Che Is As Che Does
So there was a detail in the Colombian hostage rescue story that involved Colombian government operatives fooling the guerillas by wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. Mark Hemingway at The Corner opines:
Of course, now I can ask the next nimrod who I see with a Che shirt on if he is expressing solidarity with the Colombian Army.
Yeah, Einstein, I'm sure the guy wearing the Che Guevara T-shirt would understand what you meant.
Actually, that quote reminded me of the time I spent living across the street from Macalester College in Saint Paul. Macalester always had a strong International Relations program -- former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan graduated from there -- and perhaps for that reason a bunch of yahoos took to protesting the UN near the campus.
They would set themselves up right at the corner of Grand and Snelling, the busiest intersection adjacent to campus, and hold up vaguely anti-UN protest signs. One guy hoisted a UN flag that he'd decorated with a red circle-and-slash, so I guess the message was supposed to be No UN -- or something.
Anyway, these guys always annoyed me, and walking by them one day, I turned to the guy with the flag and yelled, "Hey, go back to Russia!"
He looked at me and his eyes bugged out. His mouth started working. He clearly wanted to say, no, you got it wrong, see, it's a UN flag but it's got a red slash through it....
Then it hit him that I was yanking his chain and he yelled back, "Fuck you, man! FUCK YOU!"
"No," I yelled back, resourcefully, "fuck YOU!" Not the snappiest come-back, but I felt better.
