Word: one-upmanship
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Soviet and American diplomats were back at it last week, trying to make an agreement out of the disarmament bombshells that George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev had just finished lobbing at each other. The latest round of benevolent one-upmanship is intended to diminish the danger of war, save money both countries need for domestic spending and set a good example for the rest of the world...
...even after Shamir agreed to take part in the talks, he insisted that Baker travel to Israel to get the word. That was another example of what some diplomats see as the one-upmanship that the two men have been engaging in since the Bush Administration began reviving the peace process in March. Upon arriving in Jerusalem, the Secretary spent 90 minutes huddled with Shamir before they announced at a joint press conference that Arab-Israeli talks would indeed convene. Peace in the Middle East, said Baker, was "no longer simply a dream...
...class's love of ostentation. Many Indians consider those Punjabis who are most at home in Delhi to be particularly brash entrepreneurs and deride the type as the "puppy," for "prosperous urban Punjabi who is young." But where the consumer itch is involved, even ordinary Indians are not above one-upmanship. Onida, a television manufacturer, runs a national ad campaign with the slogan, "Neighbor's envy, owner's pride...
Then what is the correct path? Since the two economies have become closely interwoven through joint ventures, investment and trade, the health of the total relationship has become far more important than one-upmanship by either country. As Aida writes, "The leitmotiv of Japan is not saints and villains engaged in mortal combat, but morally complicated human beings living together, confronting and battling one another from time to time, but ultimately yielding, compromising and coexisting in harmony." If Japan can extend that philosophy to its economic partners, relationships will thrive. In fact, the talk of Japanese internationalism is more than...
...being treated as dumb in high school, about the embarrassing things her son did as a schoolboy, about early married days when love was young and romance was in the air. Mostly, though, she complains. About her stodgy husband's indifference, her grownup daughter's condescension, her neighbor's one-upmanship, and the cumulative tedium of a life in the kitchen of her tastefully conventional house in Liverpool...