Word: pendulum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have already entered the post-Reagan era, he demonstrated a naivete that could prove fatal for the Democratic Party. Kirk reassured us that the "Conservative realignment" Democrats feared has not materialized and that all the party has to do to regain power is to wait for the political pendulum to swing back its way. With this kind of attitude among Democratic leaders, they are going to be waiting a long time...
...though there is a national trend away from local option laws that ban sales of liquor by the drink. Says Yale Professor David Musto: "Historically, temperance moods have led to prohibition. There's a human tendency to get carried away." Even if Musto is right, chances are that the pendulum of excess will swing back again. What put an end to Prohibition in 1933 was not so much that it was unworkable and unenforceable. According to some historians, it lowered U.S. drinking as much as 50%. A main reason for repeal, write Authors Mark Lender and James Martin in Drinking...
Although it's fronted by a Frenchman, the Stranglers used to thrash harder and scream louder than almost any other band. But Jean-Jacques Burnel, the vocal power behind the band, anticipated the swing of the gustatory pendulum on their album, IV, alienating some of their hardcore spikes-n-nails support. Aural Sculpture, the Strangler's latest, completes their metamorphosis from outraged punk outcasts to ingratiating pop insiders...
...communities during high-crime periods, keeping an eye on strangers, watching rowdy youths, noting open doors or windows. They often keep in touch by citizens-band radio and report suspicious circumstances to police. Such groups, says Houston Police Sergeant J.C. Mosier, "are making a serious dent in crime. This pendulum of not wanting to get involved is swinging back...
Then, in the wake of Watergate, at about the time the press was riding highest, the pendulum started to swing back. Courts began to narrow the definition of public figures. Chief Justice Warren Burger told trial judges, in a footnote to a 1979 opinion, that too many libel cases were being summarily dismissed--that is, rejected before going to trial. For journalists, the most nettlesome result of the court's shift in mood came in a ruling during the pretrial discovery phase of a suit brought by retired Army Lieut. Colonel Anthony Herbert, a former field officer in Viet...