Word: worthlessness
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Lode. Louise's luck was phenomenal. She got to the freewheeling West when her father, after serving in the Mexican War, settled in tiny Downieville, Calif., where his earnings went into worthless mining stocks. Louise, her mother and grandmother joined him after a journey of 5,000 miles by boat and muleback. At 16, pretty, dark-haired Louise made a disastrous marriage to a local doctor who was as calamitous a speculator as her father. When he was found dying at Poverty Hill, Calif., riddled by drugs and alcohol, 22-year-old Louise was left penniless with a crippled...
Until he landed in prison on a two-to three-year rap for passing a bad check, John Corpier, 32, thought of himself as "a pretty worthless fellow." The son of a Texas dirt farmer, he left school after the eighth grade, worked at a prewar Civilian Conservation Corps camp until he joined the Air Force at 17. Though he made a respectable war record as a B-17 waist gunner in Europe, he never seemed able to settle down once he had left the service. He worked at radio and TV repair jobs in Alaska, Seattle and Palo Alto...
Ratings are also worthless as a guide to what the sponsor is really after: sales. I Lone Lucy was riding high when it was dropped by Philip Morris; it was evidently not paying off at the cigarette counter. Though virtually all automobile sales fell in 1956, high-rated Ed Sullivan's sponsor Mercury suffered a bigger decline than most. (Adman's rebuttal: Who knows how badly sales might have fared without Sullivan?) Arthur Godfrey argues that sponsors ought to judge shows by how the product is moving. But, say admen, most products are affected by too many variables...
Tattered Coattails. Political coattails were next to worthless. Adlai Stevenson had depended on strong Democratic state tickets to help him win; only in Missouri, where the Democratic ticket was led by able Senator Tom Hennings. did "Operation Reverse Coattails" succeed. Oregon's Republican Douglas McKay chatted endlessly at the corner gas station or general store about his service as Eisenhower's Secretary of the Interior. But Oregonians were interested in issues, e.g., public power, declining lumber prices, and they re-elected the man who discussed those issues: professorial Democratic Senator Wrayne Morse (who was also pretty good...
...varsity's hopes today rest--as usual--on the line. If an aggressive and experienced Brown line begins to open holes for the Bruin backs and gives quarterback Finney ample protection, the running and passing of the Crimson's Stahura and Simourian will be worthless. Sophomore tackle Bob Shaunessy played well against Princeton and will have to be in top form again this afternoon, as will Captain Ted Metropoulos and the rest of the line...