Word: torpor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...EUROPE. The Soviet retaliation against Czechoslovakia stirred the recumbent North Atlantic Treaty Organization out of its torpor, and Nixon aims to see that it stays alert. Because the Soviets "have brought half again as many troops into Eastern Europe as they had there before, and placed them farther forward than ever," said Nixon in mid-October, NATO forces should be brought up to prescribed force levels "as a minimum response." Nixon also emphasizes the need for "a new attitude on the part of the U.S.," one that leads to an improvement of communication with the NATO allies. In particular...
...think of nothing more disastrous for the future of America than Mr. Nixon's talk of unity. The last time we were blessed with unity was during the togetherness Administration of President Eisenhower, which turned out to be a period of absolute torpor...
Stirrings. Behind the convention scene of mixed turmoil and torpor (from her pinnacle of 84 years, Alice Roosevelt Longworth pronounced it "soporific"), there was a good deal of political jostling and even some drama. During the three days leading up to the Wednesday-night balloting, the main maneuvering centered on three elements: 1) a handful of uncommitted delegations, of which Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were the most important; 2) the South, which was largely in Nixon's camp already but vulnerable to Reagan; and 3) Nixon's choice of a running mate...
While Kennedy cannonballed, McCarthy's campaign seemed to be suffering from what he likes to call "acedia" -spiritual torpor. He displayed perhaps his best form of the week when he joined a pepper game with reporters outside a Muncie Westinghouse plant and poled three line drives practically out of the factory grounds. More than normally disorganized, McCarthy appeared late for speeches, found his audience sparse and unresponsive. Part of the problem was financial. Though he does not lack for potential campaign contributors, the Minnesotan's nonchalance in seeking funds has left his forces with $100,000 in debts...
Take François, a sort of negative hippie, a dropout from life. He has left his teaching job and lives aimlessly in a provincial city. His is a regimen of compulsive torpor in which nothing matters. He breaks up with his girl, vegetates, carelessly sets his room afire, goes pointlessly and without remorse to confession, commits a senseless murder, makes up lists of the names of cars that go by. His life is hallucinatory and also quite literally his hell...