Word: undercutting
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...land that needs them. The tone must be grandly facetious to accommodate believers as well as skeptics. William Goldman tried all this in his 1973 novel The Princess Bride. His narrative had all the proper ingredients and all the right new moves: he deconstructed his text and undercut it with the cadences of a Borscht Belt raconteur. But on the page, Goldman's wordplay seemed too much of a jape. It needed the expanse of cinema -- where on the late show Errol Flynn and Gunga Din are still storybook young -- to revive the poetry of fable. Now, 14 years later...
Ortega faces skepticism not only abroad but also at home. In a rare display of divisiveness among the nine members of the Sandinista directorate, Interior Minister Tomas Borge seemed to try to undercut Ortega's public relations offensive last week. After Ortega announced that the priests could return, Borge declared that the 30-day jail sentences imposed on two opposition leaders last month were "not commutable." Their crime: staging a protest rally in Managua without a permit. Sandinista officials privately acknowledged that police use of electric prods and attack dogs to break up the rally had been heavy-handed...
...convinced Nevada's congressional delegation last summer that the park was desperately needed. For decades, Kennecott Copper Corp., which provided thousands of jobs at an open-pit mine near Ruth, had argued that the mountains might be mineral rich. By 1980 the mine was closed, undercut by cheap foreign copper. Unemployment skyrocketed. The new park, they hoped, would bring paying guests for hotels, restaurants and other services. Conservation suddenly began to look like good business...
...rights will be better off than before." Last week 23 prisoners and political dissidents were released. Still, the Progressive Party, which claims to speak for the native Taiwanese, is not about to slow its push for greater Taiwanese participation in government. Chiang, however, is unlikely to accept demands that undercut the near monopoly on political power held by his ruling party, the Kuomintang...
Some of the charges springing up in courts have a dubious basis in science. There is no evidence that the AIDS virus has ever been spread through saliva. In a case that involves biting or spitting, that can certainly undercut a prosecutor's attempts to prove a charge of attempted murder. A more realistic threat, however, is represented by infected prostitutes or by someone who knowingly sells or donates his or her AIDS-tainted blood. In such cases, what should...