Word: quaintness
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...that are scattered across 22 federal agencies, which employ nearly 170,000 people, consume close to $37.5 billion a year and answer to 88 congressional committees and subcommittees. The various offices and agencies grew up, each with its own history, in bygone eras with concerns that now seem almost quaint: the Secret Service, to combat counterfeiters; the Customs Service, to collect tariffs; the Coast Guard, to prevent smuggling. But in the post-9/11 world, the threat has a different face. "Thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us," President Bush said Thursday night, "and this terrible knowledge requires...
...when the Iron Curtain went down in 1991, hordes of American slackers poured into East bloc cities like Prague, Cracow and Budapest, quaint, cobblestoned capitals where a recent college grad could sit in a cafe all day, smoke bad cigarettes, drink bad wine, bask in the low, low exchange rates and attempt to write the Great American Novel. In 1991 the inaugural issue of the English-language weekly Prague Post proclaimed, "We are living in the Left Bank of the '90s." So where are those novels, and how great are they? A decade later--blame it on those long Slavic...
...look at it, 50 years is a very, very long time, the span of two generations, as a matter of fact, half a century to be precise. It is no wonder, then, that the manners and mores of that early time would be considered not only antiquated but rather quaint. For those of us who lived through those times, however, they were up-to-date and decidedly groovy...
...contrasting experiences illustrate the extremes of vacations on two wheels. Mine was fully catered. Freewheeling Adventures provided (and adjusted) the bicycles, reserved the quaint inns (and one luxury spa) and booked most of the restaurants. It had scouted the routes ahead for scenery and difficulty. And the two guides kept a constant vigil to make sure all our needs were met. Of course, it charged for this, although not as much as some tour companies. Ward used only his own bicycle and maps, ate at diners and restaurants and camped at state parks. He saw spectacular scenery along...
Inspired by the now quaint stripteases of the '50s and before, New Burlesque serves up a parade of women who take off most of their clothes to musical accompaniment. Each woman is armed with a gimmick, playing, say, a cowgirl on a hot day in Texas or a French maid hanging her culottes on a line. The performers are women of widely varying body types who see stripping as self-expression rather than a job, and they draw audiences of both sexes in equal numbers. New Burlesque bears almost no resemblance to modern strip clubs, which have been pushed...