Aerofagia Verbal

I love this quote from Jorge Moragas, the international relations representative of the Partido Popular:

La aerofagia verbal del caudillo venezolano apesta a totalitarismo.

The Cervantiesque elegance of the sentence could not possibly be translated into a non-romance language without mangling it, but I will try:

The verbal aerophagia of the Venezuelan caudillo [leader] stinks of totalitarianism.

Aerophagia is a term which literally means "to eat air". Aero for air, and phagy for eat, coming from the Greek language. If you were ever a kid you've played the belching game with your friends, where you drink soda and at the same time gulp down as much air as you can. The results of this are phenomenally scandalous burps which are great for disrupting classes. An unpleasant side effect of aerophagia is flatulence, because the air you don't belch has to come out somehow, and that means out of your ass.

So, the incredibly awesome term - I bet you Castro is pissed he didn't come up with it first - means something akin to verbal flatulence. My preferred term is verbal diarrhea, but aerofagia verbal is far more eloquent. In fact, I'm going to use it as much as possible from now on.

Like some cool guy who's talking about something he doesn't know anything about. I'll just say, hey asshole, you've got aerofagia verbal! I mean, there is no cool comeback to that. Like, oh yeah? You have aerofagia verbal! No you have aerofagia verbal!

The proclamation of aerofagia verbal is final. It's beautiful.

I also like how he ties up the metaphor with "stinks of totalitarianism". I wonder if this guy made this up himself? He definitely has talent.

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Warning, the following can be considered blogorrhea, a close cousin of aerofagia verbal.

I'll admit, as much as I can't stand certain elements of the P.P., I totally agree with him. Chavez and his amigos are dangerous clowns masquerading as do-gooders. It's incredible, but the age-old comparison between real life and theater is increasingly obvious to me. I mean, look around you. Chavez. He looks and sounds like my 7th grade physical education teacher who sadistically made us run laps and do "cherry pickers" for hours on end. He was also pretty funny, but he was an asshole. His buddy Castro. Shrouded in a classic totalitarian cloak of mystery. We have no idea if he is even alive. Everything, in his mysterious missives, is the fault of Bush. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty convenient to blame everything on Bush. Your job sucks? Because of Bush. Your ass too big? Because of Bush. Aerofagia verbal? Because of Bush. Aznar. Giving classes at Georgetown for christ's sake, when his level of English hardly surpasses that of the average New York cab driver. Saying Muslims should be apologizing to the Spaniards for the conquest of Al Andaluz!* For that matter, the entire Iberian peninsula should apologize to the Greeks and the Romans for usurping their colonies! Karl Rove. A doughy, effeminate slime bag you would never leave alone with your children. Reminds me of Newman from Seinfeld. Bush. A natural comedian. A cheerleading frat boy. You can go on with Cheney and Ahmadinejad, and on and on ...

The strange thing is that all these freaks are highly entertaining. I find them all hilarious, actually, but it is really freakin scary that assholes like these have such sway with the masses. It's just my humble opinion, but we're doomed when the people leading world politics start to resemble the cast of a TV sitcom.

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* This reminds me of a guy I used to work with, Paco. Paco was this hilarious frustrated middle aged white guy. His favorite phrase was, "El sexo es ... temendo!" He always talked about mujeres and swinger clubs and all that. He once told me he pardoned an American president. I said, what? He said, yeah, when Clinton apologized to the public and asked for forgiveness for his hand in the Lewinsky affair, he pardoned him. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but then again, I was probably pretty drunk.