Word: 18th
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...18th century, Jonathan Swift was criticized for his satirical essay A Modest Proposal, which suggests that poor Irish treat their children like food and sell them to the rich. Swift was not promoting cannibalism or infanticide: he thought his audience would understand the absurdity of such ludicrous ideas. Does the New Yorker really believe Obama is a Muslim extremist and his wife a terrorist? No, but the editors thought Americans were smart enough to interpret the utter ridiculousness as an exaggeration - one that fits well into this increasingly overdramatic presidential campaign. Lauren Tighe, Saginaw, Michigan...
...Revenge motivated the leaders of the U.S.-based MS, whose initials stand for "Salvatrucha Gang," to order Cortes killed. They blamed him for his failure, while leading the gang inside the penitentiary, to defend his members against an attack by rivals from the 18th Street gang. It had been the worst prison massacre in Honduran history: While the MS slept on the floor of their cramped dormitory, members of the "18" had sneaked in with homemade knives and steel pipes and killed 11 of Cortes's homeboys. The attackers then gutted their victims and triumphantly strung their intestines along...
...Both the 18th Street and MS were originally started by Salvadorans in Los Angeles to fight the Mexican gangs, and then spread to San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. They thrive on robberies, extortion and "taxing" the street drug dealers. Says Russ Bergeron, INS media director, "We have a fundamental obligation to protect our American citizens from the threat posed by gang violence." And however ill-equipped Central American countries may be to cope with these criminals bred in U.S. cities, other governments have an obligation to take back their nationals, says the INS. But as San Pedro Sula...
Kylie Miraldi has come from California to celebrate her 18th birthday tonight. She'll be going to San Jose State on a volleyball scholarship next year. Her father, who looks a little like Superman, is on the dance floor with one of her sisters; he turns out to be Dean Miraldi, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. "We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock...
Australia is an apt venue for World Youth Day, the Pope said, because its Church is "the youngest on any continent." The oldest pontiff to be elected since the 18th century is reputed to own an iPod and sends a daily SMS message to pilgrims, signing off "BXVI." Young people in turn have been invited to send text messages for display on giant "prayer wall" screens around the city. Event coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher says planners want to make WYD memorable "by using new ways to connect with today's tech-savvy youth...