Word: urbane
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...general, Americans who are highly educated, well-connected, urban, or any of the above—a demographic with an enormous influence on both policy and public opinion—are wont to lament or lambaste their government and culture in a manner unthinkable to the elites of other developed countries. In Japan, it took a decade of recession and stagnation for the nation’s leaders to accept a transition away from the “Japanese model” of corporatism and state subsidies. The mere suggestion of changes in the famously cozy French employment laws sparked...
...wire of The Wire. It may be frayed, it may be poorly maintained, but it is all we have left. For four seasons and what is shaping up as one searing, elegiac season more, TV's best drama has followed that wire through every seam and sector of its urban tapestry. Baby, it can die happy...
...while Thaksin may have been skilled at electoral politics, critics accused him of undermining constitutional checks and balances on his authority and abusing his power to intimidate opponents. Members of the urban middle class, who hadn't benefited from Thaksin's programs, eventually spilled into the streets demanding his ouster, prompting military intervention and a bloodless coup. TRT was dissolved by a Constitutional Tribunal, which found its members guilty of electoral fraud, and charges of corruption have been brought against Thaksin who, along with 110 other TRT executives, was banned from politics for five years...
...fear the former Prime Minister will seek revenge for the coup; Muslims in Thailand's restive south, who suffered under the military clampdown imposed during his rule; southerners in general, who traditionally vote for the Democrats and felt ignored by Thaksin's government; and his longtime foes, the urban, Bangkok-centered middle class. Some who led the anti-Thaksin demonstrations in 2006 have threatened to do so again if he returns. Rosana Tositrakul, Secretary General of the Thai Holistic Health Foundation and a former protest leader, says she will wait and see what a PPP government does. But if Thaksin...
There was a downside, of course. Across from Detroit in Windsor, Ont. - at Canada's busiest border crossing - the plumped-up loonie did not bring such good humor. Windsor is one of the few urban centers in Canada - almost all of them in Ontario - where unemployment has risen since 2002. Gurmit Singh Bains drives his taxi along the riverside. "It's like a ghost town," he says. "The whole economy is down: hotels, restaurants, everything." The waterfront DaimlerChrysler Canada headquarters opened to much fanfare there in 2002, when the city's auto-manufacturing industry was red-hot. Today, the building...