Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘George W. Bush’

Let’s face it: Dubya has had a serious ass-kicking coming to him for a long time. How he continues to elude it, even after this latest stunt, I don’t know.

During one of his recent, well-publicized humanitarian visits to Haiti with Bill Clinton, Bush appears to wipe his hand on Clinton’s shirt after shaking some Haitians’ hands. The jury is still out on whether this was some subtly racist shit (which I would argue it probably is). But one thing is clear: I would have beat his ass.

I’d put up with a lot of things–including ruining 230-plus years of (overall) national progress—but not this shit.

I actually had something like this happen to me when I was in the 7th grade.

I was minding my own junior-high-school business at my locker, when this second-string friend of mine—a White kid whose name I’ve permanently forgotten—came up to me to show me how dirty his hands had gotten at recess. (Admittedly, this kind of shit was impressive to me in the 7th grade.) With no warning, he proceeded to wipe said filthy hands on my beautiful (white) Kentucky Wildcats basketball t-shirt.

It was on like Donkey Kong.

I quickly balled a tight fist and, unfortunately, swung wildly at his head, in a deserved—but reckless—act of retribution. I nicked his blond hair, but before I could follow it up with a clean corrective measure, I was being hauled away to the authorities by the fastest-moving (and strongest) fat lady I’d ever encountered.

I tried, in vain, to present the hand prints on my shirt as evidence, and justification, to the Vice Principal. It wasn’t working. He started talking suspension for the both of us, though he was leaning noticeably harder on me. I don’t blame him. The other guy was blond and I was an just some ethnic kid with a dirty shirt.

When he left the room to assemble the necessary paperwork, I did what any good criminal does: I conspired with my co-offender. “We’re both screwed, man, unless we act like good friends that just had a stupid misunderstanding.” In the end, the cops bought our story and we got off scot-free.

But I’ll tell you one thing: like Bush, that punk kid was asking for an ass-kicking.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the only way to get your point across to some people is to throw a hard object at them.

Oh, now I see what you mean.

Recently, a Massimo Tartaglia appears to have put this principle into practice, when he, appropriately and accurately, nailed Silvio Berlusconi—everybody’s favorite billionaire media mogul and corrupt asshole politician—in his right-wing mouth with a plaster replica of the Duomo di Milano.

A lousy, overpriced souvenir finally comes in handy.

Frankly, I don’t like violence. But I recognize its important role throughout the history of human communication. I’ve always called violence “the ancient language of last resort.” In the overwhelming majority of cases you can make your point with other, more modern forms of speech (in ascending order: silence; calm, reasonable statements; firm, direct talking-to; screaming and cussing; etc). But occasionally, you have to resort to the oldest language. There are even times when someone may use it with you.

But like any experienced urban dweller will tell you, there are some people who only understand that language. One of those people, it seems, is Mr. Bloody Mouth.

For the longest time, people have been complaining about what it’s like to be heard in Berlusconi’s Italy. The guy almost exclusively owns and controls the media, an advantage he fully exploits to his political benefit. So, if you have an opposing view, you’re pretty much shit-out-of-luck; you’re not showing up on any of his television stations. Add to that his hard-right politics and (habitual) corruption, and you have a recipe for pissed off Italians. Even Berlusconi himself was quoted as having said, “[he] expected this to happen.”

The last time someone took aim at a monumental dick was a few months ago, when that guy threw his shoe at George W. Bush. For his efforts, people all over the world celebrated him as a hero. Women were offering him their daughters in marriage. People were offering him jobs, houses, and other extravagant gifts.

And, that asshole missed.