fact one brick, but thousands of them, piled humorlessly on top of one another. A couple of windows, arranged with all the logic of key-punch holes, break through the clay curtain, but they are aberrations. This building says BRICKS and little else. No one listens...
...about the weapons' deadly effects. Usually the language is willfully neutral: one shell that spews out steel pellets is merely "useful to engage massed infantry at close quarters." But peddler's enthusiasm can overcome the technocratic blankness. A 105-mm artillery piece is "robust" and its "lethal punch" is thus "ideal for use in tough limited war conditions in all climates." One transport is a "tough, roomy, dependable" aircraft, and the catalogue says of the AEL 4111 Snipe aerial drone for antiaircraft gunners: "The morale effect on weapons crews who are able to see their target destroyed...