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Oh Delilah
I’ve read several reports that the Undoubtedly Most Wicked Tyrant Of Our Age Hussein was caught due to a tip off by an underpaid flunky, but I’ve also seen this unusual angle – Hussein was making weekly phone calls to his wife and surviving son in Beiruit:
Samira is the woman who so fascinated Saddam Hussein, reviled as one of the world’s most evil dictators, that he kidnapped her husband, forced a divorce and persuaded her to marry him … Samira claims, however, that she is in regular contact with him. “If he cannot say something in detail on the telephone, I know I will receive a letter in two to three days giving me an explanation,” she said … “If I know my husband, he will not be captured“.
Who Needs Allies?
DynCorp is also now guarding Afghan’s putative President, Hamid Karzai.
[DynCorp was] a substantial financial backer of Bush’s election campaign, the company employs almost 25,000 staff, many of them former US military personnel, working in areas from security to aircraft maintenance … Several DynCorp employees were also accused of videotaping the rape of one of the women.
Postmodern Euergetism
In Hollywood, “celebrities” get to charge charities to make appearances at fund raisers. And there I was thinking they were doing it out of generosity…
Many celebrities appear at these events not solely out of the goodness of their hearts. They come to line their pockets. Actor David Schwimmer, who has made many millions of dollars starring in NBC’s “Friends,” received a pair of Rolex watches worth $26,413 in advance of a 1997 charity gala that had among its intended beneficiaries the John Wayne Cancer Institute.
But my favourite has to be Roseanna Barr, who got a charity to spend $60,000 fetching BBQ ribs from a specific Canadian mall…
The comedienne was hankering for fare from the Tunnel Bar-B-Que in Windsor, Canada .. Barr [was] to be the emcee of the upcoming SHARE gala while helping to launch her private foundation [they] whisked Barr and two of her associates onto a hastily chartered private jet for the 2,000-mile jaunt from Van Nuys to Canada. The flight cost $48,351, records show: $4,750 an hour for the plane, $1,350 for three flight attendants and a $1,009 in-flight catering tab that included $356 in Beluga caviar served with four mother-of-pearl spoons at $28 each. On top of that came limousines, an $11,500 shopping spree at a local mall and, of course, the barbecued ribs.
This is not charity, it’s selfish euergetism. One of the welcome social developments during the transformation of the Roman’s Mediterranean culture from secularism to Christianisation was the transition from euergetism to charity. Sadly, Hollywood seems to be harking back to an earlier model…
Open Wide!
So I keep seeing, over and over, tv clips of the captured Saddam Hussein (who in his bedraggled condition bears an uncanny resemblence to the Unabomber). They keep showing him opening his mouth wide and someone shining a light in there. I suspect the Pentagon is desperately looking for any weapons of mass destruction that might be lurking in his mouth or within his dental work — it’s their last, best hope!
Of course, displaying captured leaders and troops for public spectacle goes against the Geneva Conventions, but when has that ever stopped anyone?
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