Word: systemize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Uderzo, writer and illustrator of the series since Goscinny's death in 1977, attributes Asterix's enduring appeal to people's love of the underdog sticking it to the system. "It's David against Goliath," he tells TIME. "Everyone can identify with the image of retribution against things that are bigger than us." For some, the stories have also come to symbolize French anxiety over globalization; the character of Asterix is used as a poster boy for independent-minded people everywhere in the struggle against the hegemonic power of the day, be it Roman imperialists or Anglo-Saxon capitalists...
What about health care? Is the U.S. health care system really that much worse than Europe's? There are basically three numbers that always come up when people talk about the American health care system: average life expectancy, infant mortality and the mount of money we spend per head. Average life expectancy is at the low end of the European scale. We don't do well in terms of infant mortality, either. [And] we spend almost twice as much per person in health care expenditure. Fifteen percent of Americans don't have any insurance coverage. That's undeniable...
...look at every other attempt to measure outcomes, the American health care system isn't doing that badly. In terms of heart disease or cancer rates, they're about the same as those in European nations. If you look at cancer survival rates, we do quite well. Our system may not be the best, but it's not the worst. It works fantastically inefficiently, in that it costs us twice as much as any other country to achieve roughly the same results. So not only do we have to expand coverage, but we have to cut costs at the same...
...many, the behind-the-scenes negotiations run counter to the Lisbon Treaty, which is meant to make the E.U. a more efficient, transparent and democratic system. Former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, one of the few declared candidates for the presidency, said last week that the machinations over the top jobs could ultimately damage the new leaders' authority. "The E.U. should stop working like the former Soviet Union ... in darkness and behind closed doors," she said...
...backed Salvadoran army back in the '80s. On the short descent back to the revolutionary museum which houses the twisted carcasses of several attack helicopters downed by the guerrillas, she points out a crater where a 500-pound bomb was dropped by the army. Nearby is a bunker system used by FMLN rebels to escape those air raids. Back at the Perkin Lenca Lodge, Benito Chica takes out his guitar and plays revolutionary folksongs - the same ones he sang at the rebel camps two decades ago. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Gangs of El Salvador...