Amen (and Awoman). Emanuel Cleaver’s prayer | Gramellini’s Coffee

The first idiot of the year, I would say by detachment, is called Emanuel Cleaver (“Clever” in English means intelligent, it must have been the “a” added in the middle that fooled him). He comes from Kansas City, like Alberto Sordi’s American, and is the Democratic deputy who, at the reopening of the United States Congress concluded a public prayer with the formula “Amen and Awoman”. He thought that Amen’s “men” stood for “men” and he believed to balance its sexist significance by declining it also in the feminine (albeit in the singular, who knows why). Of course not everyone is required to know that Amen derives from the Hebrew “so it is” and with men and women it has nothing to do with it, but if there is anyone who should be vaguely aware of it, well that someone is really Emanuel Cleaver. In life he is a Methodist pastor. I dare not imagine what he could invent when he goes up to the pulpit: will he call the Madonna Mauomo and the Eternal Parent E?

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There is a further paradox in his hypocritically progressive attitude. The presumption that words belonging to very ancient cultures derive from modern English reveals an imperialist view of the alphabet and perhaps also of everything else. For much less, the people Pastor Cleaver would like to curry favor with his verbal contortions have knocked down statues. Fortunately for him, I feel I can exclude that anyone could think of erecting one for him. Amen.

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