Word: rubicons
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Finally, suppose there's no touching, no tableau, no quid pro quo -- just a crude exploratory gambit along the lines of "Hiya, babe, you wanna . . . ?" Here too some moral Rubicon has been crossed. Intimacy in a public setting is not just "inappropriate," in the prissy, yuppie sense. It can be deeply insulting, which is why a misapplied tu in French or du in German can be a fighting word. When we leave our homes to go to work, we assume an impersonal role like "teacher," "secretary" or "judge." We may even don a special costume (black robes, skirted suit...
...Last week, instead of subtly pointing at its wallet, the White House made clear that it was ready to pull it away. What had been an admonition came close to sounding like coercion, at least for some Israelis. Said Yossi Olmert, the Israeli government spokesman: "Bush has crossed that Rubicon...
Officially, Bush has not even decided when he will decide. But all indications are that the first Rubicon has been seven-eighths crossed. The President asserted he is "somewhat skeptical" that air power alone can drive Saddam's forces out of Kuwait, and others were far more categorical. Lieut. General Sir Peter de la Billiere, British commander in Saudi Arabia, called a ground campaign "inevitable." No matter how devastating the air war has been, said Sir Peter, it is "minor, compared to what they've got coming...
...supposed to tell such secrets to the enemy. In truth, what Waller said should come as no surprise to anyone who has been tracking the progress of American deployment in the gulf. That he said it, however, was a shocker. Waller's indiscretion signaled to Saddam that the Rubicon may not be crossed on Jan. 15, thereby undercutting Washington's effort to scare him out of Kuwait without a fight...
Professor Bell cast his die last week, but the river he crossed was not the Rubicon, it was the Alabama. Last week Derrick Bell crossed over the Edmund J. Pettus bridge, and he crossed if heading back to Selma. He crossed it into Selma because he denied Blacks full freedom of intellectual development and because he accepted racial and gender divisions as the natural order of things...