Word: torpid
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Torpid Bureaucracy. Poland's new Foreign Minister is Stefan Jedrychowski, 58, a Politburo member and head of the state planning commission for the past twelve years. As an officer of the Soviet-sponsored political group that Stalin imposed on Poland in 1944-and a trusted Gomulka lieutenant-Jedrychowski can be expected to change none of the pro-Moscow fervor of Poland's foreign policy. But change may be in store for the nation's flailing economy now that Jedrychowski has left its top planning post...
Poland's foremost economists have long pleaded for reforms that would encourage promising light industries, introduce the profit incentive to both management and labor, and decentralize the huge, torpid bureaucracy that rules the country's industry. As long ago as 1957, Jedrychowski announced that the state had agreed to those reforms "in principle." In practice, he and most other top policy-makers never got around to doing much about them-and Poland's economy is very nearly at a standstill. The standard of living has risen only fractionally since 1956. The press is full of complaints about...
...Cecilia Society and the Glee Club concerts at the still point of the burning world. "Song is the key," I reasoned, "for only the rapture of song links such disparate spirits as Arjuna, Chemosh, Mailer, Nixon, Tristan, Bruckner, and the confluence of latent universal souls thrashing about in the torpid light of Art. Let us ublimate the manifold contradictions of life in an decipherable moment of ineffable unity. And so, rowing Endgame on top of Presidential Power, and ling the ineluctable pull of some Taoist-Maoist dooms against my Captain Shotover-Thomist faith, I ded for Sanders to hear...
Bewildering Streets. But such efficiency goes only so far. Traffic is not just slow; it is torpid-and with the influx of Olympics visitors, it may well come to a halt at times. The trip from downtown hotels to the games used to take 30 minutes; now it takes at least an hour. Yet few of the 135,000 tourists seem to mind. For the extravagant Mexican sense of politeness is heightened by the Olympics. There are 900 pretty, miniskirted, multilingual girl aides standing ready to help bewildered tourists and foreign officials. Even Mexican motorists have shifted attitudes. A jaywalker...
...course, he has not been campaigning before the electorate. And as for delegates, they were clearly not convinced that the Vice President's rivals were more deserving of the nomination. Senator Eugene McCarthy's strategy was to force floor fights to stir up torpid delegates, but he was not optimistic about his chances. With characteristic detachment, he allowed: "I'm like the messenger who comes bearing the bad news. In the olden days they used to put him to death. I don't think they'll go quite that far in Chicago." Senator George McGovern...