Word: dozen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Texas, harvesting of peyote has been licensed since the 1970s for use in the Native American Church. But the number of legal peyote harvesters, known as peyoteros, has shrunk from two dozen to just three. Most of the land in South Texas where peyote grows is privately held (Texas law prohibits removal of cactus from public land), so peyoteros must pay landowners to access their ranchland. The job is hardly worth the hazards, however: rugged land populated with dangerous wildlife and, sometimes, even more dangerous smugglers. And the fees that go to absentee landowners - a few hundred dollars a year...
...truth about both men is, of course, more complex, unfit to be folded into a few dozen sentences. Salter and Schmidt are among the closest advisers and friends to McCain, but neither is his captain nor his conscience. At times, they serve as his protectors and his soldiers, often spewing negative invective that can border on name-calling. But politics is not their first love or final destination. Unlike Karl Rove, neither man has grand plans to transform Republican politics or the country. They rose to the top of the Washington rock pile by happenstance as much as by design...
...also learned that you can make and apparently sell some truly disgusting wine: six of the bottles I tried with a dozen friends were unanimously deemed "undrinkable." But 11 of them were quite good, and while all the expected states made this list (California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Michigan and Texas), so did a pinot grigio from Delaware, a white from Kentucky, a muscat from New Hampshire, a cabernet from Colorado and a chardonnay from North Carolina. Of the remaining wines, 21 were pretty decent and 12 were bad. In general, the wines were better than I predicted, given...
Doping might not seem like an issue of vital national import, but it offended McCain's sense of fair play, and the possibility of a U.S. scandal at the Athens Olympics horrified him. So he started issuing subpoenas and ended up with enough evidence to get a dozen athletes disqualified before the Games. "He didn't want American athletes dishonoring their country," recalls his former aide Ken Nahigian. He has free-market instincts, but like his political hero Teddy Roosevelt, he has taken great pleasure in regulating and otherwise harassing those he considers malefactors of great wealth...
...pull it off with the panache of French writer Muriel Barbery. Her second novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, has been at or near the top of France's sales charts for 102 straight weeks since its September 2006 publication. It has been translated into a half-dozen languages and is being adapted for film. In South Korea and Italy, the book has generated the same sort of enthusiasm and devotion that made it a publishing phenomenon in France. Now, with the release of an English translation on Sept. 7, Elegance is pursuing a goal that has proved devilishly elusive...