Word: functional
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Horner said last night that the group felt it especially appropriate to comment on the issue because "we are guardians of tradition and are responsible for transforming the knowledge of the ages." In the event of a nuclear war, she explained, that function would be meaningless...
Could such a place have been built on memories of the dead alone? Hardly; the mind does not function that way. The past, well used, strikes a somber chord in everyone. The sound is both lovely and necessary, as it reminds us where we are and have been, gives us heroes and prototypes, our models and cautions. But the past contains the future as well; that is, whatever was once wished for and realized now resides in the past. One looks back in order to recollect one's hope, not only the defeat of one's hope. Otherwise...
...virtually all Soviet international telephone communications went out of service at week's end. The apparent reason, according to experts at American Telephone and Telegraph Co., was the breakdown of a Moscow computer that handles international calls. Although all telex lines and a few phone links continued to function sporadically, most Muscovites trying to reach an international operator were told brusquely to "please call later." Communications eventually were restored, but in rumor-rife Moscow, the event was unusual enough to prompt immediate speculation that a change of leadership, possibly involving ailing President Leonid Brezhnev, was in the works, even...
Prisons have failed. But at what? What are prisons for? Punishment. At that, prisons have easily succeeded, all the more so in a country like this one, with its lust for liberty, for room to move. By locking a criminal away, a community achieves retribution as well, a theoretical function of the U.S. penal system. Prisons also keep criminals off the streets for a while. Yet, oddly, this most successfully realized purpose?plain detention?has been usually regarded as almost incidental to prison's higher, far more problematic purposes. The loftiest and most desperately sought of these is rehabilitation, originally...
Unions fulfill an essential function in American economic life. Within the large corporations that increasingly dominate business, there will always be a need for some formal method of dealing with problems between workers and management. Even in largely nonunionized companies like Motorola and Northrop Corp. a framework exists for handling those issues. The challenge for organized labor will be to convince a new generation of workers that they are best served by wearing the union label. -By Alexander L. Taylor III. Reported by Gisela Bolte/Washington and Paul A. Witteman/Detroit