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Showing posts from March, 2025

The Ugly Duckling,...er, American

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      It was difficult to watch the verbal beating of a country's leader , something most historians say was unprecedented.  From what I saw (and the response by the Ukranian president on Fox ), it marked an embarrassing end to civility and humility by our  head of government (but one that was praised by the Russian media).  Breaking down that word --civility-- one can discover "civil" in there, which the Cambridge dictionary defines as: ... relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns, as distinct from military or ecesiastical matters ("civil aviation" ).  With the massive firing of so many "civil" servants, it would appear that the current administration wants to drop the word entirely and just leave the word "servants."  So what the heck is happening?    Photo: Alexey Nikolsky / AFP / Getty      There was a time not long ago when the term "ugly American" simply described the drunk US tourist in another co...