Yet Another Reason to Love Scalia
Thursday, March 30th, 2006Seems that a kerfuffle has broken out over a gesture made by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in response to a reporter’s question:
Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.
“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ � punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.
The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.�
Yesterday, Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet agreed with Smith’s account, but said she did not hear Scalia utter the obscenity.
Justice Scalia explained the gesture like this:
Scalia went on to cite Luigi Barzini’s book, “The Italians,â€? which describes a seemingly different gesture – “the extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chinâ€? – and its meaning – “ ‘I couldn’t care less. It’s no business of mine. Count me out.’ â€?
Seems pretty plausible to me, but then again, I’m not a member of the MSM trying to generate buzz on a non-happening. Oh, yeah, here’s the picture the photographer took:
When faced with Scalia’s immensely sensible explanation, the best the press could come up with was this:
“There is no answer to ‘what it really means,’ because those gestures have different meanings in different locations, even in neighbouring locations,� said Janet Bavelas, a University of Victoria, British Columbia, psychologist who has studied human gestures.
The gesture typically means “I don’t know� in Portugal, “No!� in Naples, “You are lying� in Greece and “I don’t give a damn� in northern Italy, France and Tunisia, said David B. Givens of the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, Wash.
So, if there is no way of really knowing what the gesture means, why do the press immediately assume it’s obscene? Could it be that because Scalia is a well known conservative Justice that it suits the press’ agenda to make such an assumption? What about the obscenity that Scalia muttered, you ask? You mean the one that only the photographer heard, even though the reporter was right there at the time? Who you going to believe, a Supreme Court Justice with an impeccable character and a strong religious background, or a free-lance photographer trying to make a name for himself?
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