Word: seemed
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...hard for Americans to feel like underdogs these days. We seem normal size in our own skins, but to the rest of the world, we've become a nation of supersizing, regime-changing, SUV-driving Goliaths. This may be why the NCAA men's basketball tournament?where little mutts like geographically confused Cleveland State and it-can't-possibly-have-a-team Oral Roberts run with purebreds Duke and UCLA?grows in meaning every year. It may also be the gambling, the guilt-free jalapeño-popper binges or the camaraderie born when three-quarters of the workforce enters...
...march to the championship. No sporting event is as elegantly constructed or as essentially American. There are the massing of schools rich and poor, public and private; the opportunity for all to face off neutrally; and the assignment of an indisputable qualitative value. That last element, the seedings, may seem like cruel status reinforcement, but when an upset happens?and upsets always happen?its magnitude can be assessed with statistical clarity, so that we know just how far the mighty have fallen and how high the mutts have leaped...
...Those who fear a missile strike on the American mainland from North Korea or Iran - not that either is anywhere close to achieving such capability - the investment in a missile shield, even one whose efficacy is far from clearly established, may seem worthwhile. To those who believe the more salient and insidious threats are those of the type we experienced on 9/11, this shield against a handful of rogue missiles represents an unfortunate diversion of funds that could be used far more effectively to defend...
...before he drives off, Alves does something that would seem unusual had not the others stopped by the same policemen tonight not done the same thing: He thanks the officers for doing their job. "I think it's good that they stopped me," he says, seemingly sincerely. "There are more police on the streets these days and the crime situation is much better than...
...almost seem, in considering Tibet, as if two different visions of freedom are colliding. For Buddhists, liberation traditionally means freedom from ignorance and so from the suffering it brings. For Chinese pledged to material development, freedom simply means liberation from the past, from religion and from backwardness. According to the Dalai Lama, at the sixth and most recent round of regular talks between Chinese officials and a delegation of Tibetans, the Chinese said, "There is no Tibet issue. Everything in Tibet is very smooth." To which the exiled Tibetans said, "If things are really as good as you say they...