Word: spared
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Several alternatives to the "Brother, can you spare a dime" scenario could arise. It is unlikely that beggars will purchase credit card readers so that their daily clients can simply slide through for a $.25 transfer. Even if the technology was easily portable, too many methods of perpetrating electronic fraud exist to make the system trustworthy...
...means exists for their sustenance. Many social planners would doubtlessly rush to embrace this possibility. Without cash and without a way to easily transfer material goods, beggars would have no good reason to persist in their appeals in the streets. Passers-by could only offer sympathy ("Brother, can you spare a smile...), or perhaps a hot-dog purchased electronically from a nearby vendor. The newspapers sold by homeless people would probably have sufficient capital to sell electronically through some central sidewalk sites, but even that form of charity would be reduced...
Assuming the disappearance of cash, this ultra-paternalistic plan could rid urban areas of some considerable ills. Those who object to the plan's paternalism probably wouldn't have much lunch with a "Brother, can you spare a gambling coupon" program, but then again-as the adage puts it-beggars can't be choosers...
...setting is a homey, if spare, living room; but nothing much else about David Mamet's play The Cryptogram, which opened in Boston last week in a production by the American Repertory Theatre, is very reassuring. A young boy waits eagerly for his father to come home; he never does. The boy's mother is first heard offstage, breaking a teapot. A gay friend of the family's dissolves in guilt over a betrayal. No one seems capable of finishing a sentence or answering a question directly. There is vaguely unsettling talk about a combat knife...
...belated Valentines will get the opportunity to meet at a council sponsored dance tentatively planned for Saturday, February 22. While the details of the event are not yet finalized, council members say they will spare no expense when it comes to love...