Word: puritanically
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this recreational multitasking is not only a technical change but an assault on the very couch-potato philosophy of leisure, which I hereby dub chaise-pomme-de-terrisme. In today's productivity-minded, techno-Puritan culture, you are a sloth and a loser if you aren't doing at least two things at all times: making a cell-phone call while checking messages on your Blackberry, checking stock quotes while making love to your partner, and so on. It's strange to think of watching the tube as a throwback to a simpler, more contemplative day, but that's what...
Though Adams had the same prickliness as Give-'Em-Hell Harry, he's just not quite as colorful. From a family of Puritan farmers, Adams was honest and solid, but he could be argumentative, vain and despairing. In John Adams (Simon & Schuster; 751 pages; $35), McCullough does not try to exalt him. Instead he shows how Adams' ability to be sensible and independent made him an important element in the firmament of talents that created a new nation...
...those who gathered in Philadelphia in 1776, Adams was one of the first to advocate independence. The following year, he was sent as an envoy to Paris, where he worked with Benjamin Franklin and later Thomas Jefferson. They were both more polished and popular than Adams--and certainly less Puritan in their approach to the pleasures of Paris. After the war Adams became America's first ambassador to England, where he again proved stiffly reliable but devoid of the courtiers' charms that counted for so much in the world of European diplomacy...
...things stand, the T is a quick, efficient and reliable way to get from Harvard to downtown Boston-unless, of course, you have the temerity to stay out later than 12:30 a.m. Boston should be proud of its Puritan heritage, but John Winthrop must not be allowed to dictate its transportation policy in the 21st century. Extending T hours will allow Boston's sizeable student population to venture more frequently into the city in the evenings, something that may help to liven up the rather placid nightlife of downtown and Back...
There's another sort--let's call him Conservation Wuss. He might hug a tree but not necessarily. Some of his ilk are skinflints, in the Puritan-Calvinist tradition, clipping coupons (for cents off on laundry detergent, not bonds) and using fluorescent light bulbs. Others are poor folks, trying to stretch a buck. They all see the value of heat pumps and buying low-flow shower heads and cars based on how many miles per gallon they...