Word: inertia
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...source of resistance came from below, in the united hostility of poor youngsters toward the alien intellectualism of mathematics; another kind, the inertia of the school system, sets a ceiling to a teacher's effectiveness from above. On one hand Lowe lamented the unresponsiveness of ninth graders still bafflled by fractions, while on the other he complained about outmoded books and instruction techniques...
...about a dozen bathrooms were made and installed (Fuller's close friend, Author Christopher Morley, bought two), but Phelps Dodge never bore down very hard on getting them into production-perhaps because of nervousness about the plumbers' union. Bucky's diagnosis: "It was only the general inertia of the building world...
Planned withdrawals could save the United States from stranding itself in the South Vietnamese swamps because of policy inertia. When the approved American line was to support Diem regardless of his liabilities because Washington was concerned with defeating the Vietcong, this support was justified by two main points in favor of Diem: (1) Any attempt to overthrow him would disrupt the war effort and (2) no suitable substitutes existed...
Blue laws* are relics of a time when church and state seemed inextricably intertwined. They survive through the same sort of legislative inertia that preserves the numerous city ordinances against kite flying-a pastime once feared as a sure horse-frightener...
...colorless tasks, from building chicken houses to digging sewers. They have wrestled with tongue-twisting languages. They have gagged on incredible foods containing everything from cat meat to sheep intestines to fish heads. They have cursed the mistakes of their superiors and muttered in fury at the ignorance and inertia among the natives they are trying to help. Six volunteers have died; 248 quit or were fired...