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we are the champions, my friend
by effenheimer at 05:28 PM on July 29, 2003
Is it just me or does Qusay Hussein look a little like Freddie Mercury now that he’s dead? I mean no offense to Queen fans. I consider myself something of an admirer of the song stylings of Messrs. Mercury (formerly Bulsara), Brian May, Roger Meddows Taylor and John Deacon. They did and still do rock me. I guess I’m just a sucker for operatic, gay-friendly rock.
I’m also a sucker for pictures of dead dictators (www.picturesofdeaddictators.com). Now, say what you will about the showing of pictures and videotape of Uday and Qusay Hussein’s rotting corpses, but I would not have been able to make this astute observation about the Qusay/Mercury connection without viewing Qusay’s bloated and, presumably, stinking old bones online. We like to debate in the United States and question our own motives often and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The unexamined life and all that. And when pictures of dead Americans were shown on Iraqi television, we didn’t like it. We were rightly shocked. Our culture, today at least, demands a certain amount of dignity and respect for the dead and showing everyone just how meat-like we really are in repose bugs us to no end. We take it personally, as an affront to life, because we can’t stand the notion of someone treating us like a Peking duck after we’ve shuffled off our mortal coil. But that is pretty much a cultural peccadillo unique to our times because we are so hands off when it comes to even food preparation. How many of you know people who won’t even buy a whole chicken or one with bones in it because it is too reminiscent that a living thing once occupied that all too fragile flesh?
Anything is morbid if you think about it too much. My suggestion? Don’t think about it too much. Get over it. What is this about anyway? We didn’t like Uday and Qusay when they were alive, why should we care WHAT happens to them when they are dead? Besides, for the Arab world in which we are currently trying to operate, this isn’t about respect. This isn’t about grossing anyone out. This isn’t even about ratings or advertising if you can believe that. It’s about the truth. They want to make sure and in Iraq, that means getting up close and personal. So let them.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t take anything at face value in a world that has proven to have as many skilled liars in it as this one. It absolutely astonishes me year after year how many people can look you in the eye and lie with every breath. The only thing more astonishing to me personally is how many people think that just because they can lie without blinking that I have to believe them. Not to go all “In the Name of the Father” on anybody, but I know how to lie without blinking, too. Anybody with parents does.
I have an additional skill as well that most people do not seem to comprehend and that is asking questions I already know the answer to just so I can figure out how good or bad a liar someone really is.
As Americans, we tend to just “take the government’s word” when it comes to who they did and did not kill, assassinate, terminate, erase, eradicate, “remove from power,” or “transfer to the home office in Des Moines.” Why that is I don’t know because another great American tradition is NOT TRUSTING POLITICIANS. I mean really folks, it’s one thing to joke about the little lies for a couple hundred years, but in the last 30 to 50 years, we’ve seen some whoppers. From FDR knowing the Japanese were on their way to Pearl Harbor to MJ-12 and the UFO cover-up, from JFK and Marilyn to Watergate, from Hummergate to WMDGate. Pols lie about the little things; they lie about the big things. So why do we trust them?
Maybe Iraqi culture needed tuned up worse than an ’86 Chevy Caprice Classic with blown gaskets, but when it comes to demanding proof positive, they’re ahead of the curve – no matter how graphic and disturbing it is to sensitive American eyes.
As odd as it may seem, let’s be culturally sensitive enough to realize these people have been violated for years. They’ve seen things most of us have only seen in “Faces of Death: Vol. 1-27.” A couple dead guys on prime time can’t hurt now. They need proof so give it to them.
When in Rome, eat spaghetti. When in Kabul, play goatball. When in Baghdad, drag Husseins through the streets. Let’s face it, as Americans, we aren’t that far removed from this kind of behavior. We aren’t more than 110 years away from public hangings, posses and, oh yeah, genocide, so let’s not be too shocked.
And any American knows deep down that a guy on the lam caught with $400,000 U.S., a bottle of Viagra and condoms deserves whatever he gets – cocky jerk.
To view the pictures of Uday and Qusay Hussein online, got to edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/24/sprj.irq.sons.reax. For more information about the classic rock group Queen, go to www.queenonline.com.
comments (15)
You and me are tracking. When I saw that pix I thought, Freddie Mercury. The two of them might as well have been in that old Separated at Birth deal.
by anna at July 29, 2003 5:35 PM
i really hate to recommend this, and maybe you've seen this before, but rotten.com shows dead stuff like nobody's business. in fact, if you're name's not cheney or ashcroft and/or you don't drink the blood of cloven hoofed mammals straight from the neck, i recommend you take a pass and not look. warning to all non neo-cons, you can't unsee that stuff. horrible shit. couple of those dead bodies bumped the last few unicorns and rainbows clinging to my imagination since childhood, out of my head and onto the killing room floor.
on a friendlier note, micheal moore's book 'stupid white men' will make you laugh a little about stuff like this before you're checking for apartments and school districts in canada and new zealand.
by lajoie at July 29, 2003 10:15 PM
I don't know about that. Michael Moore ranks up there with the government when it comes to telling the truth.
by MrBlank at July 30, 2003 4:45 PM
we'll have to respectfully disagree on that one.
by lajoie at July 30, 2003 6:20 PM
I don't know much about Moore, but I do read the ultra-conservative Washingtom Times just for yuks. Its writers miss no chance to villify Moore as some subhuman form of scum. Surely he couldn't be that bad. Isn't he just a filmmaker or something?
by anna at July 31, 2003 6:34 AM
I've been reading stupid white men and while moore is definitely possessed by his working class, fight the power upbringing, i cannot say i find him dishonest just because he takes off after rich white guys. i think it would be hard to argue that whatever is wrong with this country it comes down to them since, hey, look at Congress. it's pretty white and male.
by eff at July 31, 2003 9:15 AM
'stupid white men' is a good, quick, somewhat infuriating read. but if you want a good intro to moore, mine was really the movie 'bowling for columbine'. its about ticking off the right wing gun industry for its role in said shooting. also 'roger & me' is good to watch. that one's about ticking off the auto industry for financially decimating the town he grew up in, flint. moore seems to be about exposing some truths by ticking off the kind of people you'd tea-bag* at a wedding, when they got up to go get some food or maybe thank the priest.
*alternate meaning - dipping one's scrota, fully or partially, within the drink of another. usually done without their knowledge. sometimes done after a lot of summer walking.
by lajoie at July 31, 2003 10:19 AM
I thought tea-bagging involved dipping your scrotum in somebody's mouth. Or was that salad-tossing?
by anna at July 31, 2003 5:20 PM
i've had people tell me salad tossing is the same thing as felching, but that can't be right.
By the way, you will totally dig this salada tossing story, in fact, go see it on the main board, it is too good for just a response. still, what is the consensus on tossed salad?
by eff at July 31, 2003 5:25 PM
you are correct anna. i was offering webster's secondary definition. it occurs mostly among adolescent boys....too young to know what the real thing is, but old enough to know to know that balls stink rotten.
by lajoie at July 31, 2003 5:52 PM
i'd have to dig through my old chris rock memories, but i thought salad tossing was getting your ass eaten out. possibly through circumstances beyond your control, like maybe while you're voting or eating blueberry pancakes with granola in them. he brought it up as an affectation of prison, but i imagine it works anywhere.
by lajoie at July 31, 2003 6:00 PM
Yeah ol' Chris put it best when he said, "When it's ass, you know it's ass." Some people claim Jerry Seinfeld is our top living comedian but I don't think that's possible so long as Rock remains alive.
by anna at August 1, 2003 6:52 AM
Are Uday and Freddie Mercury seperated at birth? It sure looks it to me, at least if you compare Uday to Mercury in Queen's Flash Gordon-We Will Rock You-We Are the Champions phase, with the short hair and mustachioed look popular in the eighties gay set. In fact, I only found out about your website and article when I did a web search to see if anyone else noted the eery comparison. For what it's worth, a mention of the Mercury-Uday similarity will be found soon on my site, The Konformist, when we finally put up the article for August 2003 Beast of the Month, a shared prized for the Hussein brothers. (It's a little late, I know, but have been writing a book.)
Robert Sterling
Konformist.com
http://www.konformist.com
by Robert Sterling at February 21, 2004 1:57 PM
If you're book is anything like your TV show, The Twilight Zone, I can't wait!
by mg at February 21, 2004 2:40 PM
I think 1st Lt. Mark V. Shaney USMC said it best when he said:
"...this is not defined as an absence of war. It is the presence of liberty, stability, and prosperity. In the face of the enemy. Don't buy into the pessimism and apathy that says, "It's hopeless," "They hate us too much," "That part of the men and women serving here in Iraq the enemy wherever you are. You are a mighty force for good, because truth is on your side. Together we will ultimately fail. That is why I am asking for your support. Become a voice of truth in your community. Wherever you are fight the lies of the men and women serving here in Iraq the enemy wherever you are. You are the soldiers at home fighting the war of perception with the media and American people. Our enemy has learned that the people in the highest regard. We love to criticize ourselves almost to an endless degree, because we care what others think. "
Raymond Onar
And as always: "Quidquid excusatio prandium pro!
by Raymond Onar at July 14, 2004 9:48 AM