Word: badness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With Polar Lander nearing its final plunge, NASA promised to respond to the concerns, and the agency did address a couple of them. But by then, the die was largely cast. Maybe the lander was done in by something unforeseeable--a badly placed boulder, perhaps, or a crevasse--which no probe could have avoided. And given the complexities of getting a spacecraft to Mars and having it work properly, it's no surprise that something should go bad...
...homelessness. Thirty-five municipalities, from Tampa, Fla., to Tucson, Ariz., are enacting or enforcing punitive anti-vagrancy ordinances, banning everything from loitering on median strips to getting food handouts in public parks. Fed up with the homeless, who, they say, are increasingly aggressive, violent and bad for business, at least 24 cities now conduct nightly "police sweeps" of their streets. In New York City, Mayor Rudy Giuliani vowed to clamp down after a homeless man seriously injured a woman by slamming her head with a brick. Giuliani ordered that all "able-bodied" homeless people must go to work or risk...
...York City isn't the only place with bad apples. A schoolteacher in Atlanta was caught distributing advance copies of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and another in northern Georgia was cited when seven of his special-ed students scored a perfect 600 on the language portion of the test. Dan Erling, a respected sixth-grade math instructor in Atlanta, left the profession in disgust over what he felt was rampant cheating. He estimates that as many as 15% of his incoming students had inflated test scores because of improper help from teachers, such as telling students...
...Cecilia Roth), luxuriating in grief, goes to Barcelona, where she learns to live again by tending to creatures even more wounded than she. Pedro Almodovar's screwball melodrama has all the kooky verve of his early comedies, but with a depth and life-enhancing warmth that proves Spain's bad boy has reached a vibrant maturity. If this movie doesn't touch your heart, consult a cardiologist. You may be missing something...
...Sega to make a splash in the U.S. after it slumped in Japan. But it did, clocking up sales in the millions thanks to an impressive lineup of must-have, movie-quality games such as NFL2K and Soul Calibur. The amphibious Dreamcast lets you surf the Net too. Not bad...