Word: communal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Patriotism and the citizenship it requires should motivate the conduct of public officials, but it also thrives in the communal spaces where government is absent, anywhere Americans come together to govern their lives and their communities - in families, churches, synagogues, museums, symphonies, the Little League, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army or the VFW. They are the habits and institutions that preserve democracy. They are the ways, small and large, we come together as one country, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all. They are the responsible exercise of freedom and are indispensable to the proper functioning...
...1990s, when public bike-sharing programs were heralded as a way to curb parking shortages as well as greenhouse-gas emissions, dozens of U.S. cities decided to give them a shot. Nonprofits in places like Boulder, Colo.; Charlottesville, Va.; and Gainesville, Fla., launched fleets of communal bikes that people could borrow for free and leave around town for the next rider to happen upon. No locks, no deposits and, pretty soon, no bikes. Theft and vandalism quickly wiped out many of these freewheeling initiatives. This month, however, Washington is rolling out America's first high-tech bike-sharing program...
Shortly after SmartBikes are introduced in the nation's capital, bike-sharing will be showcased at the Republican and Democratic national conventions, which are being held in Minneapolis and Denver, respectively. Each city will have 1,000 communal bikes on hand for its convention, thanks to a corporate sponsor and a cycling-advocacy group. To outsiders, cold-wintered Minneapolis may seem like an unlikely bike haven. But even when it's below freezing, hardy Minnesotans commute via bike. Last year the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Minneapolis the city with the second highest number of bike commuters as a percentage...
Marriott's Courtyard and Hilton's Garden Inn, currently the leaders in the upscale sector, don't plan on letting these trends pass them by. Marriott redesigned the lobby of its Fair Oaks, Va., location with a bar, communal-seating areas and a snack area. "It used to be that guests went in the room and latched the door," says Brian King of Courtyard. "Now they want to come out." The new design will be rolled out at most of the 700 locations by 2010. Like Aloft, Marriott is also eliminating the long, chest-high check-in desk, replacing...
...scorching June afternoon in Jhajjal village in southwestern Punjab, elderly men have gathered in a communal courtyard to quell the boredom of the long afternoon with a game of cards. The cotton crop has been sown, and the farmers have a few weeks' holiday before they must return to their fields. As with most small villages, everyone knows everyone else here, and the conversation centers around marriages and births. But these usually mundane topics have taken on a tragic twist, involving couples failing to conceive, children being born with genetic disorders, people of all ages succumbing to cancer. Nadar Singh...