Word: buoyant
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...always seemed puzzling how the essentially pessimistic theology of Puritanism could become the underpinning of a buoyant, almost recklessly optimistic civilization. Part of the answer lies in the fact that the Puritan ethos not only posits the fall of man, it also implies the existence of an Elect of God. America has presumed itself to be God's chosen remnant, to the point where it very nearly subscribes to the anthropocentric heresy of Pelagius, the 5th century Christian ascetic who argued that man could gain salvation without divine grace by his efforts alone. Put in secular terms, the Pelagianism...
Last summer, however, perhaps feeling overly buoyant about his good national press, Agnew began lobbying clumsily for Administration programs. He started with the ABM, buttonholing members on the Senate floor, then repeated the mistake in an attempt to get the income-tax surcharge extended for a year. As a wheeler-dealer, he failed ingloriously and provoked a curt civics lesson from Majority Leader Mike Mansfield: "A Vice President should not interfere in Senate affairs regardless of his party. He is not a member of the Senate. He's a half-creature of the Senate and a half-creature...
...water and generating the waves. The size of the waves is controlled by the amount of water pumped into the reservoir and no two curls are exactly the same. Riders can climb stairways directly to the waves instead of paddling out from shore. Though the fresh water is less buoyant than seawater, the difference to the surfer is negligible...
...Astronauts Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, the journey concluded as flawlessly as it had begun 195 hours, 18 minutes and 21 seconds earlier. President Nixon, waiting aboard the Hornet to greet the astronauts, hailed their achievement with buoyant enthusiasm. At the same time, over 4,000 miles away in Houston's Mission Control, nerve center of the flight, John F. Kennedy's 1961 pledge that the U.S. would land a man on the moon "before this decade is out" flashed on a display board. Near by, a smaller screen carried Apollo 11 's Eagle emblem along...
...Good grief! Color me Roman Catholic and add an exultant, buoyant Deo Gratias. Could life be as dull and dutiful as the Wasp world you fashion...