Word: buttoned
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...people: too dumb to see through the smoke, too emotional to resist the "hot-button" ads. As one disgusted commentator put it (on this page), "The voters are idiots...
...telephone console resting on a gargantuan round table boasts 90 buttons, and the man seated before it seems bent on using all of them at once. His plump fingers, the nails freshly manicured with clear polish, poke impatiently at the instrument. Visitors flow into the office in a steady stream, yet all the while the man continues a separate dialogue with the console. "He wouldn't be a bureaucrat unless he was in a meeting," he booms into the speaker in a British-accented baritone that is powerful yet velvety. "I want the man, not the message." Poke. A button...
...Group building, surround him at the table. Though they are accustomed to the constant interruptions, the lightning shifts in ideas, deals, languages, Maxwell knows they are growing impatient and holds them in check with his translucent amber eyes, which he uses like headlights to paralyze his prey. Punching a button on the console, Maxwell purrs, "You are up, good. It is 5 a.m. Find out how much they want for the National Enquirer." The citizens of Maxwell's empire know no time zones. Finally he is off the phone just long enough to address a problem with the Mirror...
...Moroccan satellite channel. Next his personal secretary, Andrea Martin, 25, a pale blond, appears with a message. Maxwell reads it and thunders, "He is as keen on this idea as if he was bitten by a rattler on the anus." Accustomed to such eruptions, Martin slips away as another button lights. "Latrine rumors!" he shouts into the speaker. "We are going to sue." Suddenly, he tells the Israelis he will aid the bond drive. "I always say yes. If I were a woman, I would always be pregnant," he says with a grin...
...visitor from another planet would surely have thought the presidential race was about prison furloughs, the death penalty for drug kingpins, mandatory Pledge of Allegiance and Dan Quayle's IQ. But on Election Day, these hot- button issues turned out to be largely irrelevant. Only 12% of the voters questioned by ABC News said that the Pledge, prison furloughs or Quayle were important to them; just 26% said they were concerned about the death penalty...