Word: customs
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...different day," said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, asNewt Gingrich, the new speaker of the House of Representatives, wielded a large, custom-made walnut gavel to begin the GOP campaign to fulfill the party's "Contract With America" today. In a 43-minute address to the House, Gingrich said he had two over-riding goals: to achieve a balanced budget by 2002 and "to truly replace the current welfare state with an opportunity society." He swore in the new members of the House and began debate on rule changes that would slash committee staffs, abolish three House committees and require...
...dozens of striking exhibits in perhaps the smartest display of Native American culture ever assembled: the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, which opens this week in New York City. The museum is housed in the Beaux Arts splendor of the 1907 Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which has been elegantly restored and renovated by Ehrenkrantz & Eckstut Architects. Its permanent collection boasts the million-plus artifacts collected by George Gustav Heye, a turn-of-the-century New York City banker who bought out Indian communities much the way William Randolph Hearst emptied Spanish monasteries. One section...
...human relationships. Before you can open an account, brokers make you fill out a questionnaire in which you must reveal your net worth (something you wouldn't tell your best friend) and whether you are a gambler or a tightwad -- all in the interest of designing a custom-made portfolio. At the end of this inquisition the broker knows a great deal about you, whereas you know almost nothing about the broker. Then you hand over your life's savings to this total stranger...
...doing the sort of thing a 20th century monarch is supposed to do: moving gracefully through a state visit to Russia, the first ever by a British sovereign. At her side was her consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, elegantly performing his task, which is simply to support her. Custom and ceremony incarnate, they were national symbols to be proud...
...know it's an outdated custom that discriminates against the mediocre, but linking societal validation and achievement made a lot of sense. After all, you shouldn't take pride in something which a) you had no hand in bringing about and b) is morally neutral...