Word: ardent
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Ambassadors at Large. The Wall Street crash unnerved Joe Kennedy and persuaded him to put aside his innate conservatism and become an ardent supporter and a lavish financial backer of Franklin Roosevelt. As SECommissioner and chief of the Maritime Commission, where he performed a notable service to his country by salvaging and reorganizing the bankrupt U.S. merchant marine, Joe lived in Washington for long stretches, frequently brought the family down to meet President Roosevelt and the top dogs of the New Deal. When Roosevelt appointed Joe Kennedy as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's-the first...
...Blushing Bowdler. "Declamation roar'd, while passion slept," said Dr. Johnson of the ranting style of early 18th century acting. Then David Garrick, who had an indifferent voice and a remarkably expressive face (a deaf-mute was one of his most ardent fans), pioneered a conversational, non-declamatory style. Although he restored some of the verse and affected to play "as written by Shakespeare," Garrick did his own tampering with the text. The gravediggers were missing in his Hamlet, as was Ophelia's funeral, and Laertes had no pact with the King to kill Hamlet...
...books, paint its paintings, run its corporations and set the patterns.* If its legions sometimes march into frantic activity with rigorous unison, they march for such causes as better schools, churches and charities, which are the building blocks of a nation's character. If Suburbia's ardent pursuit of life at backyard barbecues, block parties and committee meetings offends pious city-bred sociologists, its self-conscious strivings to find a better way for men, women and children to live together must impress the same observers...
...Socialist (Communist) Party, echoed by Che Guevara, sees the revolution as only "the first step toward the inevitable goal of socialism." But knowing that the step is a big one, party headquarters displays not a portrait of Lenin but one of Fidel Castro. Could Castro ever turn on his ardent backers? "That could never happen," smiles Communist Party Boss Juan Marinello, basking in the thought that establishment of relations with Russia and Czechoslovakia will probably be followed by Cuban recognition of Red China...
Ever since the antibiotic era dawned, the miracle drugs made from molds have had no more ardent champion than a tough-looking, hard-working civil servant named Henry Welch. Starting with a 1943 crash project to develop standards for penicillin and methods of testing its purity and potency, he advanced to become undisputed czar of the industry. So bright did Welch's star shine that his bosses in the Food and Drug Administration boosted him from chief of the Antibiotics Division, at $14,450 a year, to the supergrade rank of director...