Word: basic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Just as perverse, the French often opt for "le petit oiseau va sortir," Spaniards say "patata," while the Japanese have adopted the English term "whisky." As the relator of such delightful trivia, the latest elicitor of the smile is author Angus Trumble, whose A Brief History of the Smile (Basic Books; 226 pages) produces an abundance of them. Begun as a speech delivered to the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons in 1998, Trumble's book artfully deconstructs the smile "into more lines than are in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies," as Malvolio is described...
...simplest level, GarageBand lets you lay down loops?prerecorded short riffs by drums, bass, piano and so on. There are some 1,000 loops to choose from on the basic software and 2,000 more on the $99 add-on, Jam Pack. Here's the clever bit: the loops are arranged not just by instrument but also under mood-based headings such as "Relaxed," "Intense," "Cheerful" and so on. Click and drag your loops into the score, and they become interactive. You can stretch and splice them like lumps of Play-Doh. In just 10 minutes I found I could...
Small-state politicians argue that every state, no matter how underpopulated, needs a boost of money to achieve a minimal level of security after Sept. 11. "Whether it's a state of half a million or 4 million, you've got to do certain basic things," Senator Leahy told Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge during a February hearing. Says Doug Friez, the top homeland-security official in North Dakota (pop. 642,200), which received $52 a person in federal funds last year, the fourth highest per-capita allocation by state: "We realize North Dakota may not be first...
...would be ideal if every American town had a basic level of readiness, but the total pot of money is too small, says Tim Ransdell. He authored one of the few comprehensive assessments of homeland-security money on behalf of the Public Policy Institute of California. "Wyoming and South Dakota are important states, but it's a bit counterintuitive to say an individual in those states is manyfold more important than someone living in a state that has a border with a foreign nation, some of the nation's icons and almost half of the nation's containerized cargo." Says...
...film is a very loose, very Americanized remake of the Alec Guinness comedy of 1955, with which it shares a title, a basic situation and not much else. Tom Hanks--sporting a goatee, a white suit and a mellifluous Southern accent--expertly essays the Guinness part as a criminal mastermind bent on separating a casino from its take. To this end, Hanks' character, Professor G.H. Dorr, rents a room in a house owned by Marva Munson (the splendid Irma P. Hall). He thereby obtains access to the basement; ostensibly it's a rehearsal space for his period-instrument group...