Word: betterment
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...This year is going better. When I meet her, she has just received her regular paycheck. She earned $95, her highest check yet. She squeals with happiness and hugs her girlfriends. When I ask her how she did it, she says, "I tried my hardest." She adds, "I tried to wear my uniform, because I knew I wanted some money because my birthday is next week." She has saved her past four paychecks for this reason. The money, she says, gives her just enough incentive to hold her tongue...
...luck - and Baghdad's - didn't get better. On Tuesday, at least seven apartment buildings were leveled by explosives that had been planted inside them. One of them had a lovely tea shop on the roof. Nothing makes sense in Iraq right now. High-profile attacks are becoming more frequent, but U.S. officials say it is just proof that al-Qaeda is desperately lashing out and thus on its last legs. (See how Ben Lando survived the attack on Baghdad's Hamra Hotel in January...
...most prized initiatives, like the new U.S. posture on the use of nuclear arms, as a sign of weakness. (No Chinese leader would dial back the country's option for unlimited nuclear response in self-defense.) Mao's old line has become a trope in China: It's better to deal with Republicans...
...asking, How do we fit a big and growing guy into the back of an already full car? It's a question to which any answer suggests expanding discomfort. And in the eyes of many in Beijing, the car isn't running so well anyway. Might it not be better, Chinese wonder, to redesign it? Some of the questions China has started asking about the world system are ones we should be asking too. This isn't to say we should give in to China's sometimes unreasonable demands. But we should admit that our real challenge isn't making...
...Strategic and Economic Dialogue - which is sort of like an annual parent-teacher conference with China. The slow-moving dialogue drives issues at a pace largely irrelevant to what they demand and removes the chance for spontaneity. The U.S.-China joint reaction to the financial crisis is a better model: it was and is informal and constant, based on working groups that evolve and move at adjustable paces. Keeping this organized will demand a single figure in Washington who can handle every element of the discourse, and Obama should be considering this too. He needs someone who can play chess...