Word: americanness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This era in our public life seems sure to be remembered for its frequent outbursts of political and legal hysteria--round-the-clock, cable-televised scrums of lawyers, pols and pundits scuffling over the latest Great American Court Case. First O.J., then Bill and Monica, and finally, in 2000, Elian and then George W. vs. Al. Maybe it's fitting that both of this year's courthouse telethons played out in South Florida--the sun-bleached, strip-malled, multicultural face of America's future...
...tempest in a taco shell when genetically engineered feed corn not deemed safe for human consumption (because it might cause allergic reactions) turned up at Taco Bells and other outposts in the human food supply. It was big year in space too, as a team of Russian and American astronauts took occupancy of the new space station, and astronomers (armed with a new generation of smart telescopes and a fleet of clever space-going robots) snapped brilliantly sharp pictures of fire storms on the sun and watermarks on Mars, and brought the number of planets discovered outside our solar system...
...planet was reaching its limit--that nature was beginning to take its revenge. Melting ice in the polar regions suggested that the climate was changing rapidly. Weather was even more erratic than usual, giving some places too little rain and others too much. Fires raced across the parched American West last summer, and recent storms spread devastation from Britain to Taiwan. No specific event could be directly blamed on global warming, but scientists say that in a greenhouse world, deluges and droughts will be more frequent--and severe. Already the hotter climate has increased the range of tropical diseases such...
...fantastic athletic achievement stunning for what it was and stunning for what it meant. When Ben Hogan won three of golf's four major tournaments in 1953, some said it would never be done again. Had you wagered that the next player to do it would be a young American of eclectically mixed race--a bit of white, a bit of black, a lot of Asian--then you would have walked off the course with cash worth counting...
...since African American Jesse Owens ran upside Hitler at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin has a footrace been freighted with so much extra-athletic significance. Modern Australia is in debate over the nation's poor-to-horrid treatment of the island's original settlers, the Aborigines. Now here was an Aboriginal seeking glory, and baldly admitting that she sought it not only for her country but for her people. Four hundred meters is a distance that allows tension to build, and when Freeman came off the near turn trailing, it was almost unbearable. Then she surged, and won. The audience...