Word: modeste
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...there are multiple online petitions to get the paparazzi off Spears' back. Kristin Scott of Bloggingbaby.com told her readers she understood Spears' behavior as a mom, writing that, "There have been days I've wanted to hole up in the basement with a vat of tapioca pudding and a Modest Mouse CD. We all have our own crazy, especially, I think, as parents...
...that sentiment is not as common as it once was. As recently as five years ago, many wealthy Vietnamese officials took pains to disguise their net worth; they rode motorbikes to work and turned assets into gold bars that were hidden in their modest homes. "Society was not in favor of rich people," says Pham Chi Lan, an economist in Hanoi. "They did not dare expose their wealth." Today, BMWs and Mercedes are frequently seen on the streets of Hanoi, and there's a construction boom of luxury villas. The annual publication of a list of the country's richest...
...Kwame is sprightly for his age. When I first met him in April last year, he was wearing loose-fitting gold-colored trousers, a gold shirt and a small gold skullcap all made from the same embroidered fabric. He welcomed me into his modest rented home on the eastern edge of Accra, pumping my hand with the energy and strength of a man 20 years younger. The inside walls of his living room were painted electric blue, and a gold vase of plastic flowers sat on the coffee table. There was a small television in the corner, and a telephone...
...passing of time it has become very ordinary. Then take the case of a family acquaintance from a very wealthy and devout family in Mashad, Iran's shrine city; he ended up being snared by a young woman of little religious conviction, who happily assumed greater propriety and more modest dress to cement the match. Most recently, I met the girlfriend of a bohemian but pious painter; she had spent half her life unveiled in London, but donned the full-length black chador to satisfy his expectations. She still says "Ciao!" when leaving the room, and seems at ease...
...deepest pleasure lies in the enigma of motivation. Its true that Hanssen made a fair amount of money from the Soviets, but that does not seem to be what's driving him. He just goes on living a modest middle-class existence. Nor does he bear any resemblance to certain Cold War-era spies, who served communist ideology out of some sort of (misplaced) idealism. It was rather the opposite with him. Slowly, it steals across you that he was acting out of the desire to prove just how smart he was, how superior he was to his, well, superiors...