Word: popular
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that's why the missile technology China stole from the U.S. is so important: it helps the Chinese advance toward the head of the class in terms of military credibility. A popular phrase in slogan-crazy China captures the idea: yibu daowei, one step and you're there. Instead of taking years to build carriers and subs, the Chinese are keen on constructing a sophisticated missile force that could pack a punch tomorrow. The Pentagon says China is developing sophisticated short-range ballistic missiles and lethal antiship cruise missiles. And though the Chinese have yet to adopt many...
Freeport's woes extend beyond politics. Mining isn't a particularly popular industry, given the propensity to insult the planet in order to get at ores. And this is not a particularly good time to be in the mining business, what with the price of commodities bouncing off all-time lows. Freeport's profits have gone down the shaft, with earnings off 33% in its last quarter, to $129 million. Perhaps that's one reason why Moffett and other senior executives skipped the company's annual meeting last month. Certainly he's used to confrontation, having had to deal with...
...that Freeport has misread Indonesia's political mood. If the reform-minded parties capture the majority of votes, as looks likely, and the military does not intervene, which seems plausible, popular resentment over the company's connections with Suharto might encourage the new government to re-evaluate even the revised contracts, or to further jack up royalty payments, just as copper prices seem to be turning up. That in turn could erode the firm's low-cost structure. Even worse, Jim-Bob Moffett's old friends in high places would no longer be there to help...
...teenage pranksterism and boorish humor--combined with pictures of women in the sort of bathing suits that would remain on for a millisecond were they ever deployed for actual bathing--that typifies the new breed of men's magazines, among them Gear and Maxim. The latter has become so popular with its twentysomething male audience that it recently spawned an even more vulgar offshoot called Stuff. Stuff endorses products like Belcher soda and flaunts cover lines that leave no doubt about how far the magazine will go to capitalize on feelings of hostility men may possess toward the opposite...
Despite the demographics and marketing, we are still free to debate why the celebration of men as regressive louts--as opposed to the celebration of them as something else--is cropping up in the popular culture at this particular moment. The FX's Liguori argues that "only recently has it become O.K. for guys to be guys again. Men are attracted to women. Ten years ago, that was harder to articulate in an entertainment product, and in reality." Or perhaps it's that men's magazines and TV shows are simply offering up images of masculinity that stand in high...