Word: backyarders
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Eventually he decided to look for freedom in his own backyard. Literally. In 1978 he renovated the small Santa Monica house where he still lives with his second wife Berta, turning a conventional pink Dutch colonial into an explosion of cinder blocks, corrugated steel and chain link. It instantly became one of those places that some say is an icon and others an eyesore. But its picture appeared everywhere, and it put him on the map of cutting-edge architects. Not long after, he decided to follow his bliss and do only the kind of work he wanted...
...leafy suburban backyard about an hour's drive south of Manhattan, a tableau of choreographed violence is taking shape. A dozen boys have gathered on a miserably hot Saturday afternoon. They've set up a video camera, loudspeakers and a wrestling ring. Steve Toth, 16, provided the yard. But his mom Colleen has retreated indoors. She'd rather not watch as the teenagers punch, kick and insult one another, as they do most Saturdays...
Among the images on a Best of Backyard Wrestling video: kids jumping onto barbed wire, setting opponents on fire and diving onto mattresses studded with thumbtacks. And the violence seems to be trickling down from teenagers to tots. Last year in Dallas, a three-year-old boy was killed when his seven-year-old brother stiff-armed him in the throat, copying a move he'd seen on TV. Emergency rooms report a rise in injuries among backyard wrestlers. "It's scary," says Colleen Toth. "But my son does everything to make it safe. If he's going...
Although personal money often isn't enough--ask Steve Forbes--it was in this case, partly because Florio was still widely unpopular for having haughtily raised taxes in 1990. Corzine won handily, even polling well in Florio's backyard. He now faces Republican Bob Franks from Hackensack, a generic four-term House member. And while Franks voted for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, he's considered a moderate who sticks mostly to homegrown issues, like pipeline safety, waste disposal and noise reduction at Newark Airport...
...didn't matter that he was in his company's own backyard. When Aetna's new chairman, William H. Donaldson, approached the podium at the annual meeting of the Connecticut State Medical Society last month, he didn't expect a warm welcome. The audience was packed with his firm's sworn enemies, doctors who view the $26 billion-a-year health-care giant as the poster child for all that ails managed care, from draconian cost controls and reams of paperwork to heavy-handed negotiating tactics. Last fall the organization lobbied the state attorney general to investigate Aetna's allegedly...