Word: bested
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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From her exile, the scorned theologian then produced a sweeping indictment of clerical attitudes toward sex that soared to the top of the 1989 nonfiction best-seller list in Germany. Last week Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven (Doubleday; $21.95) hit U.S. bookstores amid a squall of controversy. In a nutshell, the author contends that Catholicism "strives to impose its own moral dictatorship without regard to the welfare of married people, a dictatorship based on pleasure-hating, celibate contempt for marriage and a maniacal cult of virginity...
...perhaps, fatally. For it rediscovers its best self, its high romantic spirit, in time for a well-judged ending -- renunciations and not completely quashed yearnings all nicely mixed up. At its least, Havana reminds us how infrequently movies today invoke the romantic spirit. At its height, it satisfies our longing to experience that spirit anew. Put it this way: we can stand more than one Casablanca every 48 years...
...dissident scientist that supposedly has large strategic implications for the West -- or at least the portion of it that is loath to give up the cold war habit of mind. The two operatives naturally fall in love, and since old Barley's interest in geopolitics is minimal at best, his primary goal switches from smuggling documents to protecting his lady...
...feels it went wrong long before Tom Stoppard sat down to write his doggedly faithful adaptation of John le Carre's best seller, long before director Fred Schepisi shouted "Action!" (or, possibly, in this case, "Stasis!"), perhaps even before the novelist set to work on his book. Le Carre seems to have gone off at about the moment the literary world made him its designated serious entertainer and he started believing his enthralled reviews. All his recent books contain far more writing than they require to explore their conventional characters and ideas. "Oh, get on with it," one snorts, setting...
...fact that Dumas is all black matters little to students and parents. What matters is that, unlike many schools, it is trying to be excellent. "As a black American, I want the best education money can buy at this school," says Peggie Bartlett, president of the Dumas local school council, the institution's governing board. "I don't care if white folks don't come down here." Says Sokoni Karanja, a community leader: "Integration never really made any sense for quality education. I've got four kids who never were bused. I would just go into schools and kick behinds...