Berlusconi and Kirchner are parts of the same whole: Berluskirchner.
Silvio Berlusconi, former Prime Minister of Italy, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, incumbent President of Argentina, are both making news lately, but not for any of the reasons I want them to be.
Berlusconi is back in the news after further developments in the underage prostitution case of Moroccan-born belly dancer Ruby Rubacuori. In typical fashion, the "toghe rosse" (pejorative term for the largely communist Italian judiciary, meaning "red robes") have leaked wiretapped phone conversations to the press. I often find myself wishing that more American politicians would amuse themselves with such divertissements; they would have far less time for demagoguery, and people would know not to trust them instead of just suspecting they shouldn't, but I digress. Berlusconi has otherwise been famous for his narcissism, corruption, appeals to populism, fondness for women one-fourth his age, plastic surgery, and commandeering the old Italian soccer chant "Forza Italia!" to name his center-right political coalition.
Kirchner, for her part, has been in the press for brigandry writ large. She has been ramping up her nationalist rhetoric on the question of the Falklands, at once decrying the last vestiges of the British Empire, while herself intimating claim to a land and people who neither speak her language nor desire her governance. This idiotic commercial for the Olympics is also being aired in Argentina by the Pink House, a name quite befitting the executive mansion of a president whose face is made of plastic. In addition to threatening to take things that don't belong to her, Kirchner has flat out seized control of YPF, a Spanish oil and gas producer operating in Argentina. Kirchner is otherwise famous for her narcissism, corruption, appeals to populism, and lavish dispensing of social subsidies.
Juvenal, in his Satire X, penned one of the most enduring observations of the cynical relationship between the mob (in the mobile vulgus sense, not the Vinny Bagadonuts sense) and the political class:
Kirchner, for her part, has been in the press for brigandry writ large. She has been ramping up her nationalist rhetoric on the question of the Falklands, at once decrying the last vestiges of the British Empire, while herself intimating claim to a land and people who neither speak her language nor desire her governance. This idiotic commercial for the Olympics is also being aired in Argentina by the Pink House, a name quite befitting the executive mansion of a president whose face is made of plastic. In addition to threatening to take things that don't belong to her, Kirchner has flat out seized control of YPF, a Spanish oil and gas producer operating in Argentina. Kirchner is otherwise famous for her narcissism, corruption, appeals to populism, and lavish dispensing of social subsidies.
Juvenal, in his Satire X, penned one of the most enduring observations of the cynical relationship between the mob (in the mobile vulgus sense, not the Vinny Bagadonuts sense) and the political class:
Duas tantum res anxius optat,"Only two things concern [the people]: Bread and the Games." If I had to choose two politicians on this earth that most symbolize bread and games - or more colloquially, "circus" - it would certainly have to be Kirchner and Berlusconi, respectively. Though ideological differences may exist between the two - to the extent either believes in anything beyond expediency - they are but opposite sides of the same coin; one's yin to the other's yang. Such a union could usher in an age of true freedom for the masses-- freedom from ever again having to choose between bread or circus; a freedom from want, if you will. For those among us of a like mind, there is good news: Below is photographic evidence that Berlusconi and Kirchner (henceforth Berluskirchner) have begun their avian courtship:
panem et circenses.
Please listen to this while looking at the above picture and tell me I'm wrong.
He ruffles his feathers, she quickly averts her gaze, he gives chase, she coyly resists;
such is the dance of love.
He ruffles his feathers, she quickly averts her gaze, he gives chase, she coyly resists;
such is the dance of love.
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