Word: perfect
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Deceit. Terror. The compulsion to perfect an impossible master plan. Nazi Germany's plunge into madness may have convulsed Europe, but Imperial Japan had set out on the same course eight years earlier in East Asia. The war there was already raging in September 1939, and no end was in sight...
Lloyd, the English teenager who won prizes for her role in Wish You Were Here, imports a fetching presence and an acute mimicry to her Brooklyn punkster. The rest of the cast has fun playing in a farce summer-stocked with plot twists and cunning character studies. A perfect forgettable comedy -- now what was its name? Ah, yes. Tasty, brittle, sweet, of no nutritional value . . . Cookie...
...every manufacturer is chasing the perfect technology. L.A. Gear has become a major contender by selling shoes mostly for show, not sport. Adorned with bright-neon trim, buckles and rhinestones and worn by svelte blonds in the company's TV commercials, L.A. Gear's shoes suggest sex and Southern California. One of the brand's top sellers is Street Brats ($60), with contrasting-color laces, marbleized leather and tongues that stick straight up. L.A. Gear was started in 1979 by Robert Greenberg, 49, a hairdresser turned entrepreneur who keeps his finger on the pulse of California shopping culture. Says...
...zoos fight back, they are pulling along the public with some shrewd tactics. Conservationists often select an irresistible, oversize crowd pleaser -- pandas are perfect, but snow leopards and black rhinos work fine -- and lead a campaign to preserve the creature's habitat. "There is a utility in the concern for the giant panda," says the National Zoo's director Michael Robinson. "Pandas are relatively stupid and uninteresting animals. But they happen to be photogenic and appealing, and they help focus people's attention." Big animals need big swatches of habitat, and so in the process a lot of less sexy...
...uncommon, hence newsworthy; the irony is that the coverage prompts many readers to assume that such failings are widespread. Many a journalist has felt the temptation, as Malcolm allegedly did, either to skip the drudgery of poring over notes or, having perused them in vain, to concoct the perfect quote to make the point. Such behavior may be legal. But as every journalist knows, it is, in Malcolm's own words, "morally indefensible...