Word: smalling
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...mind of many Russians since he won re-election as mayor in 1996 with almost 90% of the vote, an astonishing endorsement. Only five years younger than Yeltsin, he has ostentatiously underlined his vigor--and the President's frailty--with regular, well-publicized games of soccer and tennis. Small, bullet-headed and energetic, Luzhkov, 63, seemed like the kind of reformer who might be able to do for Russian politics what he has done for Moscow--get rid of the trash and make things work...
...advantages to the faster-cheaper-better approach, in fact, is that when probes inevitably do fail, the loss is relatively small. Mars Observer, which vanished without a trace just before Goldin took office, cost the nation more than $1 billion; Climate Orbiter and the Polar Lander have set taxpayers back only $319 million between them. "We launched 10 spacecraft in 10 months," said Goldin. "We used to launch two a year. We have to be prepared for failure if we're going to explore...
...SPINNING INTO BUTTER A small Vermont college is the setting for this edgy exploration of racism and political correctness, touched off by some anonymous hate letters. Rebecca Gilman's searching play, given a fine staging at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, shows a keen eye for the culture of academic life but resists the urge to lecture...
...DANGEROUS FRIEND by Ward Just. A well-meaning American sociologist arrives in Vietnam in the mid-1960s on a quasi-official mission to help prop up the civil government. What follows is a small, tense drama that foreshadows the wartime tragedies that lie ahead. Knowing how reality turned out makes this fiction not a whit less engrossing or enlightening...
...captures the joys and the sheer human cussedness on daily display there. Tracy Kidder lives nearby, and he spent years listening to his neighbors and walking their streets. His book is an extraordinary feat of reporting and writing, a vivid reminder both of why so many Americans flee the small towns of their birth and why so many of them miss the sense of belonging that such places inspire...