Word: seemly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...than $100 billion then to $404 billion in fiscal 1980. In the past ten years, they have jumped from 64% to 76% of the federal budget. Thus less than one-quarter of the budget is subject to paring-unless and until Congress is prepared to curb the uncontrollables. They seem politically sacrosanct because they are mostly transfer payments that go directly to citizens-for Social Security, Medicare, public assistance, veterans' benefits, civil service and military retirement funds. Nobody wishes to deprive further the aged and infirm, the poor and the ill. Yet the total bill for these benefits...
...would seem suicidal for any political leader to challenge just a few of these groups, let alone most of them. Yet the broad mass of Americans are wearying of inflation, regulation and budget busting. They realize that those three mighty forces have impeded investment and caused the nation to fall behind, and they may be ready to support the courageous political leader who will tackle the special interests headon. In times of such ferment, the public may well be prepared to accept fairly radical steps. Some possibilities...
...prosecuted. And if it had come to trial, says Susan Rohr, an adviser at the three-year-old Detroit Rape Counseling Center, "the defense attorney would have done everything to keep the jury from thinking about the facts of the crime. Instead, he would have tried to make it seem that the victim was in the habit of making quick acquaintances with strange men in a bar late at night...
...Work hard, drink hard" is not exactly a national motto, but the Japanese seem to do both with rare dedication. Last year they spent a staggering $17.8 billion on alcoholic beverages, up fivefold from ten years ago. Of the $222 that the average Japanese adult invests in hard stuff every year,* 42% goes for beer and 31% for sake (rice wine). What is remarkable is the rise of a Western spirit: whisky. It accounts for 20% of all alcohol sales and comes in scores of brands, more than half of them made in Japan...
...what of Dickens? It is fine to be "after Dickens," but in this case the distance is embarrassing. Great Expectations would seem to offer rich and practical material for an opera. Pip's progress through the world is eventful, and he does not meet a single dull soul on his road to self-knowledge. Yet the novel is not so diffuse that it could not be contained in a manageable number of scenes...