Word: fatuous
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...Question of Upbringing), who fought with the wrong partisans. The Malayan debacle takes another of Powell's veteran characters, Charles Stringham, P.O.W. and presumed dead. The officer indirectly responsible for the orders that killed both men turns out to be the egregious Kenneth Widmerpool, whose fatuous careerism and brassbound egotism have provided veins of comedy running through all nine books. Widmerpool, an ambition addict who flourishes amidst the adversities of the rest of the world, turns up as a colonel, squeezing the epaulettes of power until the pips squeak. These exits and re-entrances emphasize that it is high...
...Every dollar sign in the article about salaries [Feb. 28] gives the lie to your fatuous conclusion regarding judgment. Judgment about selling and profit earns from $6,500 (ad copy) to $733,316 (auto manufacturing). Human life, human values and the future of the earth range from $2,400 (priest) to $200,000 (President...
...major factor, today, the report noted, "our young account for a greater proportion of crime than the increase in their numbers alone can explain." Since 1960, the population of juveniles has risen 22%; meanwhile, their arrest rate for violent offenses has doubled. Despite its findings, the commission drew fatuous hope from a familiar statistic: "Despite the recent trends, 99% of the population do not engage in crimes of violence...
...appointments of Fortas and former congressman Homer Thornberry. Unfortunately, much less time was spent on the substantive issue of whether Fortas, and more particularly Thornberry, were good choices for the positions. That they were opposed by the Senate neanderthals, and that many of the attacks on Fortas were fatuous and petulant, seemed enough to make the case for their appointments airtight and inviolable...
Unfortunately, all this promises more crises and convulsions in 1968. The con fusion tends to confirm extremist notions that U.S. institutions are moribund, that the only solution is to uproot society and start afresh. Only the fatuous deny that too many courts, legislatures, federal agencies and universities have grown unmindful of their duty to liberate rather than constrict. Yet in advanced countries, institutions cannot be eliminated; the infinitely complex problems of crime or poverty require organized experts. There is no Gordian knot waiting to be slashed. To yearn for apocalypse and reject the real task-to reform failing institutions...