Word: soft
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...This brand of fervid romance packed 'em in for the first 60 years of feature films, then went nearly extinct, replaced by the young-male fetishes of space toys and body-function humor. Twilight says to heck with that. It jettisons facetiousness for a liturgical solemnity, and hardware for soft lips. It revives the precept that there's nothing more cinematic than a close-up of two beautiful people about to kiss. The movie's core demographic is so young, its members may not know how uncool this tendency has become. But for them, uncool is hot. And seeing Twilight...
...world turning Japanese? Even as Japan's domestic economy slips into recession and its politicians dither endlessly, the country's overseas influence is reaching new heights. Limited by a postwar constitution from developing military power, Japan's international clout relies on soft power, the term coined by Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye in 1990 to describe how countries "get what [they] want through attraction rather than coercion." Today, a generation of idealistic Japanese is attempting to sway the world through cultural, social and economic means. Japan doesn't tend to trumpet its efforts - understandable given the nation's imperial past...
...renewed love affair with the nation has blossomed just as many nations are growing wary of the rising influence of Asia's other superpower: China. Unlike Japan, China has done little to mask its global natural-resources grab. As a result, Japan outranked China in a June survey of soft-power effectiveness in six countries by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Far from China eclipsing Japan, as many once thought, the Middle Kingdom's emergence has actually reawakened international admiration of its neighbor. "There's a strong perception that China's not doing enough for people's rights," says...
...Xiqun, 22, runs a tiny shop selling soft drinks, beer, toothpaste, hot sauce, instant noodles, cooking oil and toothpaste. She and her 28-year-old fiancé had planned to marry this year. Then the earthquake struck, flattening their house and burying their wedding nest egg, which they had just withdrawn from the bank. At the time, money was the last thing on Luo's mind. "I wanted to live," she says, as she stands inside her store wearing a puffy orange jacket to ward off the chill. "No one else in the same building made it out, but somehow...
...many Europeans, however, thinking less about the U.S., and more about the rest of the world - about the projection of European power, hard or soft - is not a priority, and it's important to understand why. Europe is a special place at a special time. In France, they refer to the 30 years of economic expansion and modernization after 1945 as the trentes glorieuses, but you can make a case that it is really the last 20 years, since long-accreting rust began to degrade the Iron Curtain in the spring of 1989, that represent Europe's true Golden...