Word: racketeering
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...suddenly became all too interesting. The election ran aground in Florida, its outcome simply too close to call, a digital-photo-finish that defeated the state's analog voting equipment (and meanwhile added a 1950s term, punch-card "chad," to our lexicon). The cable-TV pundits made their dependable racket and protesters filled the South Florida streets, but as the votes were recounted and Gore contested Bush's apparent victory, the public remained admirably patient--content to let this truly important episode play out. Our frivolous, sometimes hysterical age proved that it is still capable of serious thought...
...spend days dismantling keels, engine rooms and even onboard septic tanks and voodoo shrines that have yielded as much as 1,100 lbs. of coke at a time. "We've never seen the Colombians use a vessel's structure this way," says Miami customs supervisor Tom Stefanello over the racket of his agents' riveters...
...Amount he was fined for "racket abuse...
...actor JOHN LITHGOW and illustrated by C.F. Payne, is written in...rhyme! Musical prodigy Farkle masters with ease a succession of instruments, including the violin, flute and trombone, only to tire quickly of each one. "I can't stand the trombone, with its blaat and its blare!/ That racket is more than my eardrums can bear!" Farkle's solution (or, rather, Lithgow's) is just clever enough to please kids and parents alike. The exaggerated illustrations give a farcical air to the tale, which has already put in an appearance on the Times best-seller list...
...general, is at its funniest when its satire has the bite of social commentary; this is the case at a few points in the college book. The book pokes fun at the advantages for the rich in the admissions process and what it calls "the standardized testing racket" the parody SAT is probably the funniest part of the book (former Lampoon editor and former Crimson editor Michael Colton '97, co-author of Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT, is listed as a 'special contributor...