Word: triviality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Both ad campaigns should be stopped. More than simply tasteless, ads of this sort are themselves small, but not trivial, examples of the violence that they thoughtlessly mock. But the fact that they happened in the first place underscores the lack of awareness in our community of the magnitude of these oppressive forms of violence. And it points to the importance of paying attention to a third poster which appeared at the same time as the other two. It, too talks about violence, but not in so glambrous or catchy a fashion. It calls for women and men to join...
Still, she could not easily be dismissed as France's Jacqueline Susann. Stylistically, her descriptive powers were a match for her formidable perceptions. The pity was, went the critical chorus, that she wasted her talent on such trivial themes and frivolous characters. That argument reflected the reverse snobbism of intellectuals who were unwilling to grant that the rich and the worldly were worthy of a novelist's attention, as if there had been no Proust. Sagan defended herself: "I have always made my characters belong to the same social group, out of decency. I've never known...
...like a hockey game out there," said Colorado's Republican Senator, William Armstrong. "If there's a trivial issue it's handled scrupulously, with hearings and rules. But really important issues are handled in an atmosphere of chaos and pandemonium." So it seemed all too logical that the Donnybrook Fair that erupted on Capitol Hill last week would culminate in another brawl between Congress and the White House, this time over public jobs spending, that threatened to shut down the Federal Government...
...taken. The concern of environmentalists is that industrialists will continue to use delaying tactics to put off costly capital improvements necessary to reduce emissions. Says Richard Ayres, chairman of the National Clean Air Coalition, an amalgam of environmentalist groups: "The costs [for cleaning up emissions] aren't trivial. But neither is the damage. A nation that can afford to spend $5 billion a year on video games can afford the same amount to save its lakes and forests...
...typical Nemy column samples the opinions of rich, famous and beautiful (in a pinch, someone with any two of the foregoing will do) on a truly insignificant subject. Besides being merely trivial, the matter must be one that would come up only in the course of expending large amounts of money. Dishwashing, hamburgers, or any of the other middle-class institutions that make New York great are about as likely to appear in the column as confessions that some celeb beats her children...