Word: balloonfuls
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hearing Laird's testimony, Armed Services Chairman John Stennis declared that "the margin is so thin" in Cambodia that it might be necessary to loosen the strictures of Cooper-Church to allow some U.S. personnel to act as air controllers on the ground. Was he launching a trial balloon for the Administration? The idea provoked a bitter comment from South Dakota's George McGovern: "Any Senator who talks about sending American forces into Cambodia should lead the charge himself. I'm fed up with old men sending young men out to die, particularly in stupid wars...
...Wilson, Dickens' determination to write sprang from a fear of sinking back into oblivion and poverty. His disenchantment with his parents primed him for his eventual satire of the feckless, posturing stratum of society that they epitomized. Father, an expansive but hopelessly improvident clerk, was to balloon into fiction as Mr. Micawber. Mother, with her snobbish faith in "connections" (one of whom was the manager of the blacking factory), would become not only Mrs. Micawber but later Mrs. Nickleby. "Peculiarly unfair" treatment for mother, Wilson concludes, but there was a special reason for that...
...Party Pack Five-Fringed Balloon Squawker is simply a balloon with a small metal noisemaker attached. The problem, as one irate parent noted, is this: "My daughter, aged four, did not take the mouthpiece out of her mouth when she let the air out, and the metal piece that makes the noise shot down her throat. She started to gag and turn blue. Fortunately, she had just had dinner and the gagging made her vomit, forcing out the piece of metal...
Other children may not be so lucky, and the Food and Drug Administration last week said that it would take steps to ban Balloon Squawkers and three other potentially harmful toys: metal-tipped lawn darts that have pierced a child's skull, a super-loud cap gun that can cause ear damage, and a baby rattle that can fall apart and expose sharp metal prongs. If carried out, it would be the first FDA prescription under the Child Protection and Toy Safety...
...great idea as a stunt in civil disobedience. But as a book, the balloon does not hold up quite so well, though it may fascinate people who daydream about becoming system saboteurs. Author Hatch has helped his story by including a fine short course on the myths and truths about jet planes, their noise and their impact on human beings. One old saw neatly skewered: the aviation industry's contention that man can adjust to any noise level. That is simply medically false. In response to such facts, sufferers of noise pollution can only sound a loud "Hear! Hear...