Word: sprees
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While the President fiddled, a number of his appointees diddled, in a truly baroque spree of systematic stealing. Attorney General Harry Daugherty was perhaps the most clever and rapacious. Daugherty shared a Washington house with one Jess Smith, a fellow Ohioan and a proven fixer and bribe taker. Smith granted favors and made promises that only the Attorney General could deliver, kept up to half a million dollars buried in a friend's backyard and walked around wearing a money belt filled with 75 $1,000 bills. When the jig was nearly up, Smith committed suicide. To thwart...
...could imagine even the young inventor going home to read Tarzan, or, as the times changed, sitting in a theater to watch Sam Spade or Philip Marlow or Humphrey Bogart. Or watching newsreels of Lindbergh. Even Tom would respond to that hierarchy. It may have been an unprecedented spree of hyperbole, but the newspapers called Lindbergh's landing "The biggest news story since the crucifixion of Christ." Well, obviously, it wasn't the biggest story since Roman times--but it might have been the biggest news story. News, after all, started out chronicling heroes. Homer and Vergil were only carrying...
...more properly as a vacuum. Newly appointed Finance Minister Yoram Aridor had added an undeniably popular move by reducing excise taxes and import duties on luxury items like color television sets and autos. The "Aridor effect," as it promptly became known, sent Israelis on a crazy buying spree. Laborites angrily charged that it was a shameless attempt to buy votes for which the country would have to pay later. Some middle-of-the-road opinion was also scandalized. "The Israeli government has suddenly evaporated," commented Columnist Amnon Dankner in Tel Aviv's daily Ha'aretz. "It is hovering...
...euphoria of the spring shopping spree contrasts sharply with Israel's sorely strained finances within the world economy. "Our real crisis," says the Bank of Israel's Gafny, "is the fact that for the past seven years the economy has not been growing. Our G.N.P. is almost static." In 1980, in fact, the rise in G.N.P. was a mere .9%, a disaster for a nation that must pay ever higher import bills. Israel's energy bill alone, a relatively tiny $200 million in 1973, had increased tenfold by 1980, to $2.2 billion. Foreign debt stood...
...rejuvenated Harvard sprint corps continued its victory spree, sweeping the 100 and nabbing the top two places in the 200. Freshman phenomenon Mark Henry led the 100 from start to finish, breaking the tape in 11.5 seconds. Dwayne Jones snatched second place in 11.7 seconds, while his roommate Bernard Goodwyn, competing in his first varsity race this year, copped third...