Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
and you have to be careful or you'll soon spoil the whole impression of languid omniscience by writing "It was me and him". As a Biddy, the soubriquet given to me by a group of English men with surnames sich as Pigot (final "t" silent), I can recognise rhe attempts at over-achievement more readily than most.
The topics of Guantanamo, torture and the current diabolical destruction of Gaza got lost on this thread in a welter of witless banter between you and Derbig Mooser. Derbig is always on parade as wise-cracking Jew whose wife can't type because it might spoil the apex of the nail-technician's art, although he was engaging in very bad badinage with GBT the other day. He then disappeared from the thread after Klytus and I drew attention to the obvious flirtation. I never noticed you at all, London Lad, until you seemed to have developed an obsession about Barack Obama's birth certificate.
The purpose of Glenn Greenwald's blog is to question the fraying of America's purported ideals and to contest the prevailing political support for what looks very like an attempt at wiping out a Palestinian beach-head-cum-ghetto on the part of the Israeli army with uncritical propping by the USA. Maybe you hadn't noticed.
Arundati Roy is a woman.
http://www.petermathew.com.au/images/ArundatiRoy.jpg
I noticed in a later comment that you had acknowledged that about Roy.
is change the regime under which the detainees are being held. As those held have not as yet, nor are likely to be found guilty they should forthwith be treated as guests of America rather than as prisoners. This might go some way to help re rehabilitate them and make amends for the dreadful treatment that the so far have been subject to.
"and you have to be careful or you'll soon spoil the whole impression of languid omniscience by writing "It was me and him"."
Surely, my reckless and raffish slippages of English grammar only aid and abet the impression of languid omniscience that I am so assiduously trying to cultivate here at Salon, no?
"As a Biddy, the soubriquet given to me by a group of English men with surnames sich as Pigot (final "t" silent), I can recognise rhe attempts at over-achievement more readily than most."
It would be in French that the "t" in Pigot is silent. In English the "t" at the end of "Pigot" is no more silent than, unfortunately you are.
And whilst I'm at it, sometime when I have nothing more on than the kettle you might want to swing by and explain just exactly what is meant by such words as "sich" and the word "rhe" as used by you in the quote above.
Chaim Herzog was born in Dublin, son of the Chief Rabbi. He had to learn the Irish language in school, as it was compulsory for a very nationalistic people. Old Herzog, whose son has recently been rebuking the Irish government for criticising the Israeli assault on Gaza, is reputed to have used some Irish words in conversation with some others who'd been through our system, in order to baffle any decoders listening in to telephone calls ordering the destruction of some place or other.
You see, Che, we are a useful little country as Ronald Reagan discovered during the Iran/Contra affair when a whole load of CIA operatives were asked "Did your mother come from Ireland, cos there's something in you Irish, it must be the sicerity (?) of your smile". Well, wasn't it the clever question after all as they were able to discover that Great-Granny Nonie (Nora) had come from the valley of Slievenamon (anglicised from Sliabh na mBan, mountain of the women) and hey presto! a darlin' Irish passport for Ziggy Wiesel under the name of Partick McFarlane or something like that.
The Irish language didn't appeal to me because as I said to someone, if I have to go to the doctor I wouldn't have the names for any female parts of my anatomy or anything that could be construed as blasphemous or rude. The language died after the Famine when it was associated with death and desperation while English was the language of commerce; if you wanted to get ahead or go to America, you had to be able to speak and write English. To make matters worse, a priest called Fr. Dineen compiled an Irish dictionary as the source of all that was good and holy and every crude, vernacular word was eliminated so as not to shock us. A whole chapter of a French book "Pecheurs d'Islande" was excised from a text-book bought by our parents; when cheeky girls asked the nun why she'd done that to the books, she gave the hilarious answer that it depicted a very upsetting scene in which a "Chinaman" was murdered. As became known, after this lying for God, it described the wedding night of a Breton fisherman and his bride.
Enough of this. I'm extraordinarily sane after coming through the Celtic version of the Taleban and I definitely learned to give plenty of guff, probably because of it. As for language, the Hiberno-English of Sean O'Casey's plays "Juno and the Paycock" and "The Plough and the Stars" is really wonderful, almost gone from us now. As Joxer says in "Juno and the Paycock", in a moment of earnest consideration "The whole world is in a state of chassis" but the chaos of those troubled times is minor in compared with the geopolitical scene today. Hasta la vista (at least it's not French).
jockey. His daughter, Tracy, who, fortunately for her did not inherit her Daddy's looks, lives in Ireland and does broadcastin work on horse-racing and rugby football.
Now, London Lad, how can you put up with living in a country reeking with hypocrisy such as England? Your Prince Harry calls a much older man "Sooty" because the man (a polo manager?) seems to be of Indian origin. I burst out laughing with shock, but not awe, when I heard the latest about the gauche (French, I'm afraid) princeling who got one GCSE of all the subjects available to him in the history of art; even in that one achievement there were the bones of a court case, the litigation that you associate with America. Harry was said to have cheated and passed off his teacher's input as his own. Result of court case: Harry was completely innocent, naturally enough and teacher left the stage with what can be reckoned to be a considerable amount of dosh, discreetly delivered you can be sure. Next step: Harry, being definitely officer material, is a cadet at Sandhurst, his application having been approved solely on merit, of course. Now the royal lackeys and crawlers are out in force telling anyone who'll listen that the dusky-skinned man called "Sooty" by Harry actually loves that name and that it's a term of affection! Well, yes, if you're a black cat. The English learned to play polo from the Indians of the highest caste but Harry, despite all or because of all that Hanoverian blood, still thinks it's a merry jape to refer to a person's colour even though his own over-red, florid complexion is nothing to write home about. London Lad, I don't think you British are getting good value for your money in the collection of royal clowns to which you're always tugging your forelock.
If Harry's antics weren't enough to show you in a bad light, the news that two immigration officers had been suspended because of their membership of the BNP added to the aura of utter hypocrisy. For the Americans who can't be expected to know this, the British National Party is actually able to put up candidates for election and membership is legal, except if you're in the police, the immigeation service and a third category which I can't remember right now. A list of BNP members was posted on the Internet which has caused all sorts of huffing and puffing, hissing and spitting. So now you have a situation in which a prince of the realm thinks that "paki", "raghead" and "sooty" are terms of endearment when he uses them about his social inferiors and two of the plebs get into trouble for belonging to a political party which, though unpleasant in attitude is still a legally-recognised party.
OK now, London Lad?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
