Word: stolidness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Such a defeat is not likely to happen again. Already Bumpers has shown a flair for dealing with the state's stolid legislature (in the face of which even Faubus sat on his hands during his first term in office). In three short months Bumpers managed to accomplish a reorganization of the governmental bureaucracy, a removal of use-tax exemptions for utilities, an increase in the cigarette and personal income tax, and legislation giving home-rule powers to the cities. He also made inroads into two of the state's thorniest problems, gaining a pay increase of $900 for teachers...
However, the film gets inextricably bogged down when the mercenaries mix with the peasants. Clavell's characters are dull when they're not in action; the soldiers are grossly sensual and self-serving, and, as is equally realistic, the peasants are stolid, superstitious folk. But Clavell remains outside them: the only characters he feels comfortable with are those of Caine and Sharif, the former having the remaining good lines. (All-suffering Sharif complains bitterly that one of his favorite country maidens is one of a group picked to whore for the soldiers in exchange for protection. Says Caine: "Three months...
...little children, about the same age as those in the baby contest, are strapped in tightly and stare out at the fluorescent fuzz around them; they tend to look very stolid and serious in their little pods, like their grandparents out for a 15 m.p.h. procession to a movie or a drive-in church. After perhaps a dozen revolutions, one set of parents plucks their beloved bundle from a pod proudly emblazoned with a screaming, claws-out eagle, the stars and stripes, and the words "Cong Killer" on the side-and stuffs a thick wad of pink cotton candy...
...astrological sign. If his birthday falls, for example, between May 22 and June 21, the charts have always told him that he is a Gemini. They reassure him that deep down he is a restless, versatile, clever, exuberant and expressive chap, even if friends and neighbors find him stolid, sullen and introverted. Sudden notification that this same fellow is in reality a Taurusstubborn, systematic, kindhearted and musicalis sure to prove unsettling, particularly when he appears decidedly sloppy, mean and congenitally tone-deaf...
...Ralph Tyler Smith lost badly to Adlai Stevenson. "I thought I had my finger on the people's pulse," Smith lamented, "but I obviously miscalculated. I just must have misread what people were really concerned about." Actually, Smith had little chance, regardless of his strategy. The Stevenson name and stolid, sincere persona were just too potent for the Republican state legislator who had been appointed to fill out Everett Dirksen's unexpired term...