Word: fads
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...federal management of the economy. Inflation has raised government costs for construction, supplies and utility bills more than tax planners had foreseen. Recession has caused tax collections to fall below expectations, while joblessness has jacked up government expenditures for unemployment compensation and welfare. Although it has become an intellectual fad to question the need for vigorous economic growth, no Governor, mayor or federal budget director can have any doubt about the meaning of a halt or even a slowdown: fiscal disaster...
...operator. Even worse, the tune they select might well complete an expensive call to London or Paris. Experienced players usually place a local call to a friend and tap out new melodies to him only after the connection has been made. Otherwise, the explosive spread of the fad seems to be limited only by two factors: 1) the relatively small number of pushbutton phones in service and 2) the lack of # and * buttons (necessary for Happy Birthday and certain other tunes) on some models...
Michigan Bell has mixed feelings about the fad. Any increase in calls means an increase in revenues, but a company spokesman has reservations. "As with any electronic device, you create problems by misusing your phone. We really think a phone is for communication, not a replacement for the piano or violin." That argument apparently fails to impress the phone musicians, least of all Student Ascher. "Have you heard?" he says. "They're coming out with a 16-button phone. Imagine, four more notes...
Renewed Concern. The beginning of that dialogue has stirred up all sorts of hopes and interests about China among Americans. Some of the interest is pure fad-the fascination with baggy peasant suits and spicy Szechwan cooking, for instance. But the fact is that the last 23 years of ill will and hatred represent an aberration in the history of Sino-American relations, and the renewed concern about China is a restoration of normalcy. America's attachment to China dates back to the mid-19th century, when the U.S. derived considerable moral satisfaction from befriending the helpless, prostrate country...
Uncertain Future. Unfortunately, as Greeley sees it, there is little new religious scholarship to help formulate the needed answers. The Second Vatican Council dislodged much traditional thinking, and a good deal of what has been produced since then, Greeley told the committee, has been mere fad. The U.S. church needs to have perhaps "ten or 20 at-large bishops" who are scholars themselves, and who would be free to concentrate on various specialties. One area that desperately needs new theoretical formulation, Greeley said, is sexual morality "to take into account the insights of modern psychology and personalistic philosophy...