Stiff Upper Yap - Margaret

Stiff Upper Yap - Margaret Drabble of the Telegraph doesn't mince words:

My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.

So we need an attitude check.

But here's the part that the fellas at DiscountPundit brought to our attention:

But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.

It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were...

... there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.

She's referring, of course, to the practice of painting tiger teeth (among other things) on the noses of warplanes.

What "insane" nation invented that practice?

That's right - the British, in North Africa in 1941.

(Via DiscountBlog)

Posted by Mitch at May 9, 2003 07:41 AM