Word: heedless
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...condemnation of oppression. Rather, Burger's Daughter is an intensely personal vision of political commitment--and its costs. Through the character of Rosa Burger we sense the emotional toll of living in a country with epic conflicts, a frontier where every action must be extreme: either gutless capitulation or heedless defiance. There is no middle ground in a country where there are still heroes...
Many of Pearson's methods wouldn't be tolerated today. He really went after people. He taught Anderson to look "first for those personal weaknesses ... to cher ish in an adversary: overweening vanity, bumbling pomposity, addiction to creature comforts, a tendency to alcoholic indiscretion, the heedless pursuit of venery." Opponents were destroyed not by reasoned argument but by a recital of their peccadilloes, endlessly repeated. When Ander son objected to such "scraps and chaff," his boss replied: "Once you catch one of these birds at anything, and you're sure of your facts, never worry about doing...
...distinctions between the people and their leaders are ultimately somewhat artificial. They are also recriminatory and divisive in any crisis that calls for the unity of shared sacrifice. Blame for heedless profligacy and bad planning should be addressed to corporate and Government leaders. But the responsibility is also shared by the larger population. Pogo's winsome cliché"We have met the enemy and he is us") is in full operation. Americans are not, after all, mere spectators in the drama of their own lives. They are, in historical terms, the most appallingly wasteful people who have ever lived...
...World by James Hancock and Hugh Elliott (Harper & Row; 304 pages; $65). The authors have limited their choice of long-legged wading birds to a single family, the Ardeidae, which comprises some 61 species. The Snowy Egret graces the dust jacket, wearing the plumes, or aigrettes, that caused a heedless millinery trade to slaughter it to the brink of extinction in the early 1900s. But, as Emily Dickinson pointed out, hope is a thing with feathers, and today the protected Snowy has become a common sight-as well as a hopeful symbol of conservation in general...
...white-haired man is deep in concentration. In his hands, he grips a pair of L-shaped metal rods, holding them at waist level like a pair of six-shooters. Slowly and deliberately, he walks across the village green, heedless of the knot of spectators. "Please indicate a vein of good drinking water," he says, almost as an incantation. "It should flow at a rate of at least five gallons per minute and should not be more than 20 feet deep." He takes a few more steps, repeating the formula. And, lo, the rods swing 180° apart, forming...