Word: grass
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...been said that in America during the fractious 1850s, before the Civil War, Walt Whitman entertained the wistful, urgent conceit that his great poem "Leaves of Grass" might save the Union. It would show Americans that despite their divisions they were one great nation. Montaigne, almost three centuries earlier, worked a variation on the theme. Rising above dogma and abstraction, he would pursue the general human truth by studying himself - and such generalized self-knowledge, the recognition of their human selves, might relieve people of their inclination to kill one another for religious reasons...
...Oxford Street. Anyone who has ever been asked to spin a convincing argument from difficult material will appreciate the glassblowers' unbelievable skill in crafting plants from silicon. These are not the kind of flowers one might bring as a gift; they're Amazonian plants, butterflies, beetles, vegetables, stalks, grass, all startlingly lifelike...
...patents (with an additional 18 pending approval) that Johnson has amassed since his basement days. He's had ideas for hair-drying rollers, a digital thermostat, a baby-diaper detector that activates musical nursery rhymes when wet, and a device that measures soil moisture and waters grass automatically. Many of his ideas never went further than the prototype. He didn't have the money or the contacts in those early days to push them into production. "There are all kinds of ways to skin a cat, and there are all kinds of mousetraps," says Johnson, 51. "Lady Luck is indifferent...
Until last fall, the meadow was fenced in and allowed to grow wild. But last October, the MDC filled the area with soil. The agency seeded grass and paved a path through the field so riverside strollers can walk nearer to the Charles. Wellons says that made nesting dangerous and stressful for the geese...
...while the history of ballot initiatives remains grounded in the grass roots, many recent propositions have originated - or gained unstoppable momentum - from the rich and powerful. In California, for example, it takes at least $1 million to secure an initiative's spot on a ballot, which means special-interest groups like the teachers' unions (which fight tooth and nail to defeat voucher initiatives), as well as wealthy individuals like Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (who spent $8 million to garner support for public funding of a new Seattle football stadium), have become a significant force behind the seemingly endless array...