Word: muchness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...great failing of America's treatment of the mentally ill--once they are stabilized with drugs and released from the hospital, they are too often left to fend for themselves, with no one to counsel them, monitor their progress or help them find work. That has led to much private suffering but also to some public tragedy, as in the case of Andrew Goldstein, a New York City man suffering from schizophrenia who pushed a woman to her death off a subway platform. Goldstein's murder trial ended in a hung jury this month, but the public mental-health system...
...Aliens aren't our job," says Chief Benedict wearily. Yet much of his time is spent picking up lost strangers on the reservation and turning them over to the border patrol. He points out a dozen regular drop-off points, like old marinas and abandoned houses. For several days last week, he was on the alert for Hussein Fayid, an accused Lebanese murderer and reputed Hizballah money mover. Authorities traced Fayid through Toronto. Just outside the Mohawk reservation, he slipped away...
According to tribal police and federal authorities, the smuggling took off several years ago when Canada lowered its cigarette tax. Until then much of the reservation's cash came from buying cheap cigarettes in the States and selling them illegally in Canada. "You could make 600% on a case of cigarettes," says Mohawk Charlie Little Tree. "When that ended, people became the easiest commodity." Little Tree is now facing charges for smuggling aliens; his son is already serving time for the same offense...
...Pokemon trading-card craze is at the center of much of the controversy. Colm McNiallais, 11, of New York City is a good guide to frenzy. Passing kids looking to trade, he says, "We don't want them. They cheat." He gravitates toward others who have brought out binders filled with hundreds of cards. A dangerous thing, he says. Some of the stuff is rare, and who knows what other kids will do to get it. Colm has only the cards he is willing to trade. "Hey, you have a Magnemite!" someone squeals. "Oh, I need that Drowzee," says someone...
Rolled together with his other passion: video games. Tajiri was raised on Space Invaders in the early days of the video-game revolution. He never went to college but studied electronics at a two-year technical school. He spent much of his time at arcades, perhaps the very ones that grew over the ponds of his childhood. "It was as sinful as shoplifting," Tajiri says. "My parents cried that I had become a delinquent." He was such a fanatic that one arcade gave him a Space Invaders machine to take home...