Word: questions
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Good question. By any rational standard, AIDS is the most profound threat to Africa's survival since slavery. Left unchecked, it will decimate the continent. According to the United Nations, 23.3 million Africans are infected by the AIDS virus, more than twice as many as in the rest of the world combined. Nearly 14 million Africans have died from the disease. The number of African children left orphaned by AIDS will soar to 13 million by 2001, a catastrophic burden in poor nations that for the most part lack even a semblance of Western-style social-welfare agencies. Millions will...
Judith is practicing for the Sydney Games, with her team playing against three other teams in the Cuban women's intramural league. From the four teams, the squad for the national team is chosen. Does she think she'll have any trouble making the team? She chuckles. Dumb question. No, she'll be starting...
...even the most accurate clock in the world can't answer the question of what all these atoms are actually measuring. What is time anyway? According to Isaac Newton, both space and time were fixed attributes of the universe, a God-given stage on which events unfolded. But Albert Einstein torpedoed that idea with his theories of special and general relativity: the only thing that's fixed in the cosmos, he showed, is the speed of light...
...First question: who is Tom Ripley? He is the lead character in five novels by Patricia Highsmith and now, as incarnated by Matt Damon, a beguiling movie icon in the making. Second question: Who cares? For a start, an international coterie of readers spread across four decades. To that devoted coterie, add Anthony Minghella. "Ripley is one of the most interesting characters in postwar fiction," Minghella says, and he ought to know. The writer-director has spent three years, ever since he finished his Oscar-winning epic The English Patient, puzzling out the emotional vectors of crime fiction's most...
...live in a rational, full-disclosure world. Experts and other smarty-pants like me are always talking about how we parents have to be absolutely truthful with our children and meet every question with detailed answers, complete with footnotes and helpful websites. Because of this, our kids know where babies come from and that a rainbow is just light refracted through water droplets. Maybe this is a good thing, but it sure has taken some of the magic out of parenting, not to mention childhood. Christmas, however, is a time when believers in the plain truth should consider applying some...