If all you had at your desk was a Smith-Corona electric typewriter of the kind William McKibben wrote about in this magazine in 1984 (its defining feature was the ability to erase up to two just-typed words), would you think twice before typing out that paragraph that just came to you in the shower?
Nassau County legislators face an even more onerous task, as they must meet a Nov. 28 deadline to erase up to $45 million in gaps that state monitors found in the budget originally proposed by the retiring county executive, Thomas S. Gulotta, and revised by the county Legislature.
She can erase up to 50% of her taxable income by claiming deductions for donations to institutions like the food bank and the university.
The program would be funded by the Education Department, which already runs a similar program that erases up to $17,500 in student loans in return for 5 years of teaching in an impoverished school district.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, told conservative radio that he saw "every appearance that Hillary Clinton was bribed to grease the sale of, what, 20% of America's uranium production to Russia," and that e-mails were later erased to cover up the scandal.
When the final group arrived at the 17th, the European pair of Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter was 1-up on Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson, having erased the Americans' 2-up lead on the strength of back-to-back birdies by Poulter.
(A long close-up erases any ambiguity and conjures up memories of Vincent Gallo's notorious "Brown Bunny".) But the display is less shocking for its sexual frankness than for its aesthetic crudity.
Whenever the job has been erased, it has popped up again because it is necessary.
However, if they go back again after that, all of their previous changes are erased and they end up in the same spot again.
