Word: item
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...when was the last time you saw soft-drink vendors in the end zone of the home of the Los Angeles Raiders playing football with the only tossable item they had at hand, a rat-tailed pocket comb? This was a few days before the Olympics began. They huddled, faked, threw screen passes, ran broken-field, clutching that little comb as if it were a grail. "Man," said one, "I always wanted to play the Coliseum." You couldn't have counted the goose bumps...
Since 1974, Air Force computers have automatically put many spare parts, ranging from bolts to airplane doors, on a disposal list if no request for the item has been received for twelve months. After checking just "a few" warehouses earlier this year, Air Force inspectors discovered that about $1.5 million worth of spare parts scheduled for disposal as surplus were still needed items that the Air Force was purchasing new at full price...
...life. The numb wait is their negotiating style: a heavy, frozen, wordless impassivity designed to madden and exhaust the people across the table. To exist in the Soviet Union is to wait. Almost perversely, when Soviet shoppers see a line forming, they simply join it, assuming that some scarce item is about to be offered for sale. A study published by Pravda calculates that Soviet citizens waste 37 billion hours a year standing in line to buy food and other basic necessities. To bind an entire people to that kind of life is to do a little of the work...
...Packard and its manual. Under the heading "General Operations," it says, "How to start the car: 1) Take a position behind steering wheel. If all writers of manuals began with the basics, on the premise that the user knows nothing about the item purchased, anybody could operate any machine...
...Another item on Peterkin's agenda will be how to reduce the exodus of students to private schools. About one third of Cambridge's school age children attend private schools, according to school officials...