Like a Rotten Mackerel by Moonlight

OpinionEditorials.com, ^ | February 12, 2005 | Randall H. Nunn

[quidnunc]

John Randolph of Virginia once described a colleague, who he said was a man of splendid abilities but utterly corrupt, as being “like rotten mackerel by moonlight” that both shines and stinks at the same time. Very much the same description could be attached to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. And, in fact, the same description could be applied to the United Nations itself. Maybe the monumental corruption, the anti-Americanism and the bureaucratic incompetence that pervades the U.N. is a good thing, since it might serve to open the eyes of American citizens and Congress much like the odor and inflammation of an open wound alerts one that there is a festering problem that must be attended to.

For years, many conservatives have been aware of the failings of the United Nations and the terrible waste of American dollars going to such a structurally-flawed organization. But until the Oil for Food scandal came along, too many Americans simply went along with the conventional wisdom that we needed the U.N. so that nations could talk to one another and resolve problems in a spirit of cooperation. Too many of us believed the babble about the need to have dialogue so we could “stop the cycle of violence” and do humanitarian good deeds. And the one-world bureaucrats continued to parade about on their stage in New York City pontificating about the world’s problems while living high on the hog at the expense of the provincial and narrow-minded people like the rest of us. But like all organizations and bureaucrats who amass too much power, they became corrupt, arrogant and mindless of their critics. No one is a finer standard-bearer for this corruption and arrogance that the U.N. now represents, than Kofi Annan.

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[Red Sea Swimmer]

Being a fan of all things oceanic, the mackerel metaphor mentioned in this article is a very funny and clever one.

[anniegetyourgun]

U.N.Holy mackerel

[Red Sea Swimmer]

The Story of the Unfish.

A famous Latmudic story is the following dating from the year 750 AO (After Osems

A young boy at a seaside village in the Holy Land of Latmud caught a fish in the sea. He had never caught a fish like this one, and wasn't sure whether it was safe to eat or not. So he took the fish to the Learned Ibbar of the town and asked him whether he could fry it up and eat it for lunch that day.

The learned Ibbar told him to look at where he caught the fish from, and what sort of other fish it was around at the time. The boy said that he had caught it in a part of the sea where lots of sharks, predators and bottom feeding fish were known to dwell. The learned Ibbar told him that the fish he had caught was thus not able to be eaten as it was unclean. From this exchange between the boy and the Ibbar comes the famous Latmudian saying... "Fish of a scale swim together."

To this day the particular fish the little boy caught all those years ago is known as the "Unfish."