Word: instincts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...phone rang in the command center: No one is coming out. All Coulson could do was watch, and think about the children: "The strongest instinct is a mother's instinct for a child." Then word came from Waco that one or two people had been spotted outside the building and that agents, protected only by their helmets, body armor and green flight suits of fire-resistant Nomex, were leaving the safety of their armored vehicles and going after them...
While a normal politician's instinct, as disaster burns around them, is to run for cover, Reno drew herself up tall, 6 ft. 2 in. tall, and went on national television to say, The buck stops with me, I take full responsibility, it was my decision, I approved the plans, until journalists and pundits and pols were breathless at the audacity of it, an act of political self-immolation. She was everywhere on the evening news and the talk shows, declaring that after hard thought she had reached the best judgment she could and that "based on what we know...
...With an instinct for contrast, Los Angeles voters pared a passel of 24 politicians vying to replace Mayor Tom Bradley and picked two polar opposites for the June 8 runoff. Venture capitalist Anglo Richard Riordan, 62, calls himself "tough enough to turn L.A. around." Liberal Asian-American city councilman Michael Woo, 41, vows to "build a multiethnic coalition." The campaign, predicted University of Southern California pundit Larry Berg, will be "a knock-down drag...
...shouldn't I be able to share my software with my neighbor? Society continually reminds us that we should help other people, and sharing seems a virtually natural instinct. How am I helping anyone when I keep a neat word processor or a math package locked away on my computer for solely my personal use? If my neighbor wants my spreadsheet, I should certainly be free to give it to her--especially since it will not hurt me in the slightest...
These three are all respectable motivations, up to a point. The instinct to oppose whatever those in power happen to be proposing is democratically healthy. A reluctance to compromise shows intellectual principles. The practice of jumping out of the way of bandwagons is morally superior to the practice of jumping onto them. But a fourth roadblock to hope is less admirable. That is complacency or mental laziness...