Episode 14: Grumps and Gaffes

**************************************************************************************
"I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap." - Bob Hope
**************************************************************************************
CRANKY OLD CROCKS
*Despite his lifetime in politics, the ever-sanctimonious Senator Joe Lieberman, 64, revealed an incomplete understanding of basic democratic principles. In delivering his non-concession speech following defeat in his Connecticut primary, he whined: "For the sake (of) our state, my party, and our country, I cannot and will not let that result stand."
A day later, echoing Vice President Darth Cheney, he called the election result a "victory" for extremists.

*In a televised Senate hearing, Hillary Clinton, nakedly attempting to distance herself from her own continuing support for the war in Irag, called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 74. Summoning every ounce of indignation in his being, the Bush regime's best argument for a mandatory retirement age stormed back with, "Oh, my goodness!"

*Former civil rights leader and congressman Andrew Young, 74, had a new gig, shilling for Wal-Mart. In the course of his duties, he gave an interview to an L.A. reporter in which he compared his employer favorably to the Jewish, Arab, and Korean storekeepers who had long "ripped off" black neighborhoods, "selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables". He later claimed to have been quoted out of context.

*Nobel prizewinner Gunter Grass, 78, having assigned himself the highest available moral ground since publication of The Tin Drum in 1959, revealed that he had served with the Waffen SS in WWII. When the predictable storm of condemnation and charges of hypocrisy rained down on him, he replied, "It is surely an attempt by some people to make me a persona non grata."

Indeed. People are offended when the man lecturing them for fifty years belatedly comes out of the closet to reveal that he served the most evil cause of the 20th Century. Several noted authors came to the defense of Grass, apparently in the conviction that the pursuit of art and virtue surpasseth niggling concerns about truth. Coming clean had the result many critics believed was the point of the revelation - the 150,000-copy first printing of his latest book sold out in a couple of weeks.

*Morley Safer, 75, wrote to the Travel Section of the NY Times to complain that the writer of an article about Ukraine had failed to mention that the Nazi death camp Janowska had operated there. "Travel writing may have its place at the outer limits of journalism," he sneered, "but one would expect just a soupcon of history to intrude on the traveler's happy-go-lucky meanderings."

This, from a man whose public identity is as narrator of effete featurettes on 60 Minutes about British eccentrics and French winedrinkers. (He apparently felt no pressure to mention the Shoah when he was reporting about the health benefits of drinking clarets from Bordeaux.) He's in his 36th year with the program, paid an obscene salary to stroll around pleasant landscapes and read from cue cards, while the real work is done by teams of producers, researchers, writers, editors, cameramen and sound operators. Travel writers don't have that kind of help.

*************************************************************************************
A guy is walking along a beach in California. Finds a lamp half-buried in the sand. Rubs it. Genie pops out.
"Sire, I can grant you one wish. Anything you want."
"Really!" the surprised man says. "Okay, I hate flying. Build me a bridge to Hawaii."
"But sire, that is over 3,000 miles. Isn't there something less difficult you might want?"
"Okay. Have the Jets win the Super Bowl."
"Your wish is my command. Will that be two or four lanes?"

*************************************************************************************
CLUELESS IN BOSTON, WITLESS IN NORFOLK
*Governor Mitt Romney apologized for calling the Big Dig a "tar baby" at a Republican money-raiser in Iowa. He said he didn't know the term has been construed as a racial epithet.

*On the campaign trail in Virginia, Senator George Allen pointed to a dark-skinned South Asian-American taking video of the event. "Give a welcome to Macaca, here," he said, smiling, presumably unaware that the word refers to a genus of monkey. In some contexts, it is also a racial slur. He repeated it at least three times.

**************************************************************************************
"ITALIANS NEVER WEAR SHORTS"
So were we advised by a writer in Food & Wine magazine shortly before our departure for our three-week dream vacation in Venice. Wanting to blend in to the degree possible in a city where every native has tourist radar activated within thirty meters of any stranger, we left the shorts at home. The sandals, too, just to be safe, and any clothing that wasn't black, beige, or grey.

This, despite my doubts. Years before, I was in a bar in the Spanish town of Calaceite lecturing my wife about local preferences in clothing. Spanish men never wore shorts, I pronounced. Too effeminate. The words had barely dribbled from my mouth when a farmer, as burly and macho as they came, whipped aside the beaded curtain at the door and strode through...in Bermudas.

I kept an eye out for Italians in shorts. There weren't many, it was true, but there were some. More common were men in cropped pants, stopping just below the knee, what we used call pedal pushers. One man I spotted was clearly a hard-driving executive on a brief holiday. His graying hair was closely cropped, his face sharply angular, his jaw dark with the requisite three-day growth. He carried a laptop and was bellowing into his cellphone, barking orders at a no-doubt cowed subordinate on the other end. I wondered what muffled satisfaction the unfortunate recipient might enjoy had he known that his boss was decked in capri pants, flip-flops, and a Disneyland Tokyo tee-shirt.

Further observations:
*Our breakfast almost every morning was taken at a cafe in Campo (Plaza) Santa Margarita. It was unfailingly comprised of freshly squeezed orange juice, cappuccino, and a croissant (which the Italians call brioche). We bought our daily Herald Tribune at a stand a block away. An agreeable hour was spent watching children going off to school, matrons walking their dogs, and vendors setting out their displays of vegetables, flowers, and fish. Tourists were relatively rare here in Dorsoduro, a largely residential sestiere of the city. Each cappuccino cost us 3.25 euros. Until after two weeks passed, that is, when the price dropped to 2.25. They knew us now. It's no secret turisti pay more than natives in Italian restaurants. Hang around long enough, though, and the prices drop to near-local levels.

*Venetian women of a certain age dye their hair shades of crimson not witnessed in the natural world, almost as invariably as their grandmothers once cloaked themselves in eternal black. One female observer-author calls it "menopausal red."

*Tourists flow and eddy in unending swirls and torrents through and around Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge, subjecting themselves to $100 rides in flotillas of gondolas while being serenaded by operatic versions of "Volare". While Venetians are courteous and usually friendly toward visitors, they can't help but be annoyed by their huge numbers, often inappropriate dress, boorishness, and ignorance of history and custom, especially when impeded in their journeys from home to work to social event.

So it may be understandable how one tour guide expressed his feelings while leading his charges over the Accademia Bridge. His colleagues customarily carry umbrellas or small flags above the bobbing heads as rallying points for their distracted troops. This man held aloft a toilet brush.

*Imagine our tobacco-free delight when we learned that Italy not only had recently passed anti-smoking legislation, it was actually being observed! This, in a country where the art of slipping around laws and ordinances is an admired skill. Even at outdoor tables, where the law doesn't apply, smokers made a point of holding their cigarettes at their sides and blowing smoke away from other patrons.

*************************************************************************************
SGROPPINO
While in Venice, we were introduced to this delectable liquid dessert. It goes well with almost any cake or tart, and is delightful all by itself. (The "S" might be silent. Then again, it might not.)
Serves 4

2 cups lemon sorbet (the white, not yellow, variety), softened
2 tablespoons vodka
One-third cup prosecco (a sparkling Italian wine from the Veneto region)
4 tablespoons half-and-half or light cream

Chill 4 champagne flutes or smaller, similarly-shaped glasses. Place all ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth. Pour into glasses and serve immediately.