Word: distractability
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...snow-swept Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, women play a crucial role. But it's not as athletes aiming bamboo bows strung with lengths of stinging-nettle vine. Instead, Bhutanese women cluster near the male archers and take sole responsibility for keeping them from piercing the bull's-eye. "We distract them by singing rude songs," says Tshering Chhoden. "It's all part of the game." Adds her fellow Bhutanese Dhruba Kumar Chhetri: "The best thing to say is that the archer's wife has been sleeping around. That makes his concentration slip a little." Luckily, the modern Olympics give Bhutanese...
When it was disclosed that former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel (Sandy) Berger was being investigated by the FBI for removing classified documents from the National Archives, Democrats cried foul, claiming the news was leaked to distract attention from the imminent release of The 9/11 Commission Report. The report managed to move Berger's troubles off the front page, but it contained some passages that could surely make him uncomfortable. It describes several instances in which the Clinton adviser was presented with plans of action to hit al-Qaeda in Afghanistan--and balked. In the margin next to a suggestion...
...Gold Medal. Officials from Aznar's Popular Party say it's common practice for governments to hire Washington lobbyists, but critics are charging misappropriation of public funds. The U.S. Congress has yet to approve the medal. Aznar, meanwhile, rejects all charges of impropriety: "People can invent many things to distract attention," he said. "That's despicable." But it makes good material for a second volume of memoirs...
...nights at the Grille and flirtation floated amid hours spent in my room, waiting for something to break the haze. A friend of mine broke it, and he knows who he is. Convinced that it would distract me from my collapse, he brought me to a sports meeting. Surrounded by boys, I felt more comfortable in my loneliness, and somehow I had picked up a story before I left the building...
...Scanning the crowd, I didn’t see many eyes glimmering with excitement and anticipation at this great carrot being offered up. None of us were there with such a goal in mind. I was not thinking about how JV baseball on my resume was sure to help distract medical schools from the somewhat problematic lack of a hard science recommendation. We were there because we loved baseball and enjoyed the institution that is the baseball team. And I, at least, was not disappointed. I heard the raunchy jokes of the Rhodes Scholar/stand-up comic/first baseman; I bonded with fellow...