Re: [Pen-l] Iraqi journalist throws shoes at Bush

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 14, 2008, at 7:05 PM, Jim Devine wrote:

Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjdXwLQrRJ8

that guy has a good arm! but it looks like Dubya's dedication to
exercising all the time may have improved his reflexes.

Hitting him was not the point.

As I learned in Morocco 50 years ago, in an Islamic culture to put  
one's shoe in one's hand is a severely threatening gesture and to  
throw it is a gesture expressing unmitigated contempt. If there is a  
Western term for this sort of thing, it is to be found in the *codex  
duello*.  It is the equivalent of slapping one's enemy across the face  
with one's glove.

Shane Mage

This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it

always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,

kindling in measures and going out in measures."

Herakleitos of Ephesos

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