Word: thumbings
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Baseball fans were mystified. It was rather like an umpire with one thumb hooked in the air and the other hand spread out, saying, "You probably should be out, but you're safe, I think, kind of." For the third time in 50 years, the Supreme Court was considering major league baseball's exemption from the antitrust laws. In 1922 Oliver Wendell Holmes had stated for a unanimous court that baseball was not engaged in interstate commerce and therefore was not covered by antitrust regulations. Last week Justice Harry Blackmun held that baseball is, of course, engaged...
...thus guaranteeing a scalding for anyone who uses it; an hourglass filled with pebbles, not sand, "for people who don't want to grow old"; a pipe with four different faucets for water at different temperatures; a hammer with a handle so bent that nobody can hit his thumb; a cat-shaped traveling bag with handles and a perforated Plexiglas nose for taking one's pet tabby on a trip; an "absorbent bottle" made out of sponge, "to double its capacity"; and an undulating Ping Pong table, to "project the ball unpredictably...
...Nazi salute. The same assertive gesture, in addition to the man's taller stature, was interpreted by militant women as male chauvinism. Actually, the male's position was intended to show how the human arm moves and to display man's fingers and opposed thumb; the woman's stance demonstrates not passivity but the workings of the hip. Also, Drake observes, most men really are taller than most women...
...some 350 veterans converged on Duluth last week to plan a campaign of political action. Why Duluth? "Because," said one vet, "the hotels offered to put us up for four dollars a head a night, that's why. We're all broke." Arriving by bus, motorcycle and thumb, delegates of the National Association of Collegiate Veterans (N.A.C.V.), which claims 500 chapters representing 250,000 veterans, began efforts to revise and update the obsolete G.I. Bill...
...style grows naturally from an Appalachian bluegrass tradition. He has mastered not only breathtaking exhibitions of flat-picking, but also a remarkable finger-picking technique, using his thumb to play a moving bass-a style he picked up from Merle Travis (after whom Merle Watson is named). His repertoire relies heavily on traditional ballads, country blues, and love songs, but his performance at Sanders Theater, like his new Elementary Doctor Watson!, included some more modern music which he interpreted just as effectively...