Word: cats
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Welcome to the world of the Hobie Cat addict, that 100,000-strong armada of hopelessly smitten enthusiasts who insist that nothing in life quite measures up to the unrestrained joy of breezing along on a twin-hulled Hobie...
...Hobie catamaran, which suggests a Polynesian outrigger canoe with a sail, is the creation of Nautical Designer Hobart (Hobie) Alter, 47, of Capistrano Beach, Calif. In the 13 years since the first Hobie Cat set sail, the craft has become the favorite American weekend sailboat by far and helped make Alter a millionaire several times over. Though the twin hulls of Hobie Cats make the vessels a bit tougher to maneuver than single-hulled sailboats, the real thrill of skippering a Cat is in its exhilarating speed. The lightweight vessels can reach a motorboat clip of nearly 25 m.p.h...
DIED. Harry Chapin, 38, folk-rock singer and composer whose poignant, bittersweet ballads about dashed dreams and broken promises included the hits Taxi (1972), W.O.L.D. (1974) and The Cat's in the Cradle (1974); of injuries received when his car was struck by a trailer truck; in Jericho, N.Y. The son of Big Band Drummer James Chapin, he performed for a while during the '60s with a group whose other members were his father and Brothers Tom and Stephen. A social activist and crusader against world hunger, Chapin often organized and appeared in benefit concerts for environmental issues...
...recorded in his new book, whose title means "ordinary" in one American Black argot. One man, a coal miner, says this of whites: "Just thinking about them makes me feel like I have swallowed shit. I mean, a rat or a maggot is better than the best white cat who ever drew breath. Just looking at those things makes me want to spit up. Everything they do is rotten." Or this from a cook: "These people hide their dirt or make everybody lie and say their dirt is not dirt or they lie to us about their dirt. I know...
Improvement is generally attributed to increased parental involvement and classroom attention to basic skills. But how real is the progress? Bearing such nicknames and acronyms as CAT, ITBS, CTBS and METRO,* a bewildering battery of tests annually churns out statistics in "percentiles," "grade levels" or "stanines" (a scoring system based on nine that occupies only a single column on a computer punch card). Quite often, these obscure as much as they reveal. A month after New York school officials had boasted about the big jump in average test scores, parents of more than a fifth of the city...