27 July 2015

So who is a schmuck: Putin, Obama or French senator Pozzo di Borgo?

The story starts with a rather naughty finger in the eye of the international community (or, at least, that part of the community that condemned the Russian annexation of Crimea and doesn't recognize it). A gang of French parliamentarians visited Crimea, and the Russian RT, the rather slavish mouthpiece of the Russian rulers, is happy to report that:

There are no grounds to keep Russia sanctions in place, said member of the French National Assembly Thierry Mariani, who heads the parliamentary delegation currently on a two-day visit to Crimea.
And, of course, RT being RT, they also remind us that:
Crimea rejoined Russia last March following a referendum where more than 96 percent of people voted in favor of reunification.
Wink wink, nudge nudge...

The European politicians responded to the visit as expected: The European Parliament condemned the visit of French representatives in the European Parliament (EP) to the annexed Crimea. Of course that condemnation is nothing to the determined French solons.

But the story that may sound straight and simple as told above, has a curios side departure:
One of the French parliamentarians visiting Crimea has spoken his mind through fashion. Senator Yves Pozzo di Borgo from the center-right UDI party has acquired a T-shirt with Putin and Obama portraits, the caption saying: “Obama, you're a schmuck.”


Of course, being a politician, Senator Yves Pozzo di Borgo* will find a fitting explanation to this escapade. We all on the bleachers could just enjoy the game, some of us knowing that the good Senator is unaware of a few Russia - (and otherwise -)  related facts, like these two:
  • The widely accepted moniker that public uses for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is "хуйло" these days. The most benign translation of "хуйло" happens to be "schmuck".
  • While Google translates "Pozzo" as "well", and not knowing Italian I can't argue with that, the pronunciation of "Pozzo" in Italian, as offered by Google, is as close to another synonym of word "schmuck" in Yiddish as makes no nevermind.
So there, dear Senator. Take it easy.

(*) Some skinny on Senator Yves Pozzo di Borgo:
He calls himself a descendant of a famous ambassador, general, and adviser to Russian Tsar Aleksandr II.

The newspaper “Liberation”, which published a dossier on “Putin’s network in France” in September 2014, attributed the senator to the “naive Battalion” (it also contains actor Gerard Depardieu).

In June, after the spy scandal, during which it became clear that the Americans spied on French presidents and set up a spying studio in the building of the American Embassy in Paris. the senator said that if France respected itself, it would have destroyed the US embassy.

The senator has repeatedly urged the US to “stop interfering” in the internal affairs of Ukraine.

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