Word: trivial
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Probably the best thing that can be said for the show's copious gallery of Madrid flowerpieces by Juan de Arellano and others from the late 17th century is that they are skilled exercises in a trivial genre; they descend from earlier Dutch conventions-those towering masses of tulips and roses, full of squishy virtuosity; but they lack the architectural grandeur of earlier Spanish works and promptly induce surfeit. After them, the Spanish still-life tradition nose-dived into academism and decor through the 18th century, with the single exception of the Madrid painter Luis Melendez (1716-80), whose massive...
...Trivial comparisons are possible, and we must watch out for them. The problems of abortion and urban poverty are not the tragedy of the Holocaust. But ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and tribal murder in Rwanda are comparable. At their essence is a desire to eradicate people because of their ancestry and their beliefs...
...regression. When you see a videotape of him smearing his face with black or green greasepaint, you aren't sure whether he's disguising himself or simulating the fecal games of a backward child. Autism is the governing metaphor of his work's "look"--the long-winded rituals of trivial movement, the ejaculatory phrases, the bouts of ungovernable rage...
What, after all, could be more popular than cutting $500 in taxes for every child born to a family earning $200,000 and under? Democrats dismissed the amount as trivial-enough to buy, maybe, a pizza a week. Yet for a family of four earning $40,000, the tax credit would be like a 3.5% pretax raise-more than many of them have been getting from employers...
...course, this proposed auction is just the beginning. Harvard should not let anything get in the way of its capital campaign. More money for education is far more important than anything as trivial as institutional dignity or age-old tradition. Harvard should offer to rename itself after anyone willing to kick in enough money...