Word: california
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...were using the phrase ‘educated general reader’ [to describe our audience], but no one is quite sure who that reader is anymore,” says Kirsten Gruesz, Professor of Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, an editorial board member and contributor of entries on Richard Dana, Jr. and “Mexico in America.” “It’s people who aren’t academics, who don’t necessarily see themselves as big-time readers, but who still maintain intellectual interests and want to know...
...though the book is often touted as what will be this year’s most popular holiday present, it is, admittedly, an expensive gift for the average American—even an intelligent one. Another reviewer, Scott Kaufman, Professor of English at University of California, Irvine, urges other academics to pursue the approachable prose that is, for the most part, proffered by “Literary History.” Yet he, among others, has described its relatively hefty price as “prohibitive,” calling into question its ability to be accessible...
...California, you may have heard, is an apocalyptic mess of raging wildfires, soaring unemployment, mass foreclosures and political paralysis. It's dysfunctional. It's ungovernable. Its bond rating is barely above junk. It's so broke, it had to hand out IOUs while its leaders debated how many prisoners to release and parks to close. Nevada aired ads mocking California's business climate to lure its entrepreneurs. The media portray California as a noir fantasyland of overcrowded schools, perpetual droughts, celebrity breakdowns, illegal immigration, hellish congestion and general malaise, captured in headlines like "Meltdown on the Ocean" and "California...
...Ignore the California whinery. It's still a dream state. In fact, the pioneering megastate that gave us microchips, freeways, blue jeans, tax revolts, extreme sports, energy efficiency, health clubs, Google searches, Craigslist, iPhones and the Hollywood vision of success is still the cutting edge of the American future - economically, environmentally, demographically, culturally and maybe politically. It's the greenest and most diverse state, the most globalized in general and most Asia-oriented in particular at a time when the world is heading in all those directions. It's also an unparalleled engine of innovation, the mecca of high tech...
...Whenever we have a problem, everyone makes a big drama - 'Oh, my God, it's the end. California is over,'" Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told me. "It's all bogus." Schwarzenegger likes spin and drama too - he's issued warnings about a "financial Armageddon" - and he literally blew smoke in my eyes while we spoke. But his belief in the anything-is-possible dream of California is more than spin; he is, after all, its ultimate embodiment. (See how marijuana is taxed in California...