As I wrote earlier this year, it was impossible not to be fascinated by the occasional glimpses he provided of the dark underside of medical publishing.

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While the seekers after utopia, nirvana in civil society are still getting free grub and marching and most of all getting exposure on national television we will be fascinated by this welcome diversion from the Republican debates, from the European contagion.

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But why should Americans, whose republic is founded upon the proposition that all men are created equal, be so fascinated by "Downton Abbey, " a soap opera (now in its second season on PBS) about the English landed aristocracy during the Edwardian era, in which all men are definitely not created equal?

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But one sign that we're "back to normal", I would humbly suggest, might be when we stop being so fascinated by everything and anything about Britain's banks.

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"I think people who will come from all over the world, who have been fascinated by the story, will be disappointed".

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He is fascinated by what he believes to be a continuous tension between the world's need and appetite for collective governance on the one hand and, on the other, the desire of tribes and nations to think of themselves as independent and sovereign.

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We love fairy tales yet are fascinated by princes who turn out to be frogs.

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