Word: monarchical
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...backfiring. The public sympathized with the 32-year-old mother of two who had strayed into the sights of such heavy artillery. The next day Charles Anson, the Queen's press secretary and the source of some of the vitriol, issued an extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented, public apology to the monarch and Fergie. Anson was not the only insider to spill venom, but he accepted "full responsibility" for what some people had begun to call the "Mean Queen Machine." The next step in damage control was to negotiate a deal with the departing duchess: a possible $4 million-plus settlement, along...
...Carson was the King of Late Night, a slightly aloof and mischievous monarch, his heir, Jay Leno, the salesman's son from Andover, Mass., is more like the Mayor of Midnight -- a good-natured, sensible small-town mayor who knows everybody's name and believes in good government. To watch Leno win over an audience, to observe him shaking hands in airports, blithely signing autographs in coffee shops, chatting out his car window with other drivers, is to see a man engaged in a cheerful campaign for the office of Most Popular Regular Guy in America, a position...
...hearing petitions from private citizens. In an 83-article decree, he announced plans to establish a 60-member consultative council, and he also codified governmental protections of personal freedoms for 7 million subjects and 5 million foreign residents. Since the edict also affirmed the absolute authority of the monarch, it neither transforms Saudi Arabia into a model democracy nor positions Fahd as a regional pioneer. The Emir of Kuwait, for instance, has made a bolder pledge: to hold parliamentary elections next fall. Nonetheless, Fahd's decree represents a serious step toward including nonroyal voices in policy discussion...
Tellingly, the first of the articles declares that the reforms are all grounded in Muslim theology. By affirming his devotion to Islam, the monarch hopes to enlist the support of clerics and scholars. Without their backing, Fahd risks losing control of the ideological battleground between progressive middle-class Saudis and conservative religious extremists, who have launched a campaign denouncing secular influences. In recent months fundamentalists have increased their harassment of women who dress "immodestly" and have intruded into homes where people are suspected of drinking alcohol. Fahd's decree bans such actions...
...deeper level, power plays a more urgentrole than prestige. Cats turn the station-wagonmom into entrepreneur, make the insurance salesmanan absolute monarch with uncontested authorityover a feline ream. Human fascination with sex haslong spilled over to a vicarious interest in theromantic lives of domesticated animals. One couplesays, "Ever since we got our first Ocicat fiveyears ago, we've been really into breeding...