> Everybody is right. This isn't an American thing. It's not like other
> countries love losers. It's as old as politics. The classical word for
> success was having virtue (virtus or arete). But it meant the same thing, a
> combination of skill, character and luck -- and crucially the last, a kind
> of charismatic luck, a mysterious ability to compel Fortune.
I wonder. Isn't there more of an embrace of lost causes elsewhere?
-- Andy