Word: ferret
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...more dazzling, personal, unorthodox, paradoxic your assumptions (paradoxes are not equivocations), the more interesting an essay is likely to be. (If you have a chance to confer with the assistant in advance, of course--and we all like to be called "assistants," not "graders"--you may be able to ferret out one or two cosmic assumptions of his own; seeing them in your bluebook, he can only applaud your uncommon perception. For example, while most graders are politically unconcerned, not all are agnostic. This is an older generation, recall. Some may be tired of St. Augustine flattened by a phrase...
...deny the charms of a good animal companion, wouldn't it be nice if there were a furry friend that didn't take its place in the American household for granted? A pet that, frankly, reflected better on its modern mover-shaker owners? There is hope. "I think ferrets could be the pets of the future," says Mary Shefferman, editor of Modern Ferret magazine and proud owner of nine of the little suckers...
...something. Ferret ownership has doubled in the past five years; 6 million are now in U.S. homes, placing them third in popularity among mammals, trailing cats (55 million) and dogs (50 million). Adult ferrets weigh between 1 1/2 lbs. and 3 lbs., perfect for compact living spaces, and the species' record of good behavior--according to the Animal Health Institute, ferrets are 200 times less likely to bite than dogs--makes them ideal first pets. Then there's the ferret's hip intellectual profile. "They're not pack animals," says Shefferman, "and they don't learn by rote, like dogs...
...Sadly, the ferrets are not O.K. Last month one of Tyson's assistants, sensing trouble, called a ferret-rescue volunteer, who discovered one dead ferret and one that seemed very, very scared. After receiving necropsy results, the district attorney decided not to file charges when authorities couldn't prove whom the ferrets belonged to--Tyson or the assistant. Whoever owned them could have faced up to six months in jail...
...conservatives who rushed to Hillsdale's defense. After Roche's resignation, former Secretary of Education William Bennett became head of its presidential search committee. But last week Bennett, who loudly denounced Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair, stepped down, accusing the Hillsdale board of refusing to ferret out the truth. "First it was represented to me that the allegations were true. Then this week people said she may have been lying," he says. "The school can't just move on. A woman is dead." Ron Trowbridge, Hillsdale's vice president for external affairs, says, "We may never know the truth...