Word: spent
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...married was the fairy-tale ending. These days, marital ambivalence rules the literary scene. December brought Julie Powell's new memoir, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession (Little, Brown; 307 pages), in which the Julie & Julia author tells the sad, sordid tale of the recent years she spent butchering pigs, cows and her husband's heart. Meanwhile, in a New York Times Magazine story, writer Elizabeth Weil detailed her efforts to subject her "perfect union" to every kind of therapeutic scrutiny available in Northern California. Her goal of complete marital introspection - needed or otherwise - inspired heated holiday-party...
...just changing the way you buy the food that you like. In the book, I use the example of pork chops costing $5 a pound. But if you ask the butcher to cut up the pork loin, it's $2 a pound, and for the same amount of money spent, you have more than twice as much food. I tried to bring out what I think are some pretty frugal practices that are so old they're new. Like washing your own lettuce. People are so used to convenience items they're not even thinking of them as convenience anymore...
...beginning of the 1990s, simply getting the two parties that had spent years trying to kill each another to sit down and talk was a breakthrough. But after two decades of conversation, talking is no longer an indicator of progress toward ending the conflict. As Gheit's comment implies, sitting Netanyahu down with Abbas for "final status" talks risks simply confirming the belief widely held among Abbas aides that no deal is possible with the current Israeli government. (See the top 10 news stories...
...incident at Westergaard's home came two months after another young Danish-Somali man detonated a suicide bomb at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu, killing 24 people, including four ministers. According to news reports, the man had spent 20 years in Denmark before returning to Somalia - and may also have been involved with al-Shabab. (The group has denied responsibility for the attack.) But Somalia's Environment Minister, Buri Hamza, told Danish television last month that he believed the man was first drawn to extremists in Denmark. "We're afraid that this Danish-Somali has been brainwashed right here...
...flop bug bites art-house directors too. Ten years ago Ang Lee spent $15 million to make Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and had a $127 million winner; in 2009 he spent $35 million on Taking Woodstock, which grossed just $7.5 million. Meanwhile, The Hangover - another no-star comedy about drugs and larceny, also costing about $35 million - was the year's top-grossing comedy. The Hangover was out of nowhere; Sandra Bullock was out of the past. After nearly a decade without a solid hit, she starred in The Proposal and The Blind Side. Combined budgets of the two films...