Word: contemptable
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...committed no crime. Yet for almost two years she has been in prison. Reason: she refuses to permit her six-year- old daughter Hilary to visit the child's father, Eric Foretich, 46, who she alleges raped Hilary during previous visits. Judge Herbert Dixon sent Morgan to prison for contempt when she refused to reveal Hilary's whereabouts. Relief may be on the way: prompted by the Morgan case, the House of Representatives last week passed a bill to limit civil contempt-of-court sentences to twelve months. Based on the idea that a longer sentence turns coercion into punishment...
...victories are limited because America's fundamental attitudes have not changed. "The gay movement hasn't got nearly so far as the black civil rights movement," declared Madsen in an interview. "Yes, our life-style is now 'public' -- in highly restricted urban areas -- but coast to coast, hatred and contempt for gays aren't far from where they were 25 years...
...President has won praise from such diverse people as Al Haig, a presidential contender who last year could not contain his contempt for Bush, and Cy Vance and Ed Muskie, both Secretaries of State for Jimmy Carter. "Our differences are minimal," confesses James Schlesinger, the clear-eyed Cabinet officer fired for candor by both Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter...
...persistent pool of sewage on a playground, dubbed Lake Villa Griffin by angry residents, led to the filing of criminal charges against the city to force sewer repairs. When Mayor Officer failed to appear at a hearing on the matter, a county judge clapped him into jail briefly for contempt...
According to Balzac, "Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation." According to P.J. O'Rourke, "Manners are a way to screw people over without their knowing it." Although 150 years separate the master novelist from the Rolling Stone nihilist, their contempt for social artifice is identical. The difference, of course, is that one of them has a savage comic flair. The other one wrote in French...