Word: presentables
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...order bride service called Amour Transit, patronized by the fsb (former kgb) and foreign-intelligence services. It's an empty existence of anger and boredom punctuated only by what's on television that night. "Those who created the dumbest of the comic books," says the nameless sniper, "created our present." One day, the friends are watching the World Cup on TV together, and when the mediocre Russian side inevitably loses, they blame not the players but the referee. "We'd have lost anyway, but what right does he have to decide against us?" The outcome adds to their feeling that...
Giving someone a shiny silver frame used to be a good way to avoid hunting down a real present. Not anymore. Thanks to the falling price of liquid-crystal display (LCD) screens and the fact that everybody has a digital camera, electronic-photo frames are popular gifts this year, ones that could earn you points with loved ones...
...Lessons of Vietnam President George W. Bush's visit to Vietnam was another missed opportunity to make amends for his failed policies [Nov. 27]. Instead of acknowledging the peaceful nature of his visit to a former enemy nation and declaring that, despite the present situation in Iraq, he looks forward to the day when a future American President can visit Baghdad and safely travel by motorcade through the capital, he sheepishly avoided the comparisons of Iraq with Vietnam. Americans know Iraq is a mess, and maybe the President knows Iraq is a mess. But before it can be cleaned...
...shells and cattle shoulder blades dating from the 13th and 14th centuries B.C. that bear China's first known writing-mostly prophecies. Hessler, who writes about China for the New Yorker, has fashioned his own oracle bone: a lyrical, sharply observed meditation on the country's rich past, frantic present and uncertain future. We meet obtuse bureaucrats, idealistic scholars and young people on the make. Mostly, Hessler focuses on four people: Emily, who gives up her well-paid factory job to train as a teacher of disabled children; Willy, a gifted young English instructor who blows the whistle...
...rises through the communist ranks by spouting whatever Party line is correct at any given time, thus enjoying a life of chauffeured Audis and plentiful shark's fin soup. Their stories, rife with the contradictions that puzzle China scholars, encapsulate the country's history and pose questions about its present course: will China dominate the world or crash spectacularly? Pomfret doesn't dictate the answer. Instead, he gives us the material to argue for either conclusion-and many subtle gradations in between. -By Hannah Beech...