Word: perfectible
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...mild weather that prevailed in the rest of the country was perfect for the season's feasts and fairs. It was time for the Harvard-Yale game, U.S.C.-U.C.L.A., Nebraska-Missouri and a hundred aching clashes between rival high schools. There will be parades this week in Philadelphia, Houston and Hollywood, and of course the big Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. (Missing from that extravaganza, however, will be the familiar figure of Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney officials, who control appearances by replicas of the celebrated mouse, do not want him to become too familiar...
...some 68 different works on behavior were published in the U.S. From 1930 to 1945, nearly 80 more manuals went to press. The parodist Donald Ogden Stewart wrote a burlesque of Emily Post called Perfect Behavior, starting with his definition: "The perfect gentleman is he who never unintentionally causes pain." Manners are always simultaneously something more and something less than they seem. They are the body language of a culture, the gesticulations of its soul: in the profound formality of the Japanese, for example, or the surly and almost pathological caution of the Russians, it is possible to divine both...
...Christmas gift suggestions that range from monogrammed "passports" for pet dogs or cats ($18) to an edible Monopoly set made of several kinds of chocolate ($600), and a Wooton desk that once belonged to Queen Victoria ($150,000). In Manhattan, trendy Bloomingdale's is countering with the perfect gift for the aspiring Truman Capote for $100,000 the store will arrange a holiday party for 500 at New York City's Lincoln Center culture temple that includes cocktails, dinner and a ballet performance...
...position is not one of claiming that the British NHS is a perfect institution. It suffers indeed both from problems and limitations. Yet aside from these. I believe that comprehensive health care can work successfully and, moreover, serves as a cornerstone in the more caring society which the welfare state was intended to create. At the risk of lapsing into platitudes, one can say that health is something where there is little justification for the provision of different standards of service for those with different bank balances...
When oil and gas were discovered under their harsh, frigid waters in 1969, Norwegians felt confident that North Sea energy riches would give them the means to create a perfect society. Even before the money came in, they started spending it to enhance an elaborate social-welfare system that has given them one of the world's highest living standards. But the state budget crept up, until today this system takes an astonishing 54.9% of the gross national product. Belatedly, Norwegians discovered that they were living well beyond their means...