Word: 20th
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Aesthetic Extravaganza. For a few days in early December, Miami will become the center of the art and design world: During Art Basel Miami (Dec. 4-7), 250 galleries will exhibit 20th- and 21st-century painting, sculpture and anything else that can be defined as art. At the concurrent Design Miami (Dec. 3-6), you can take a gander at furniture, lighting and everything else design-related exhibited in flashy spaces. Even if you have no money to spend, the art, objects and people make an interesting spectacle...
Indridason writes tersely, his descriptions as hard and sparse as the Icelandic countryside. In person, he has a low-key manner, a receding hairline and an engaging smile. Erlendur, he says, is "part of the history of Iceland in the late 20th century when it changed from being a very poor peasant society to a very rich one." The detective is popular, he reckons, because "he's very flawed but very human. People identify with Erlendur maybe because of loneliness and failure. He's a horrible family man, but a perfect policeman...
Teachers got tenure rights in the early 20th century to protect them against meddling politicians and school-board members who treated their jobs as patronage pawns. But the rationale is plainly antiquated. Today dozens of federal and state laws protect teachers (and other people) from arbitrary firing. But most teachers still receive tenure almost automatically. In fact, even before they get tenure, they are rarely let go. Schools spend millions of dollars evaluating teachers, but principals have little incentive to shake up their staffs, and so most teachers end up scoring near the top. "What I'm finding is that...
...Similarly, many new leaders of the developing nations that emerged from colonial empires in the mid-20th century believed their poverty was rooted in free markets and leaned toward state control. In India, for example, Jawaharlal Nehru, its first Prime Minister, saw imperialism as an outgrowth of free capitalism; only the state, he figured, could be entrusted to improve the livelihoods of the poor. The result was the bizarre License Raj, a bewildering maze of regulation that hamstrung private enterprise. By 1990, the system had produced outdated, uncompetitive companies and a near bankrupt government. India only started to boom once...
...lists read like a police blotter. In 2003 Yang Bin, an agribusiness and real estate tycoon once named the mainland's second-richest man, was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Gu Chujun, once head of a leading appliance company, was ranked China's 20th richest businessperson by Forbes in 2001. In January, he was convicted of falsifying corporate reports and sentenced to a 12-year prison term. And Zhou Zhengyi, a Shanghai-based real estate developer named China's 11th richest person by Forbes in 2002, was arrested the following year on corruption charges...