Word: briskness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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John Taylor recounts the 1984 assaults on Walt Disney Productions by corporate raiders in a manner the founder would have approved: brisk narrative colored in primary emotional tones. The takeover artists are sometimes attractively shrewd but heedlessly greedy -- for action as much as for power and money. The company's executives, ponderously led by President Ron Miller, are brave but inept in their resistance. Meanwhile, Walt's nephew Roy and the other heirs squabble among themselves. In the end, all concerned muddle their way to a bright new management team -- imported from Paramount and Warner Bros. -- that will restore...
...climbers nearing the top of a steep and dangerous mountain face, Western Europe's economies are beginning to show signs of fatigue. Though still pressing onward and upward, they face perilous obstacles, most notably the weak dollar. While Britain, Italy and Spain are still moving forward at a relatively brisk rate, such countries as West Germany, France and Sweden are faltering. And just as climbers roped together for safety can progress only at the pace of the slowest team member, growth is now being threatened by the economic laggards...
...average weekly earnings for U.S. workers increased from $235 a week to $309. But after adjustment for inflation, including a dramatic peak at the beginning of the 1980s, that paycheck actually slid backward over those years, to $227. The rise in productivity among U.S. manufacturing industries, however, was a brisk 4% each year from 1981 to 1985. During most of the previous decade, this measure of output per worker had increased only 1.2% annually. In fact, last year's U.S. productivity hike of 3.5% surpassed that of Japan (2.8%) and West Germany...
...Bailey has chosen his hero well, and Morrison's influence alone is enough to make All Fools Day a pretty good record. "Just Like Fire Would" is a catchy single, relying on some brisk acoustic guitar strumming in the vein of "Full Force Gale." Moreover, the title manages to recreate fairly accurately the easy pace and daring vocal rhythms of Morrison's best work...
...book is not a novel and is best read as a semi-fictionalized case study--though one made all the more intriguing by the author's self-conscious narration. Schumer's language is brisk and informative, and she successfully avoids turning sentiment into a soppy trip down memory lane. And a decade later, the reader gets the impression that the characters are ready to put it all behind them. "I never wanted to see [them] again....[a]ll those goblins of growing up--fear, envy, insecurity and sloth," Schumer writes after a return to her freshman room. "And all that...