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Brooker rubs a big blackened thumb over the clod of dirt in his hand, and a coin appears - minted, it turns out, sometime from 1625 to 1649. "That's a Charles I rose farthing," he explains, pointing to the vague outline of a royal crest. On the open market, it's not worth much - maybe $60 - but "to a mudlark, your first Charles I should be priceless." He tosses it into the bucket with the rest of our haul for the morning, which includes several Tudor hairpins, Victorian clay pipes and a 17th century ferry token...
...bundle. Then, to soothe his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan), he concocts his biggest whopper yet: Heaven. Word gets around about this great news, life after death, and in a fairly bold Act III Mark reveals to his swelling flock of acolytes the truth, or the inspired lie, of the "big man who lives...
USAGE: "The 31-year-old woman went for an ultrasound to check on her 11-week-old fetus and was stunned to find out she had two. Doctors believe it's a rare case of superfetation--a big word for what [the mom-to-be] said was a big shock...
Washington's reading seems to be that we're not subsidizing housing enough. Congress, the Bush and Obama administrations and the Fed have been piling on new aid. For now, they may be correct to do so. With the banking system still shaky, further big declines in house prices could bring disaster. Slowing a price collapse is a reasonable aim of government policy. But as we dig out of this mess, we ought to ask whether the vast infrastructure of government support for homeownership that has been built up since the 1930s is really such a wise policy...
...money isn't reliable, maybe it's the system that needs to be overhauled, which brings us back to young John Eriksen's original point. Leaders have to divorce themselves from the church's old practices. "One of the big dirty phrases in Catholic education is 'It's a business,' " says Eriksen, who spent several years as a consultant for Catholic schools before becoming superintendent. "But at the end of the day, we are private-education providers. We charge tuition and offer a service in return, and a school run effectively is able to educate more people...