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What's with these Czar's?

I had forgotten my elementary school history and the term 'Tsar' or 'Czar' until the American government rekindled old memories.  My soporific (both him and his listenees)  history teacher used to blab on and on about Russian rulers with bizzare titles like the Czar and Czarinas and I never quite caught on as to what was going on over there.

Obama recently appointed one.  A czar.  For Ebola.  Imagine that.  Ebola Czar.  Deadly?  I think so.

Origin of the word 'Czar' comes from the name of the great military general Julius Ceasar.  Before Jesus there was Julius.  As titles go folks that could dominate other folks were given this title.  Russian monarchs adopted a variant of it and called their commanders Tsars.

The ladies that made it to the throne were Tsaristas aka Czarinas.  (Not sure if an Indian actress somehow got mixed up in these cults and came to be known as Zareena Wahab - although her last name suggests some alliance with the House of Saud in Arabia).

One of the last known Tsaristas was Eudoxia Lopukhina - the wife of Peter the Great.  He was great simply for having a wife with a name as deadly as Eudoxia I think (sort of rhymes with Ebola - that is what I think so that is that).  I never got a chance to find out.

So now the government in their wisdom while not quite wanting monarchs and duchesses still latches on to silly terms like Czars - although there are not any Czarinas for some reason.  Why this inequality?  I say call up Hillary and ask her to fight for Democracy as the Hilarious Czarina.  Put a big smile on people's faces I say - all so depressed with the economy going nowhere.

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  1. The economy was always going nowhere. It's just that people discovered it a bit late.

    ReplyDelete

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