news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=132848
View Most Popular View most popular Amid a growing national controversy about the gesture US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the freelance photographer who captured the moment has come forward with the picture.
Fans and foes weigh in on justice gesture "It's inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment," said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot. Despite Scalia's insistence that the Sicilian gesture was not offensive and had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald as obscene, the photographer said the newspaper "got the story right." Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese's weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship. "The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, To my critics, I say, Vaffanculo,' " punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said. Yesterday, Herald reporter Laurel J Sweet agreed with Smith's account, but said she did not hear Scalia utter the obscenity. In his letter, Scalia denied his gesture was obscene and claimed he explained its meaning to Sweet, a point both she and Smith dispute. Scalia went on to cite Luigi Barzini's book, "The Italians," which describes a seemingly different gesture - "the extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin" - and its meaning - " I couldn't care less.
|