One Two Three Four
| Mon Dec. 15, 2008 8:26 AM PST
ONE TWO THREE FOUR....The New York Times reports today on Iraqi reaction to the reporter who threw his shoes at George Bush on Sunday. This is from Najaf:
In the holy Shiite city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, demonstrators chanted: "Bush, Bush, is a cow, your farewell was by a shoe," and, "The shoe got its goal straightly, but Maliki turned it away."
I sure hope this sounds better in the original Arabic. Otherwise the odds are low that it will enter the hall of fame of angry chants anytime soon.
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That got me laughing out loud.
"The shoe got its goal straightly, but Maliki turned it away."
(c:
I hope the guy gets off with a warning, and give him credit for resourcefulness. Soon, reporters will have to remove their shoes and belts before presidential press conferences
Have you ever heard of anyone being seriously hurt by flying footwear? Not me. Considering the damage Bush has wrought in the mideast, sneakers of mass destruction are the least he deserves. Muntadar al-Zaidi is a hero - the guy has more guts than the entire Washington press corps put together.
That being said, I was kinda proud of Bushie, too! Catlike reflexes on the man! Catlike, I tell you!
That being said, I was kinda proud of Bushie, too! Catlike reflexes on the man! Catlike, I tell you!
I know. It brings together several classical elements for a good cell phone video game. It's a short action sequence. It's a challenge. And the target is a smart ass who can choose among 500 different shoe jokes when you miss. Maybe for level two you get to be the second shoe thrower.
Color me impressed -- that guy has a really good arm. But I continue to be disappointed by Bush's almost preternatural ability to escape even the barest of consequences for unleashing that shitstorm. More proof, if you needed it, against the existence of God.
Submitted by Brock (not verified) on Mon Dec. 15, 2008 9:33 AM PST.
Otherwise the odds are low that it will enter the hall of fame of angry chants anytime soon.
It's better than any chant beginning with "Hey hey, ho ho".
"I sure hope this sounds better in the original Arabic."
Translating Arabic is usually a little weird. It never seems to translate right. That said, it probably doesn't sound better in Arabic. Arabic is a rather unappealing language to listen to. It makes German seem graceful. The script is very beautiful, however.
The thrower's words (in arabic) were "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog", which translates just fine by me.
@fostert- translating Arabic has no more problems than translating any other language- sometimes it comes out rather flowery in comparison with English, as Russian does, but that's the way it goes. They find some of our language constructions rather strange, too. As for being unappealing to listen to, it's got a couple of nasal sounds that English doesn't, and it doesn't have 'p', so it's going to sound . Regional variations apart, whether it's appealing or not is in the hands (well, mouth) of the speaker.
Thirty years ago, when we lived in the Bay Area, my wife and I sometimes joined the protests at the International Hotel, a resident hotel for low-income workers that was going to be torn down to build something glitzy in that part of SF between Chinatown and North Beach. One night we got there when the RCP, a Maoist sect of the time, was leading the demos. The organizers got us to march through Chinatown chanting something in Chinese (God knows what we were supposed to be chanting and, more to the point, what we ended up saying).
Then they switched to English, leading us in a chant of "Hey Mister! Your Sister! Is Rotten To The Core!" I wondered for a long time who this guy was and why we were so pissed off at his sister, until it finally dawned on me that we were supposed to be yelling "Your system is rotten to the core!" Which teaches us not to fool around with half rhymes if you aren't a professional poet.
You guys crack me up!
Except for trashhauler, who makes me nostalgic for the days when bad guys had facial hair and everyone knew who they were.
All of my kids learned, at about age five, that TV shows had the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' and the bad guys beat up on the good guys so that at the end of the show when the good guys unleashed their righteous wrath back at the bad guys the good guys could enjoy their righteous wrath guilt-free.
Ah the joys of youth. Righteous wrath is da bomb! I miss those days.
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