Dartblog

Not ordinarily a trusted source at Dartblog, I decided that Indira Gandhi’s imprecation would be a more heartfelt headline about President Kim’s touch-free air dab than the ironic use of Brylcreem’s slogan: “A Little Dab’ll Do Ya!” As reported in the Valley News:

The new president greeted his guests with an “air” version of the fist bump — the hip greeting, made popular by Michelle Obama, involves knocking knuckles instead of shaking hands. Kim, an infectious disease expert, has inaugurated the more hygienic hello, as a way to keep germs at bay at a time when many worry about flu transmission. The air version of the greeting is best, he said, without hands touching.

Oh my. Americans already have less physical contact with their brethren than people in most other cultures; now it seems that President Kim does not want us to touch at all. If we follow his advice, we will all be poorer.

In France, at least in the countryside, men, women and opposite gender friends kiss twice, thrice or four times depending on local tradition. There is a warmth to this practice; it is a way of showing caring — and perhaps more in the right circumstances.

Except to note that the product illustrated to the right may soon be distributed free to students at Dick’s House, I’ll leave the last word on the virtues of the traditional handshake to Helen Keller:

The hands of those I meet are dumbly eloquent to me. The touch of some hands is an impertinence. I have met people so empty of joy, that when I clasped their frosty finger-tips, it seemed as if I were shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so that their grasp warms my heart.