Word: offhanded
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Strange to say about a man who manages to become President of the United States, but Bill Clinton has been an offhand custodian of his fate. Again and again, he drifts into crisis, blames others, wakes up at last and then scrambles to his own defense, a defense in which, sure enough, he's sinuous, subtle and dazzling. This is what happened in 1980, when he lost his first bid for re-election as Arkansas Governor, then struggled his way back to office two years later. It happened again in the presidential election of 1992, when his past kept getting...
...company's take-no-prisoners business ethic? Or both? To support its case, Justice has amassed reams of testimony from Gates' business partners about strong-arm tactics and restrictive licensing deals. But perhaps the most damaging evidence comes from Microsoft's own words: smoking-gun memos, e-mails and offhand remarks in which executives admit that since their browser is unlikely to win market share on its own merits, they had better tie it to Windows. "We are going to cut off [Netscape's] air supply," a Microsoft vice president allegedly brags at one point. "Everything they're selling...
...more offhand and random the brutality of the Serb rulers, the stronger the support for the emerging nationalist K.L.A. The Vojnik uprising looks like the start of a bloody, protracted guerrilla war that could spill over into the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where 350 American troops are stationed and where ethnic Albanians also seek independence...
...take exception to the offhand comment that by 2001 everyone will be using computers with Windows 2001 and that the only holdouts will be "aging potheads still designing really cool fractal algorithms" on Macintosh computers. Even in jest, comments like this distort reality. Macs are not relevant only to impractical deadbeats. Most of us know that if you want an elegant computer that is easy to set up, operate and maintain, you buy a Mac. Otherwise you get a PC. ALAN THOMPSON San Mateo, Calif...
This year's "lighten up" award goes to Barbara Ehrenreich for her column "What a Cute Universe You Have!" [ESSAY, Aug. 25]. In it she slams the Pathfinder team for giving rocks on Mars cute names and Disney for making a cartoon that is funny. Offhand I would say that anyone who can land a robot on Mars deserves to name the rocks whatever he wants. It's O.K. for animated films to be funny. And Ehrenreich's sense of wonder and awe at the mysteries of life must be extremely fragile and shallow if it can be spoiled...