Mark Steyn: Yes, we have no Bananas -

SteynOnLine ^ | November 18, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[headsonpikes]

ping

[Renfield]

2 Steyns in one day!! My lucky day!

[Cobra64]

When I was in the steel business, there was a company called Pecker Ironworks." We'd call them once in a while, put the call on speakerphone, and they'd answer, Hello, thanks for calling Pecker brothers." I kid you not.

[goldstategop]

White Rhodesians with bitterness note the British Government sold them and their country out. How are blacks better off in Zimbabwe today? If a black government does the oppressing, its not an issue liberals lose sleep over.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[Cicero]

Boy, writing a comic article on Reverend Canaan Banana, African liberation movements, and homosexuality, without subjecting yourself to death by the language police, is like doing a sword dance while juggling five oranges.

Steyn pulls it off brilliantly and seemingly effortlessly. What a beautiful piece of work.

[Pokey78]

Thanks!

[gcruse]

But, when the Reverend Banana became the first President of Zimbabwe in 1980, the citizenry seemed reluctant to accord His Excellency the dignity his office required and two years later a law was passed forbidding jokes about his name.

Liberia - "General" Butt Naked and the All-Star Generals

 

Taylor's ad hoc generals weren't the only colorful characters. Top of the Pops was the 25-year-old Krahn fighter, Joshua Milton Blahyi, who led the Butt Naked Brigade. Their claim to fame was going into battle in their birthday suits as a sign of defiance and invincibility. Young boys cheered the amply endowed "general" when he "swung" through the capital on his motorbike and fought wearing only Chuck Taylors.

[gcruse]

I remember driving down Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas in the sixties and seeing Bates Erection Company painted on the side of one of the construction company's massive storage barns.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[MeekOneGOP]

Yes, we have no Bananas

Sssshhhhh !! Don't say that too loud ! It's scares my monkey !

[Stultis]

Steyn on Africa Ping.

In fact, Robert Mugabe is much as he’s always been. While Britain and other former colonial powers turned a blind eye to Africa, the likes of Mugabe looted their governments’ treasuries, their countries’ resources, their peoples’ wealth, and western taxpayers’ bountiful “development” funds. To this day, you still hear African leaders demanding to know why America won’t launch a “Marshall plan for Africa”, which conveniently overlooks the fact that since 1960 the west has sunk the cost of the Marshall plan many times over into the Dark Continent with nothing to show for it other than a few extra zeroes on the Swiss bank balances of the dictators-for-life. While the west snoozed complacently, the Afro-Marxist kleptocrats ransacked a continent.

[xp38]

Agree completely. The greats often make the very difficult seem effortless. Mark is as they say in the zone.

[UnklGene]

Shortly before sentencing, the disgraced leader got wind of a rumour that Mugabe was about to have him killed and so "Banana split": he fled to South Africa in a false beard.

Banana Split. Steyn throws this phrases away effortlessly.

[Snuffington]

Wow, is this guy in good form lately. Everything he writes is a treat.

They even gave him Frum's (formerly Florence King's) spot at the back of National Review this past month. Nothing against Frum (like Steyn, a conservative, Canuck, ex-pat who's writing I enjoy), but here's one guy hoping that's a permanent change.

[Gritty]

While the west snoozed complacently, the Afro-Marxist kleptocrats ransacked a continent.

The west may have been asleep, but the Liberals were ecstatic and enjoying the process. After all, "birds-of-a-feather" and all that.

[irv]

Mr Mugabe has accused Britain of a plot to impose homosexuality throughout the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth is a bit behind the curve. The plot is currently running out of the Supreme Court of Massachussetts.

[Oschisms]

I thought some of the ancient Celts did battle naked as well.

I could easily be wrong about this, but that was my impression- i don't remember where from.

[gcruse]

The Insubres and the Boii wore trousers and light cloaks, but the [Celts] Gaesatae in their overconfidence had thrown these aside and stood in front of the whole army naked, with nothing but their arms; for they thought that thus they would be more efficient, since some of the ground was overgrown with thorns which would catch on their clothes and impede the use of their weapons.'

Heh.  I'd rather my trousers catch the thorns than my naked skin.  Maybe that's why we don't speak Celtish today.