Word: maniacal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...later years, he discerned how democracy could be distorted, pointing to Republican France and Napoleon (a "wretch," Jefferson declared, of "maniac ambition"; he added "Having been, like him, entrusted with the happiness of my country, I feel the blessing of resembling him in no other point"). Jefferson stitched together popular sovereignty and liberty, all under divine sponsorship and legitimized by ancient precedent and English tradition. Writes the historian Merrill Peterson: "For the first time in history, 'the rights of man,' not of rulers, were laid at the foundation of a nation. The first great Colonial revolt perforce became the first...
...Eagle scout. I got to do coin collecting and figure skating. I took a year off before college. I worked at a hardware store. I worked at a surgical laser factory. My job was like Zack the Lego maniac, I was the guy who puts the Legos into...
...mere words socialism and communism," wrote George Orwell 62 years ago, "draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England." Today it is the bogeymen of globalization and world trade that bring out their own kooky crowd. There they were in Seattle last week: Zapatistas, anti-Nike-ites, butterfly defenders. They joined steelworkers and the Sierra Club, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan in a giant anti-trade jamboree...
...room filled with acrid smoke and more than 70 shells scattered on the floor. By the time he ran out the door moments later, a 68-year-old receptionist, a 16-year-old camp counselor at the day-care center and three children were wounded. "Just shooting like a maniac," says Victor Ruelas, 19, a maintenance worker who carried the most seriously wounded of the children, Benjamin Kadish, 5, to safety. When told of the extent of the boy's injuries, Ruelas hung his head. "I didn't know he was shot in the back...
...know, moderation pettifogs and sniffs out loopholes, and has a tendency to live life one day at a time, in the wrong direction: "Oh, I'll have eggs Benedict, just this once." The truth is that moderation works only if you are an unblinking maniac about it. While admirable when rigidly observed, moderation is ultimately a thin creed, a sort of Unitarianism of diet, a deism of good intentions...