Word: maye
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Every schoolchild knows how "dangerous" zero can be. Just try dividing a number by zero and all hell breaks loose; indeed, zero was once scorned as the devil's work. It is such a familiar number today that it may be hard to believe there was a time--hundreds of years, actually--when our species counted and spoke but had no concept of zero. Seife and Kaplan both trace the history of naught, from its inception in Babylon around 300 B.C. through Athens, India and Europe later in the Middle Ages. It took Western mathematicians so long to accept zero...
...that school officials are unsettled these days. Polls show that most Americans favor "zero tolerance" policies for campus violence, and many parents demand tough-minded, short-term solutions even as they wait for the results of more complex approaches like better mentoring and earlier intervention for troubled children. It may seem silly to go after a kid whose only crime is manicuring during school hours. But how do you know whom to treat sympathetically at a time when 11-year-olds commit murder? (Now 13, Nathaniel Abraham was convicted last month in Michigan of shooting a stranger in the head...
...corrective to zero-tolerance excesses won't come from courts, it may come from parents. Communities sometimes revolt against pitiless punishments. In Hartford, Wis., outside Milwaukee, 550 people crammed into a high school cafeteria for a shouting match over zero tolerance. Since the beginning of the academic year, 10 students have been expelled from the school for various infractions. Raged one parent: "Expulsion is just another unfeeling word for abandonment...
Underground rap may soon have an impact on television too. MTV is developing a sketch-comedy series based on Lyricist Lounge, a showcase founded in New York City in 1991 by Anthony Marshall and Danny Castro as a place for unsigned rap artists to display their skills. The founders have since taken their open-mike show on tour and released a compilation album of highlights (Mos Def and Q-Tip make guest-star appearances...
...have been like if it valued more what Rockwell did. Given the essential places where painting had to go, places where Rockwell couldn't follow, maybe art had to put those things aside. But his best pictures remind you of the powers it gave up as a consequence. It may be true that Rockwell did nothing to advance art history. But what he did, in his humble way, was humble...