Word: ballast
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What energized that compelling performance was the fact that the performer had something to say. Critics mocked The Speech, that cargo of truisms worn to stream-bed smoothness after decades of delivery, but the solidity, and the consistency, of Reagan's basic message acted as political ballast when many another career capsized...
...week's final farewell was abrupt -- and necessary. While the company faces no immediate liquidity crisis, its $1.7 billion debt is dragging it down. HBJ posted an operating loss of $242 million last year, and its stock has collapsed to $3 a share, from $19 in 1989. To shed ballast, HBJ sold its Sea World theme parks last year for $1.1 billion. But the company needs to sell even more assets, and the elder Jovanovich did not have the heart to tear apart the house he had built and ruled single-handedly since the 1950s...
...Bush, a man most comfortable with the prudent and predictable, the desire to give ballast to the wildly careening events of recent weeks may have been one reason he arrived in Malta with a long list of concrete proposals. Bush also seemed determined to prove to public opinion in the U.S. and Europe that the American President was just as committed to building the peace as his popular Soviet counterpart...
Stories about seafaring inevitably carry a ballast of symbolism. Shimmering significance goes with the territory: people casting off in the little world of a ship, adrift on a journey at the mercies of the elements and fate. In his second novel -- twelve years after his critically praised An American Romance -- John Casey makes it plain on the opening page that some large issues are going to be entertained. He introduces his hero, Dick Pierce, in a skiff, floating among the creeks and inlets of coastal Rhode Island. In paragraph two, Pierce ponders the marsh grass around...
...comprehensiveness and accuracy, and the magazine's personality pieces retain a healthy edge of skepticism. Moreover, some staffers believe the old TV Guide, with its rather stodgy format, may have been due for rejuvenation. Yet that sober, even-tempered tone of voice always provided an important bit of ballast for a business fraught with glitter and hype. The danger is that when the current make-over is finished, one of the TV industry's watchdogs will wind up as just another part of the show...