Word: nation
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There is a certain logic to it: at the end of a decade of American triumphalism abroad and prosperity at home, we could be seeking to upsize our personalities, our sense of ourselves. Perhaps we as a people are acting out our success as a nation, in a manner unfelt since the postwar...
...personal boundaries. According to American Sports Data Inc., a consulting firm, participation in so-called extreme sports is way up. Snowboarding has grown 113% in five years and now boasts nearly 5.5 million participants. Mountain biking, skateboarding, scuba diving, you name the adventure sport--the growth curves reveal a nation that loves to play with danger. Contrast that with activities like baseball, touch football and aerobics, all of which have been in steady decline throughout...
...that taking conscious risk involves overcoming our instincts. He points out that no other animal intentionally puts itself in peril. "The human race is particularly risk taking compared with other species," he says. He describes risk takers as the Type T personality, and the U.S. as a Type T nation, as opposed to what Farley considers more risk-averse nations like Japan. He breaks it down further, into Type T physical (extreme athletes) and Type T intellectual (Albert Einstein, Galileo). He warns there is also Type T negative, that is, those who are drawn to delinquency, crime, experimentation with drugs...
When our Type T traits turn negative, though, there is a disturbing, less serene element to America's being the risk nation. One chilling development is the trend of "barebacking," a practice in which gay men have unprotected sex with multiple partners. Jack, an avid proponent of barebacking, argues that the risk of becoming HIV positive is outweighed by the rush of latex-free passion--especially in an era when, in his view, protease inhibitors are on the verge of turning AIDS from a fatal disease into a chronic illness. "It's the bad boy in me getting...
Eventually the farmers caught up with Zaitz's vision, helped along by new technology. In just the few years since Zaitz bought his first modem, analysts estimate that close to 35% of the nation's 3 million farmers have gone online. COW has evolved into Farms.com one of the first e-business sites to support real-time farm auctions. Farmers who visit the site can buy and sell entire lots of cattle via digital video feeds and still images. They can also get chemicals, grain and feed commodities online. On average, says Zaitz, Farms.com has more than 40,000 unique...