Word: muchness
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...great year for cracking codes, man's and nature's alike. The scientific high point of the year--if not of all intellectual history--was the decoding of human DNA, announced with much fanfare at the White House in late June by two scientists, J. Craig Venter and Francis Collins, whose agreement to share the credit and a podium was all the more remarkable because they can hardly stand to breathe the same air. Passions were no less intense on the Internet, where the music industry fought a rear-guard action against the forces--and free music--unleashed...
...were unmistakable signs that exploitation of the 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...
...contrast to fashion's trends, technology's are not so much fads with finite ends but stops along a continuum. Roman numerals appended to new versions of the Palm Pilot increased as rapidly as scores on a pinball machine, and ever more advanced handheld gadgets debuted at a dizzying speed. As the year progressed, those who didn't crave or couldn't indulge a moment's isolation began connecting to the Internet through cell phones or to instant-messaging systems via the BlackBerry two-way pager...
...City gang war. The image that lingers is not of a titanic home run or a dazzling play at shortstop, but of a large, fearsome pitcher preparing to throw a jagged piece of lumber toward a large, fearsome catcher. In the year 2000, the best of sports was about much more than sports. --Robert Sullivan...
...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...