Word: toying
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...stitchpunk creations," but in the interest of plain English, we're opting for the term doll. Hand-stitched from either burlap or canvas, the dolls have smooth, rounded heads and protuberant eyes; they look like early aviators. They are both homespun and spooky, like the kind of child's toy that might be purchased at an all-organic boutique and cause nightmares until it is ultimately whisked off to Goodwill...
...Perik sold the firm, which they renamed the Learning Company, to Mattel in 1999 for $3.6 billion. But almost immediately the deal turned sour. The Learning Company lost $200 million in the second half of 1999 alone. O'Leary and Perik, who joined Mattel after the merger, left the toy company six months later in a management shake-up. In 2001, Mattel disposed of the Learning Company by giving away most of the division to a private-equity firm for free...
...where the competition can be killed. "They've got Kmart ready to take a standing eight-count next year," says retail consultant Burt Flickinger III, managing director for Strategic Resources Group and a veteran Walmart watcher. "Same with Rite Aid. They've knocked out four of the top five toy retailers, and are now going after the last one standing, Toys "R" Us. Project Impact will be the catalyst to wipe out a second round of national and regional retailers." (See 10 things to buy during the recession...
...start with the porn shop. Lion's Den is an Ohio-based chain of adult toy stores often found at tired freeway interchanges in empty parts of the country. In 2003, one of them arrived in the fabled cowboy town of Abilene. A pornucopia of videos, sheer little costumes and things that go hmmm moved into the peaked-roof carcass of an old Stuckey's, not far from a Russell Stover candy factory. People of a certain age recall when Stuckey's was known for sweet divinity and gooey taffy, back when such phrases weren't even vaguely smutty...
...cause some degree of pain or discomfort." There is no comprehensive definition of corporal punishment under U.S. state or federal law. The ACLU and Human Rights Watch documented cases of corporal punishment including hitting children with a belt, a ruler, a set of rulers taped together or a toy hammer; pinching, slapping or striking very young children in particular; grabbing children around the arm, the neck or elsewhere with enough force to bruise; throwing children to the floor; slamming a child into a wall; dragging children across floors; and bruising or otherwise injuring children in the course of restraint...