Word: bait
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...polemicist. He railed against censors, education-school pedagogues, the Old Left and the New Critics (whom he called simply "the boys"). He was a growling consumer advocate who made long lists of things that didn't work, including kitchen knives, portable typewriters and processed cheese ("unfit even to bait mice with"). He fought for conservation before anybody knew there was a fight...
Riggs never had a chance. Sure he's got every shot that King has, and more; he's got a whole arsenal of them. And he pulled out a few, as if to bait King into believing that he would make good his boast. But he didn't do it often enough, because King made sure he scrambled. With surprise retrieves, with drop shot touches at the net catching Riggs backcourt, with backspins zeroing off to the side pulling Riggs wide, with double placements sprawling Riggs off balance, with overheads from the baseline curving crosscourt and steady belting backhands...
...eighth man died of his injuries. Though he was the only civilian in the group, Rickenbacker took charge; he carefully divided four oranges and made them last six days. One day a seagull landed on his head. He captured it, apportioned its flesh and used its entrails as bait for fish. He cursed one man who prayed for death, and dragged back another who tried to drown himself to make more room for the others. His comrades later credited him with taunting them into staying alive...
Coburn talks to them of producing a film about his dead wife: it is his bait assuring his guests' co-operation. They play along, expecting to land parts in Coburn's planned film, but of course we all suspect that the real object of the cruise is the unmasking of a killer. The yacht is, after all, named Sheila...
...Kraus plan is supposed to be traversed by "merit-based grants," Harvard's euphemism for monetary bait to lure "bright" students away from other graduate schools. Grants based on merit, awarded by departmental Faculty, inflict an inherent bias on our liberal academic community--a "bright" student might turn out to be one who parrots his academic sponsor's line. The College long ago eliminated this auctioning for students: the GSAS should follow suit...