Word: problem
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With all those advantages, why don't French cultural offerings fare better abroad? One problem is that many of them are in French, now merely the world's 12th most widely spoken language (Chinese is first, English second). Worse still, the major organs of cultural criticism and publicity - the global buzz machine - are increasingly based in the U.S. and Britain. "In the '40s and '50s, everybody knew France was the center of the art scene, and you had to come here to get noticed," says Quemin. "Now you have to go to New York...
...Another problem may be the subsidies, which critics say ensure mediocrity. In his widely discussed 2006 book On Culture in America, former French cultural attaché Frédéric Martel marvels at how the U.S. can produce so much "high" culture of lofty quality with hardly any government support. He concludes that subsidy policies like France's discourage private participants - and money - from entering the cultural space. Martel observes: "If the Culture Ministry is nowhere to be found, cultural life is everywhere...
Turns out trans fats weren't the only problem with potato chips. Frito-Lay, after realizing that its factories burn enormous amounts of energy, plans to take its Casa Grande, Ariz., facility off the power grid. Scheduled for 2010, the new design is capable of reducing electricity and water consumption 90%. Parent corporation PepsiCo's CEO says the company will be content to reach even 50% of the program's potential. Here's the plan...
...Social Security, Obama believes he has found the perfect issue to demonstrate the transcendent brand of politics he offers. "We will not be able to solve this problem and protect Social Security for good until we stop treating it like a political wedge issue and instead unite Republicans and Democrats behind a sensible solution," Obama wrote in an Op-Ed column in Iowa's Quad-City Times...
...that the world is running out of oil. There are massive reserves available in Canadian tar sands, Colorado shale, Venezuelan heavy oil and other unconventional deposits. The problem is that most of this oil is hard to extract and even harder to refine, and it isn't likely to account for a significant share of global production anytime soon. Almost everybody agrees that the pumping of conventionally sourced oil outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already peaked or will peak soon, a reality that even discoveries like the recent 8 billion-bbl. find off the coast...