Word: venal
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Corrupt Priests. With care and cynicism, Author Stacton builds his theory. Egypt's priesthood, Ikhnaton's mother reflects at one point, was "a series of venal officials ... a branch of the police, and only slightly more corrupt." Yet she is well aware that "corruption is the price we have to pay for order." Her son might have realized it too, had he possessed only that measure of insanity normal to a bloodline transmitted for generations through the marriage of brother and sister. But when the priests of Amon, in the traditional coronation ceremony, pushed the new Pharaoh alone...
...year-old independent weekly newsmagazine Philippines Free Press declared last week that "there is more grafting and thieving in our government today than there ever was in previous administrations, from that of Manuel Quezon to Ramon Magsaysay. Compared to the callous and venal officials we have nowadays, those that infested the [1948-53 Quirino administration] were clumsy amateurs...
...When disunion has become a fixed and certain fact," wrote New York City's Democratic Mayor Fernando Wood to the city common council 18 days after South Carolina seceded from the Union in December 1860, "why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master-to a people and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to ruin her commerce...
...Miller. In injured tones, his social-minded wife (played by Andy Hardy's old valentine, Ann Rutherford) reminds him: "We haven't even paid the caterer for the party we gave last year." But even after he reaches a point of possible return, Actor Smith renounces his venal boss's offer of his old job and success, measured out in such tired clichés as mere money, prestige and social standing. Instead, he clings nobly to his massive martini shaker and the vague notion that he would rather be "some place down the ladder where...
...Texas orphan, whereas Elvis is actually a clean-living Tennessee homebody with a real mom and pop. The big pitch in Loving You is that Deke, wide-eyed and unspoiled, is victimized by a predatory lady pressagent (Lizabeth Scott) and a scheming bandleader (Wendell Corey). But the harder the venal two try to cheapen and exploit this naive lad, the richer he gets. He just can't avoid...