Just before pulling the blankets over me, I watched (via You Tube) the Iraqi journalist wing not one but both his shoes at the Duck Most Lame. Not much of an arm, I thought, but a symbolic act of courage nevertheless. A few hours later, waking from troubled sleep, I realized that my dreamatorium had been working overtime. I had imagined a White House press conference where at a signal all the correspondents, led by Helen Thomas herself, unzip, untie, unvelcro and hurl whatever was on their feet at the Great Incompetent. He weaves and bobs, takes one on the shoulder. Everyone is on board but Fox, whose "correspondents" lace up even tighter. Next thing you know, regular citizens start packaging pairs of old shoes and mailing them to "W, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania." Huge mounds of shoes fill a nearby warehouse; the secret service refuses to estimate the total but reporters guess fifty cubic yards. Someone creates a Facebook application "One Million Strong to Hurl Shoes at George W." Everyone visiting El Lamo is now asked to remove shoes before meeting with him; but then, what do you know, people start throwing their smelly socks. I dreamed of political buttons: "I'm Shoeless for George." And songs: "I Threw A Shoe at You Know Who." A website springs into existence: send ten dollars from anywhere in the world and we'll leave a pair of old shoes at the front gate of the White House. It's a democratic movement: all shoes are equal. Sneakers, loafers, Blahniks, boots, moccasins, babouches, buskins, pattens, galoshes, scarpines, clogs, air georges. A protest movement with real soul.
The Bush administration is shoe-worthy and shovel-ready.
Posted by: Otis Jefferson Brown | December 16, 2008 at 09:09 AM