Word: fad
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...list, alas, is long. Begin with public officials who have exploited the issue for 20 years, advocating phony feel-good nostrums like the current fad for drug testing in the workplace, as if mid-level bureaucrats were society's prime offenders. Joining the politicians in the dock are those antidrug crusaders who have either squandered credibility with exaggerated scare talk or strained credulity with prissy pronouncements. The media are culpable as well, for sensationalized coverage that has often served to glamourize the menace they are decrying. Then there are the social-policy conservatives who purport to see no connection between...
Part of the problem is the consistent inability of SDI's designers to define its "architecture," the way it is supposed to work. Originally, there was much talk of space-age particle beams and laser weapons, until the practical difficulties of those technologies became apparent. In 1986 the fad was nuclear-generated X-ray lasers. Last year the SDI organization, fearful that Congress would further cut funding in the absence of a tangible program, pressured the Pentagon into endorsing "Phase I," a system of ground- and space-based sensors and interceptor rockets...
...cooking in America. Craig Claiborne once proclaimed her a "national treasure," and Julia Child calls her "my mentor in all things Italian." James Beard traveled to Italy for Hazan's cooking class. She preached the virtues of extra-virgin olive oil long before the Mediterranean diet became a health fad, raved about pearly risottos before they became trendy, and opened up spaghetti-and-meatball mentalities to light, delicate radicchio sauces. Her three cookbooks have sold 1 million copies. Her cooking workshops in Venice have drawn students from 28 countries, including ordinary housewives, professionals and celebrities like Danny Kaye, Burt Lancaster...
Small wonder that fashionable opinion in Washington is now having second thoughts about this sudden overdose of ethics. Take Bush, who in late January declared that his commitment to the highest ethical standards "is not, believe me, a fad or some passing fancy." Of course, this was before Tower began to crumble and it was discovered that Secretary of State James Baker owned an estimated $2.9 million worth of Chemical Bank stock while he was Treasury Secretary with policymaking influence over the treatment of the bank's shaky Third World loans. These days the President sounds less like a patrician...
...company attributes the renewed interest partly to last fall's debut of several new Davy Crockett episodes on NBC. But this time the fad is as big with moms and dads as it is with preteen frontiersmen...