Word: torpid
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...first, Melbourne dabbled reluctantly in politics. He much preferred books and parties. But at 51, after several torpid years in Parliament, he was brought into a Whig Cabinet as Home Secretary. He snapped out of his indolence by harshly putting down hunger riots in the south of England. "I like what is tranquil and stable,'' he announced, and achieved tranquillity by hanging several of the leaders. He scoffed at earnest middle-class reformers, once received a group of them lounging on his sofa. While they talked, he pulled a feather out of a pillow, began to blow...
...reaction of India to all of this has been curiously torpid. In his on-again, off-again role as man of peace, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has belittled the Chinese land grab. In the past, he and Defense Minister Krishna Menon have described the aggressions as "minor and petty," called the area occupied by the Chinese only "barren mountaintops where not even a blade of grass grows." Such remarks have brought angry charges against the government in New Delhi's Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament), where one opposition critic has accused Nehru and Menon of ordering India...
...enemies of the fourth President of the U.S. called him "little Jemmy," or "his little majesty," or "withered little apple-John." Declared one editorial writer: "His heart is petrified and hard as marble. His body is torpid, and he is without feeling...
...last week Laos' torpid, dusty administrative capital of Vientiane swarmed with crowds-but not in panic. Along the banks of the slow-moving Mekong River there were foot races, boxing and wrestling matches. At night the temple courtyards were filled with slim girls dancing to haunting flute music. A torchlight parade wound through the city, and everyone agreed that the most magnificent floats were those of the Royal Laotian Army...
...face, an order setting up a committee is not the most exciting thing in the world, and the fact that this new body replaces two old and torpid committees that accomplished very little should serve as a warning. Eisenhower's Committee on Governmental Policy and his Contract Committee (chaired by former Vice-President Nixon) were examples of what usually comes of relying on executive orders in such matters. And Lyndon Johnson's statement that the new committee will appeal to "decency and good will" in preventing job discrimination sounds all too familiar, to say the least...