PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF NOW AVAILABLE Of Scalia's Obscene Gesture

[kpete]

Photographer: Herald got it right
By Marie Szaniszlo
Thursday, March 30, 2006 - Updated: 09:39 AM EST

Amid a growing national controversy about the gesture U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the freelance photographer who captured the moment has come forward with the picture.

Scalia’s flick-off



“It’s inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot.

Despite Scalia’s insistence that the Sicilian gesture was not offensive and had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald as obscene, the photographer said the newspaper “got the story right.”

Smith said the jurist “immediately knew he’d made a mistake, and said, ‘You’re not going to print that, are you?’ ”

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“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=132848

In other words, he didn't just make the sign for "fuck you" he said "fuck you." In church. What will we tell the children.

...My vast research into Sicilian obscenities reveals that while the word/sign is used as we would use "fuck you" or similar it actually means something along the lines of "go take it in the ass."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_03_26_atrios_archive.html#114372925437010648