Word: properness
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What are the proper borders for a country? The Germans thought Germany should contain all German-speaking people; Poland and Czechoslovakia disagreed, and World War II was the result. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the new political star in Moscow, believes Russia should include the striped sections of the top map below (note the desired piece of land in the northeast corner). Radical Palestinians envision a Palestinian state with the pre-1947 British Mandate borders as reflected in the map below and to the left. And Serbs hope to create a Greater Serbia that would encompass the striped portions of the map below...
...this practical cohabitation brings about a catalog of ethical puzzles. What is the proper protocol in such circumstances? Is it appropriate to ask your neighbors to turn down the music, or stop having loud sex against the wall? Do you complain, or do you put on your headphones, crank up your iTunes and sulk? Is it polite to giggle about your neighbors’ private lives with your friends in the dining hall (and then write about it in the student newspaper)? At what point are you no longer a neighbor, but a voyeur...
...Seidel says that achieving the proper balance in this relationship requires “a complicated dance” because of Harvard’s facilities and the constraints they place on the geographically small city. As a nonprofit tax-exempt institution, Harvard uses public resources—like roads and sewage channels—with no legal requirement to pay for them. The University makes a voluntary annual payment to the city in lieu of taxes, but politicians frequently call on Harvard to contribute more...
...receive 24 points to get back in the game. He follows with “lute,” running into the “E” of Swedish. I’ve got him now, I think. Any dummy knows no proper nouns, like the first name of his Wildcats coach Lute Olsen, who incidentally just hired Simon as an assistant coach, are allowed in Scrabble. As tactfully as I can muster, I remind him of this stipulation, but with patience he informs me that a lute is also a string instrument or a clay-like substance...
...finally find housing, food, treatment, and the true compassion lacking in their lives up to this point. Mandatory rehabilitation programs have shown remarkable success when prescribed by the legal system, so there is reason to believe that many homeless might actually go on to lead productive, normal lives under proper care.We also have to face the reality that many of our most desperately ill citizens have no chance of entering normal society again. But allowing them to “choose” to wither away on the streets seems more like a cruel Darwinian ploy than a valid social...