Word: wondering
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Antibiotics like penicillin, streptomycin and tetracycline have revolutionized medicine, and they have been wonder drugs for agriculture as well. Today about two-thirds of our cattle and nearly all poultry, hogs and veal calves are raised on feed laced with the drugs. Animals consume almost 8 million Ibs. a year, nearly 40% of U.S. production. The antibiotics not only keep them healthy in their crowded pens but, for reasons not yet clear, also speed up growth on less feed. Now, after a quarter-century of largely uncritical acceptance, the practice is being sharply questioned. Reason: the drugs the animals consume...
Hoagland does not burden the reader with a false sense of wonder or an exaggerated sense of adventure. He conveys what he learns as something that a middle-aged man should already know: months of wandering in a hard place make one sick, lonely, itchy and tired. "I was weary," he writes, "of the whole African calliope - that nagging, pulsing musical din that has been reverberating strongly without letup for thousands of years before you arrive and will be continuing without any respite for sickness or fatigue long after you have left the earth...
...think of themselves as a decadent people: such self-accusation may be the reverse side of the old American self-congratulation. Americans contemplate some of the more disgusting uses to which freedom of expression has been put; they confront a physical violence and spiritual heedlessness that makes them wonder if the entire society is on a steep and terminal incline downward. They see around them what they call decadence. But is the U.S. decadent? Does the rich, evil word, with its little horripilations of pleasure, and its gonging of the last dance, really have any relevant meaning...
Forget aspirin, penicillin or tranquilizers. The true wonder drug, in the eyes of all too many people, is one that promotes weight loss. For a while amphetamines seemed to provide that miracle, until doctors began warning of their severe side effects, which include increased blood pressure and heart rate, a dependency on the drugs, and bouts of depression when the pills are withdrawn. Now magical diet potions are being promoted in a new and, according to some doctors, alarming form. To make matters worse, they can be had for the asking at almost any drug counter...
...used to be that Americans returned from a vacation across the Atlantic full of tales of shopping bargains and cheap travel. No longer. Today, most return with their wallets empty, their credit cards fully charged and their spirits shaken by how little the dollar now buys. Many wonder just how Europeans can afford to live at all in Western Europe, let alone so well...