Word: plasticities
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...prison, Htein Lin struggled constantly and ingeniously to gather art supplies. Using a nail, he scratched poems and sketches on plastic that could only be seen when held up to sunlight. When sympathetic guards brought him house paint and syringes from the prison infirmary, he used those to create swirling, Jackson Pollock-like patterns. "If I had a lot of colors, I'd use them. If I only had black or brown, I'd use it," he says. During his seven months on death row, fellow inmates donated their sarongs - the only clothing allowed them - so that he would have...
...Left to fend for themselves, residents of Rangoon rushed to the markets to stock up on plastic sheeting, food and water. In just two days, prices of some basic commodities had already quadrupled. Even before the cyclone hit, Rangoon was reeling from the price hikes that had sparked last year's civil protests; additional increases could push tens of thousands of shantytown dwellers from chronic malnutrition to starvation. Outside Rangoon, the fate of millions remains largely unknown, since roads are blocked and telephone lines are down. In a frightening glimpse of the storm's destructive power, the country's state...
...summer road trip? The website Ecomodder recently published a list of more than 100 tips for better mileage. Benjamin Jones, one of the site's co-founders, is a self-described "hypermiler," known for extreme gas-saving stunts like covering the underside of a car with corrugated plastic to reduce drag and coasting in neutral with the engine off instead of hitting the brakes. For ordinary drivers, he recommends avoiding stop-and-go driving and idling, which depletes up to a gallon of gas per hour. Driving 55 m.p.h. instead of 80 saves 20% of gas over the same distance...
Want to wreck the environment? Have a baby. Each bundle of joy gobbles up more of the planet's food, clogs garbage dumps with diapers, churns through plastic toys and winds up a gas-guzzling, resource-consuming grown-up like the rest of us. Still, babies are awfully cute. Given that most people still intend to procreate, what's an environmentally conscious parent...
...shadowy halls of the Iraqi National Museum, the remnants of Babylon seem largely forgotten. The carved stone forms of 2,000-year-old rulers are scattered haphazardly throughout a maze of high-ceilinged, dusty halls; their silent expressions barely visible beneath even dustier shrouds of plastic wrap. Not a single tourist graces the building, where cardboard boxes and broken office chairs mingle with the treasure left in disarray...