Word: less
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviet Union the natural order is motherhood -- and that is nothing less than a patriotic duty. World War II left an estimated 20 million Soviets dead, the overwhelming majority of them men between the ages of 18 and 40. As a result, women account for 53% of the population. In some parts of the country, they complain that they outnumber men by as much as 6 to 1. The imbalance helped give rise in 1944 to Operation Birthrate, under which women who had seven children were awarded the Glory of Motherhood medal. Bearing ten or more children earned the title...
There are also plenty of hazardous vapors. Says Chemist Gray Robertson, whose company in Fairfax, Va., has surveyed nearly 250 structures for foul indoor air: "The public tends to mistake tobacco smoke -- the only visible indoor contaminant -- for all pollution." Less readily detected are irritating fumes from copier-machine liquids, carbonless paper, paint, rugs, draperies, wall paneling and cleaning solvents. Many contain formaldehyde, which can cause nausea, rashes and menstrual irregularities. Ventilators also spew forth illness-causing bacteria and mold; such organisms find fertile breeding ground in air-conditioning and heating systems that are often turned off at night...
...system: its repression, state control and expansionist tendencies. When Gorbachev came to power, U.S. officials insisted that a decrease in tensions would require a withdrawal from Afghanistan, a reduction of Soviet meddling in Africa and Central America, and at home freer speech, a more open political system and a less centralized grip on the economy...
...monkey and wears a single sequined glove, Michael Jackson qualifies. So does President Andrew Jackson, a card-carrying aristocrat who insisted on creating a backwoods image as "Old Hickory." Prominent achievers like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford all fit the profile. Others that make the grade are less well known. They include a Long Island vampire expert, a California professor of frog psychology and a Virginia doctor who disports himself in a clown's nose and goofy hats and refuses to charge his patients...
Weeks theorizes that U.S. prosperity and leisure time in the postwar period have resulted in a rebirth of homegrown oddballitry. He found that American eccentrics are just as humorous as their British peers, but generally kinder and less sarcastic. The Americans seemed to rely more on intuition and chutzpah than logic or rationality. Thanks to the American legacy of political rebelliousness, Weeks says, U.S.-bred eccentrics tend to hold more radical views than their better-born British brethren. "Eccentricity flourishes where there is freedom of expression," he says. "You won't find eccentrics tolerated in repressive regimes or countries where...