Word: thickets
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
AMERICAN distillers operate within so dense a thicket of state and federal laws that many a seasoned drinker might think that the ghost of Carry Nation continues to haunt the industry. But the real reason behind all the regulations is not a spirit of Prohibition, which is in retreat almost everywhere, but the fact that liquor is the second largest source of revenue for the Federal Government (after the income tax). It is almost as important for hard-pressed state governments. Officials are understandably eager to keep close control over such a rich source of cash. Whisky makers complain that...
...crisp satire in this collection of essays. In a modern version of the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas, the king's good intentions get lost in a bureaucratic maze. When Parkinson analyzes beards through history and finds them to be a sure indicator of lack of civilization (a thicket behind which older men could hide their uncertainties), he is at his bluff best. But the crotchety professor can also be dull. His strident common sense often sounds simply pompous; and his habit of describing imaginary conversations seems contrived. Parkinson's biggest problem is best described in another...
Last week the FHA's current and popular program to subsidize home ownership for low-and moderate-income families, under Section 235 of the Housing Act of 1968, ran into a similar thicket of trouble. A staff study issued by Wright Patman's House Banking Committee charged that the FHA has allowed real estate speculators using the program to make huge profits at the expense of the poor through what amounts to "sheer fraud." The FHA "virtually turned its back," the report asserted, while unscrupulous operators bought or built ramshackle dwellings, obtained inflated valuations from FHA appraisers...
...eight months-but the decline occurred almost entirely among adult women. The jobless rate among blacks rose from 8% to 8.7%; among black youths the rate is now 34%. Thus when Nixon's commission holds its first meeting later this month, its 23 members will confront a troublesome thicket of economic difficulties...
...walks the arena stage in twisting little circles, like a caged animal. Not a really wild animal, but a poorly domesticated one-petulant rather than fierce, caught in a thicket of heavy-legged furniture. At one moment of electric outrage, she turns her back to the audience, raises clenched fists to heaven like Antigone, then slowly lowers them to her neck, like just another housewife with just another nagging backache. In this magnificent little cycle of rebellion and surrender, Miss Worth defines her theme: trapped impotence...