Word: cranked
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...start of every year, pundits, astrologers and other assorted soothsayers crank out their predictions for the year ahead. Few take them very seriously, and judging by the 1970 performance, that is just as well. There were some outstanding goofs. Britain's Astrologer Maurice Woodruff predicted that Ronald Reagan would not be reelected. In Italy, Astaroth foresaw that Leonid Brezhnev would be ousted last spring and later murdered. In the U.S., Sybil Leek, self-styled queen of witches, revealed that in October, Richard Nixon would be caught up in a saucy sex scandal that would raise the nation...
...have a particularly difficult life because of the nature of the Viet Nam War. Where, in another kind of conflict, their men would be heroes, now antiwar groups in their own land denounce the cause for which the men were fighting in language like that used by the enemy. Crank telephone calls interrupt whatever tranquillity they can find. President Nixon has pronounced himself pleased with their patience, but their patience is wearing thin. Increasingly, some of the wives complain that the U.S. Government is not doing enough. Some of them have been driven to espouse the offer put forward...
...publicity that accompanies a public figure often is followed by as he said, "300 crank letters," which ask for time consuming commitments that draw him away from his work. For this reason he didn't even want to look at the article when shown to him at his lab yesterday...
After it was over, he came charging into the office and said, 'Crank up; we're going...
...ever saw." To a degree, the town meeting represents an older communal spirit not unlike that of hippie settlements. Now the technology that the communards seek to escape is beginning to close in on towns like Mount Vernon. Until a couple of years ago, Mount Vernon was served by crank telephones and calls routed by two elderly operators who knew everyone in town. One townsman recalls: "They knew where everybody was and used to transfer calls if you were visiting somebody. Now we just have this dial stuff that gets only a lot of noise in the receiver...