Word: topicalism
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...favorite topic of Bell and his listeners was alien abduction: the belief that hostile extraterrestrials were stealing humans, performing obscure experiments on them and returning them to earth. Over the years, callers by the hundreds testified to this astral felony, and though direct evidence is, oh, sketchy, alien abduction remains an enduring urban legend. Rather, a rural one, since the human victims are usually out in the boonies, far from help or, for that matter, from scientists who might investigate and challenge their stories. But isolation is a prime factor in horror stories - the fear of being alone...
...decades, the French considered it taboo to question whether immigration and foreign influences were diluting France's social and cultural character. Indeed, the topic was considered so toxic that no one in France besides extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen would even take it up in public. But times have changed. Twenty years after Le Pen's National Front Party (FN) became a political force in France, its view that immigration is threatening the French national identity is starting to gain wider acceptance. Now, the government is putting the issue front and center for the first time by encouraging...
...government's motivations in calling for the debate. One poll published on Oct. 29 showed that 64% of people believe the issue is being used "above all as an electoral tool," but in another poll released three days later, 60% of respondents favored a debate on the topic...
...Whether these two areas of research are related was a topic of debate at the annual convention of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) in New Orleans in late October. So too was their clinical significance. No population study has ever conclusively linked anesthetic drugs to Alzheimer's or dementia. (Although doctors have long noted that about 10% of patients who receive anesthetics for major surgery experience a temporary period of "post-operative cognitive decline" after coming out of anesthesia, the condition is not limited to elderly patients, and it could be the result of inflammation or other stress responses...
...discussion—which included professors, police chiefs, and students—provided further insight into the Gates incident and recognized that the topic of race relations in America is still a pressing issue...