South Philly's verdict on Scalia

[malachi]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14227487.htm

It's the media's fault. This reporter couldn't have chosen a dumber group if he tried. These geniuses make me ashamed to have Sicilian blood running through my viens.

"The gesture means, 'I don't care, fuhgeddaboutit,' " said Joe "Bubbles" Scavola, 70, a longtime employee at Esposito's. "Ninety-nine percent of Italian people talk with their hands, and they'd be deaf and dumb without them."

Then, expressing contempt for the media in general and the Herald reporter who wrote the story in particular, Joe Bubbles added: "Tell that reporter I'll show her a few nice gestures."

"I can't believe he did this," said Esposito, who grew up in Italy. "I was brought up in the old school: You don't do this. Reporters must have been torturing the hell out of him for him to do that. It's not obscene, but it is disrespectful."

"But it was bad manners for the press to bother him at church," countered Jim Capaldi, St. Paul's business manager.

[revree]

1. Sanity has been turned upside down.

Nothing makes sense in this new world, where assholes like Scalia get defended by people like this. What will these sheeple defend next, the slaughter of children live on TV by Bush and his regime? I wonder how people can accept this kind oƒ behavior, especially from someone in a "leadership" position, and then defend it by putting the blame elsewhere?

We live in a culture of denial and refusal to admit responsibility. And you can blame the Christian right wing Republicans for that. NOT THE MEDIA.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Scalia is an undignified hot headed pig.

Oh, and he is a supreme court justice too.

[gratuitous]

3. I read the whole piece - the verdict seemed to be split

And yet, the writer tried to portray the whole dust-up as an overreaction by a bunch of tight-assed straight-laces. Only as you get further into the article do you read dissenting opinions about the gesture, and the opinion that it is indeed considered obscene. My first thought on reading the opinions from the folks who thought it was okey-dokey was, "And do you think a Supreme Court Justice should be doing something so vulgar?"

That question, too, had to wait for other people much deeper in the article to mention. And once again, we're treated to the single opinion of Joe Bubbles, who apparently thinks that everything Scalia did was totally appropriate and in bounds.

Shame on the writer for making Joe Bubbles the primary spokesman for all of Philly's paisanos. He's clearly in the minority, but he's given first and last place among the folks commenting.

[oneighty]

4. Do not forget

Italians and Americans were killing each other in World War Two and Italy lost.

I can remember as a child during WW2 some of the hate between our immigrant Italian community and the rest of us.

Perhaps that colors opinions even today.

Maybe.

180

[Ms. Clio]

5. It wasn't just the gesture, he also said "Vaffanculo"

How do they translate that in Philly?