余録：握手のために差し出された手を無視する…

(Mainichi Japan) December 22, 2008

Shoe attack a fitting curtain call for end of Bush's failed presidency

余録：握手のために差し出された手を無視する…

Ignoring someone's attempt to shake your hand, repeatedly stealing glances at your watch, leaning your head backward, and smirking with just one end of your mouth curled up ... These are all gestures that indicate that you have an aversion toward someone's company.

　握手のために差し出された手を無視する。何度も腕時計を見る。頭を後ろへそらす。口の一端だけをゆがめてひきつり笑いをする
▲いずれも相手をさげすむ信号だ。

Ethologist Desmond Morris writes in his book, "Manwatching," that humans possess a much broader range of ways to express contempt than any other animal. Among these behavior patterns, spitting and pinching one's nose are signs that one considers the other party filthy. And filth, explains Morris, suggests vulgarity and indecency.

動物行動学者、デズモンド・モリスによれば「人が他人を軽蔑（けいべつ）する方法はあまりにも多種多様なので、どの動物も人間にはかなわない」（「マンウォッチング」）。中でも、つばをはいたり、鼻をつまむのは軽蔑の「汚物信号」とされる。「不潔は醜さを意味するから」とモリスは説明する

Shoes an Iraqi journalist hurled at U.S. President George W. Bush were also used to convey filth. Being hit by a pair of shoes is considered the ultimate insult in Iraq, since it implies that one is even more unsanitary and repulsive than shoes dirtied from treading on the ground, a U.S. newspaper says.

▲とすれば、あの靴も「汚物信号」に使われたのだろう。イラクを訪問したブッシュ米大統領に記者が投げつけた靴のことだ。米紙によれば、靴は地面を踏んで汚れているので、靴でたたく相手は靴より汚いことになる。イラクでは最大の侮辱とみなされる

In addition to contempt, the journalist expressed rage when he shouted, "This is from the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq!" as he threw the second shoe. The entire world is likely to remember the scene as a symbol of the Bush presidency's curtain fall.

▲二つ目を投げる時「夫を亡くした妻、孤児、イラクで殺された者からだ」と叫んだそうだから、憤激も込められていた。ブッシュ政権の幕切れを象徴する光景として世界中が記憶するだろう

One need not go all the way to Iraq to witness Bush's plummeting authority. In an Internet survey taken by American historians, 98 percent said they consider the Bush presidency a failure, and 61 percent declared Bush the worst president in U.S. history. In a public opinion poll, 58 percent said they see Bush as below average, the worst assessment given to a president among the four recent leaders, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, and "W" himself.

▲イラクまで行かなくても、米国内でもブッシュさんの威信は落ちた。米国の歴史家のネット投票では９８％が「失敗した大統領」と認定し、６１％が「史上最悪の大統領」と酷評した。世論調査では「平均以下」とみなす人が５８％で、レーガン以降の４人の大統領で最低の評価だ

Bush's admission that "The biggest regret of his presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq" was shocking. At the eleventh hour, he laments that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Why tell us now that he was "unprepared for war?"

▲本人が「任期中で最大の後悔はイラクの情報の誤りだ」とテレビで語ったのにも驚いた。イラク開戦の理由にした大量破壊兵器が存在しなかったことを最後になって悔やむ。「戦争の用意が私にはできていなかった」などと今さら、何をいうのだろう。

The eight-year Bush era comes to an end with a sigh of regret and relief. ("Yoroku," a front-page column in the Mainichi Shimbun)

８年間のブッシュ時代が終わる。ため息とともに。

毎日新聞　2008年12月21日　東京朝刊