Blagojevich Word of the Day: Inat
Oh, isn’t he awesome, naming Burris to Obama’s Senate seat, and outmaneuvering Harry Reid and his cluelessly appetite-suppressant taint-stains-on-the-seat whining? (Which, you know, Harry, is what the urban dictionary is for)
And it’s pretty astonishing to see yesterday’s delighted lynchmob offering grudging respect for Blago’s prowess and titanium-gauge balls, some even going so far as to offer that he has chutzpah.
Yeah, well, no. He has inat (or инат), a Serbian cultural trait described by the BBC as the “secret weapon” of this storied Balkan people, something that has no direct English translation, but is “an attitude of proud defiance, stubborness and self-preservation - sometimes to the detriment of everyone else or even oneself.” Something “that a mother would chastise her child for, but probably feel a little bit proud of him as well for.”
Something Rod’s (Rade) mother Millie (Milica?) doubtless gave the boy whose father Radisa was emprisonned by the Nazis in WWII.
