That’s what United Press International is reporting, apparently based on a Boston Herald report: “U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.” But that’s not what the Herald reporter wrote.
After Mass, the reporter asked Scalia what he says to critics who question his impartiality on matters of Church and state apparently because he’s a practicing Catholic.
“You know what I say to those people?” Scalia, 70, replied, making an obscene gesture under his chin when asked by a Herald reporter if he fends off a lot of flak for publicly celebrating his conservative Roman Catholic beliefs. “That’s Sicilian,” the Italian jurist said, interpreting for the “Sopranos” challenged.
The middle finger, i.e. “the bird”, is not made under the chin and is not particularly Sicilian. What Scalia probably did—although no one spells it out and I haven’t seen the photo so this is informed speculation, since I’m Sicilian too—is make the gesture of scraping your fingers under your chin and flipping them out. (Sorry, that’s the best way to describe it.)
Update: The Associated Press got this one right.
Editorializing and journalistic bias
Technorati Tags: anti-Catholic, Boston, Catholic, media bias, Scalia, Supreme Court
And how many real obscene gestures were generated “just feet from the Mother Church’s altar” in the four years since the Scandal broke in Boston, as the most vile signs and chants and shouts were produced by protesters outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross each Sunday? And where was the Boston Herald to catch them and report them?
They were out in full force yesterday. As I was escorting three elderly gentlemen lawyers through the side entrance, a man loudly called me a “female pedaphile.”
While passing out programs to folks coming through the main entrance, I heard many complaints from shaken worshippers about the obscenities yelled at them by people positioned directly in front of the church. I apologized as best I could.
When I mentioned to the police officer on duty inside that maybe things were getting a bit out of hand, I was informed that there were “two sides to every story.”
Ah, Judge Antonin! A man after my own heart.
The print version—but not the online version—specifically said he scraped the underside of his chin with his fingers.
The delightful and regrettably hard-to-find book “Il Dizionario dei Gesti Italiani” by the late Italian author and industrial designer Bruno Munari (Adnkronos Libri s.r.l.) describes this gesture:
I Don’t Care ( Non Me Ne Importa)
The hand touches the chin then moves forward.
The photograph by Ivo Sagliettiof the model demonstrating this gesture is shot from below, but it does appear that his head is slightly tilted back, adding a subtle note of contempt.
The book is in the Boston College Library.
Yes, as you (and the AP) correctly noted Dom, this was the ‘dismissive gesture’ not ‘the finger’ as we know it – and it would usually be accompanied by a withering “Beh!”.
One of the fun things about learning Italian was learning the gestures as well as the words – and Italians have very expressive gestures and lots of them! Once you had learned the ‘gesticulatory language’ you could almost tell what two people were saying to one another – even if you couldn’t hear them – just from the gestures used.
I don’t remember the ‘one finger salute’ from my time in Italy and usually associate this more with US and Anglo-Saxon usage. The most insulting gesture of one Italian male to another was the ‘cornuto’ gesture – using the extended index and little finger (not to be confused with the Hawaiian ‘hang loose’ gesture of the extended thumb and little finger). That could really get you a punch in the nose – or worse!
Please. It was a joking gesture of contempt showing how silly he thought both the reporter’s question and those who question his faith are. If that’s a coarsening of the culture, then what upper crust society have you been living in? Frankly, when I’m out driving around here I’d rather see more of that and less flipping people the bird. That would be an improvement.
No, he was responding to those who said he shouldn’t attend public religious ceremonies like the Red Mass. So are Supreme Court justices now forbidden to have a religious faith?
Impartiality doesn’t mean one must be neutral to the matters at hand or a non-participant. It means he must be able to set aside his personal predilections and biases and make a decision based on the merits of the case and the law. If only more jurists and juries (meaning average Americans) understood the difference.