Word: tree
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...language that have no meaning in modern experience but are kept alive, nonetheless, like verbal souvenirs--horsepower, stream of consciousness, it's a jungle out there. One cannot think of a single composer, painter or writer who has not tracked at least one major inspiration to a bird, a tree, a rose. People automatically lose themselves in wordless reverence at the sight of a curlew or a silver cloud of anchovies or at the mournful wail of howler monkeys. Or they stare dumbly out at oceans, as if longing for their microbial past...
...doomed species disappear immediately. Most first suffer loss of their ranges and gene pool to dangerously low levels, eventually descending to join what biologists call the "living dead." Throughout the world, 976 tree species, for example, are classified as critically endangered. Two are down to three or four surviving individuals and three others to only one. I have been grimly compiling what I call the Hundred Heartbeat Club of animal species--those consisting of a hundred or fewer individuals, hence that number of heartbeats away from total extinction. The club's more familiar members include the Javan rhinoceros, Philippine eagle...
Remember the tools of the Cold War-era spy - microfilm, paper files stamped "Top Secret" and "dead drops" in tree stumps? Well, the people charged with protecting U.S. intelligence probably wish those good old days were still here in the wake of the latest revelations about a missing laptop computer belonging to the State Department. The machine is said to have contained highly sensitive files, including intelligence sources and information about weapons proliferation. Though it is still unclear whether the laptop in question was stolen or lost, the case has drawn attention to the plight of government secrets...
...awards and recognition his work has received, but is not overly impressed with himself: "People used to kid me when I was a boy, and they would say, 'Ah, yes, you're going to have a Nobel Prize one day. You'll also be covered like a tree with bark.'" He refuses to romanticize his work: "I'm not a tortured writer. I had my days in my youth when I was a tortured writer. I decided that if torture is part of the job, I was going to quit...
...even with stocks swinging like Tarzan on amphetamines, you're not doomed to smack into a tree. The trick: turn off CNBC, stay diversified and don't stray from autopilot investing programs like 401(k)s, IRAs, college funds and dividend-reinvestment plans...