Vroom!!

Whoah! I first saw this short film many, many years ago (late 70s/early 80s) at, of all places, the Century 21 Theater on Route 17 in Paramus, NJ. Like Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s much better on the big screen. People “ooh”-ed and “aah”-ed and even screamed. At the end, we all cheered. I don’t remember what the feature film was. Enjoy. More here.

Othello, Neo-Con

I came across the following interesting passage in Seymour Hersh’s recent New Yorker article about the Bush administration's plans to attack Iran. A government consultant “with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon” informed Hersh that US combat troops were already operating in Iran and working with various ethnic groups there. Hersh writes:

The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.”

Hmmm…well, as I recall, things didn’t really work out well for Othello. The “ocular proof” wasn’t quite what he thought it was. In fact, some very evil people used it to mislead the gullible General with disastrous results. Mr. Shakespeare-quoting military big-shot should really think through his quotations before using them.

I will say, though, that Othello is the one Shakespearean play that comes to my mind when I think of Bush’s conduct of the Iraq war. Especially the ending (of the play, not the war). Desdemona is dead, Iago’s evil-doing has been exposed, all that’s left is for Othello to kill himself and the play is done. But before he does that he delivers this bizarre speech to the on-lookers in his bedroom:

Oth. Soft you; a word or two before you go:
I have done the State some service, and they know't;
No more of that. I pray you in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me, as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down ought in malice: then, must you speak
Of one that lov'd not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme: of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer then all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian Trees
Their med’cinable gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant, and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus. [Stabs self]

Now, the basic jist of this speech is “You know, despite all these recent fuck-ups, you shouldn’t come down too hard on me. I have a lot of good qualities. It’s true. So if you’re going to mention all those bad things you should at least mention some of the good things I did, too – like when I killed that Arab guy.” He’s evasive, delusional, prone to euphemism (murdering his wife becomes an “unlucky deed”), full of empty bluster and completely incapable of owning-up to reality. Christ, it’s like he’s a neo-con! He should be working for Cheney or Rumsfeld or at The Weekly Standard (where another line from Othello – “The time, the place, the torture. O, enforce it!” - could serve as their motto).

But maybe we shouldn’t be too harsh on him; after all, he was operating on the “best available intelligence”, too.