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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

THREW SHOES?

by Bill Costley


“So what if he threw shoes?”
says cheekily defiant Dubya,
missing the symbolism after
a Cairo TV-reporter threw
his shoes at Dubya during
a Baghdad press-conference,

one shoe forcing Dubya
to lame-duck, the other sailing
over Dubya’s head & slamming
into the wall behind him. Throwing
shoes at someone is the worst
insult possible in the Arab world:

shoes cover the body's lowest part,
tread on animal dung, are removed
on entering a house or mosque.
What’s lower? Just the dung itself.



Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union.
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