Word: spartan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...well as spartan salary scales for top federal jobs, has clearly slowed the appointment process at the sub-Cabinet level. Fred Fielding, the transition's conflict-of-interest counsel, proposes modifications, such as requiring an appointee to disclose the nature of each of his assets without having to specify the exact amount of those over $10,000. Says he: "It is conflicts, not wealth, that the public is concerned with." He also suggests that financial disclosure be made only to congressional committees, not to the public...
Hurvitz's toughness and resilience reflect a spartan upbringing and an earlier career as a successful businessman. He is a first cousin of former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and, like him, grew up on a pioneering agricultural settlement at Nahalal near Haifa. After a wartime stint as an artilleryman in the British Army's Jewish Brigade, Hurvitz turned his hand to investment. He bought into a farm cooperative, moved on to one small dairy products company after another and demonstrated an unusual knack for turning unprofitable ventures into money earners. Says his brother Amos, a Knesset member...
...wooden sailing ships, temperatures plunged below the freezing mark. The town normally pays the highest electricity bills in Canada because it taps diesel-fueled generators for most of its power. During the competition, however, the Summerside branch of the Royal Bank of Canada turned its thermostat down to a spartan 50°. Bundled in sweaters, the bank's employees toiled busily by the light of Coleman lanterns, kerosene lamps, candlesticks and even silver candelabra they had brought from home. Meanwhile, in the red brick town hall, city workers left electric typewriters and adding machines unplugged and addressed tax forms...
...mobilized deep divisions within the Chilean military. Unlike, for instance, Franco's Nationalist Forces, the Chilean military did not undergo the intensely unifying experience of fighting and winning a civil war. Instead, it conducted a campaign of indiscriminate terror against an unarmed civilian population. Far from promoting a spartan sense of unity, this experience deeply conflicted with the espirit de corps of an institution which had never performed praitorian functions...
People of more modest means who are searching for a detached house in the suburbs must sometimes settle for depressingly spartan structures. To hold down prices, one major builder in Gwinnett County, Ga., 20 miles north of Atlanta, sells $70,000 houses with up to one-third of the interior space unfinished. Owners can complete the rooms later, when they have the money. Bathroom and kitchen floors are covered with vinyl instead of tile, and closets have sliding doors made out of a light plastic material rather than wood. Boston Builder Anthony Lapuma has turned out the first half dozen...