Palestine's economic vitality à la Romney

As he wrapped up the Israel leg of his foreign trip, Mr. Romney reflected on Israel's economic success to a gathering of pro-Israel campaign donors at the King David Hotel, remarks that noted gaps between the Jewish state and its neighbor. Later, he suggested that Israel's culture played a role in its economic success.

Oh, me sainted mammy.  Holy mother of g_d, sweet moses, good googamooga *, and jumpin' jehoshaphat.  Another blurt of a mental wedgie, another blurt of a closely held truth, another reason to pray and beg and issue IOUs to karma, and the guy in the trenchcoat on this hot, humid day.  He's takin' names.

I have no snazzy retorts -- none that come naturally -- that include mohammed or other major islamic figures, though I'm excused, I s'pose by the fact that a good many of what does come naturally are the result of a healthy hodgepodge of judaic, islamic, and christian blurtety-blurts.

In these matters, I find wiccans major wusses (their footwear is usually contrary to the requirements of the blitzkrieg and they're either wasted in weakness or profoundly overweight;  also, 90% -- and that's conservative -- of wiccans don't bother to keep a current, ready-to-run, ready-to-act passeport).  I would like to see more training facilities for the bahá'í -- they're really an angry bunch, just prone to good logic, which can help avoid atrocities.

Siccing a sikh on Romney would be perfection, of course, with all that saint-soldier stuff and social reform.

Anyway.

Mitt Romney continued, he went on, he had a wicked bite on his analogy, a serious gnaw, nice and juicy, as most of the world searched his chest for signs of a beating heart, and by that I mean, a suspicion of compassion and historical insight,  [The world came up wanting, gasping.]

"As you come here and you see the GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality." Mr. Romney told a group of donors gathered at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He added: "And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other: Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States."

Please, voting citizens, no matter your traditional ilk, give this a good think.





* I received an e-mail one day in October 2002 from a 28-year old woman I did not know asking me the strangest question. She wanted to know the meaning and origin of the word, "googamooga." She was searching this out on the internet when she found it quoted on the Jocko page of our website. She said, "I'm trying to find out what in the heck the word GOOGAMOOGA means! My boss is driving me nuts by singing the Temptations "Ball of Confusion" song."


So here is an updated version of essentially what I told her:


Yes, you are right. Yours is probably the weirdest question I have received in relation to my class website.


I must tell you, I do not know the true origin of "googamooga" (alternatively, "googa mooga" or "googa-mooga"), and I can only surmise its meaning from the context in which I have heard it used. I am not familiar with the Temptations’ 1970 record, "Ball of Confusion." (I guess I am too old for that.) I will tell you what I do know and what I have learned as a result of your inquiry.


Most likely, "googamooga" is derived from black musician's jive talk or street slang. (You might get a more authoritative response from a black history or language professor at a university.)  Like other white youths of the time, I first heard the term around 1954 as used by the great, black, pioneer, rock 'n' roll DJ, Douglas "Jocko" Henderson, as you read on my class website. The only other use of the word I was familiar with before today was in the lyric of the Cadets' 1956 recording of "Stranded in the Jungle,"1 as follows:  

I had a strange feeling I was with cookin' gear

I smelled something cookin', and a-a-a-h looked to see

That's when I found out they was ah-cookin' me