Word: feckless
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...course, the children of wealthy parents don't always grow up to be self-indulgent, feckless adults, just as deprived children don't always become driven overachievers. But literature and media are stuffed with rich-kids-gone-bad stories, and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that cosseted offspring can lack the thrift, independence, ambition, persistence and entrepreneurial spirit that contributed to their parents' success. Most people have heard of the "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves" curse, which holds that family wealth, once accumulated, is typically dissipated by the third generation because trust-fund babies, having little regard for the money that...
...sprawling army of supporters might be an even bigger challenge. Obama's efficient, competent, disciplined campaign set a new standard for a well-managed operation. Could Palin do the same? Probably not. One thing the Troopergate report revealed is that she surrounded herself in Alaska with a feckless mix of cronies and yes-men and ceded far too much power to her husband. She would have to be a much better manager and judge of talent than that...
...1930s, but so far, this feels more like a '70s flashback. It's not just that Zac Efron's hair is almost as shaggy as Shaun Cassidy's or that jeans are once again worn tight enough to read Braille through the back pocket. It's the whole feckless, zipless, helpless vibe that has settled across the land, from the factories of Motor City to the gas lines of Charlotte, from the boardrooms of New York to the subdivisions of California. What's that word again? Oh, yes: malaise...
...Malacca and the Gulf of Aden, which links the Red and Arabian seas. Buoyed by fast boats, fearsome weaponry and high-tech communications gear, pirates carried off 263 reported heists in 2007 - 28% of which occurred in the treacherous waters off Nigeria and Somalia, where vast coastlines and feckless transitional governments make for easy marks for plundering pirates. Despite a June U.N. resolution that lets naval allies surveil those waters, ships are warned to stay 250 nautical miles from land...
...institutions and, of course, after Hurricane Katrina--will come to be seen, I suspect, as the defining failure of George W. Bush as President. One hundred years from now, historians will scratch their heads and ask themselves the same question that plagues Alice Blackwell: How did this amiable but feckless man ever get to be President? Curtis Sittenfeld has provided a plausible secret history of an American embarrassment--and a grand entertainment. American Wife heralds the end of the Age of Bush, which cannot come too soon...