Mood:
quizzicalTopic: "Hungarian Answer" (4)
James Michener, one of Frodo's favorite authors, first came to Frodo's attention when he wrote a book about the Hungarian Revolution in 1957. The scrappy Hungarians tried to separate themselves from the Soviet Empire, and implored President Dwight Eisenhower and the American Government to aid them. When that did not occur, the Hungarians eventually fell to the onslaught of tanks and superior manpower. Although Frodo now looks back at those events in historical context, he had an entirely different point of view when he first read the Reader's Digest Condensed version of Michener's work. In fact, every young boy he knew had a similar reaction.
The Soviets were so determined to find and to destroy the leaders of the Revolution, that they utilized specialized methods to encourage the flow of information. It was written and reported by Michener that glass tubes were inserted into the opening of the penis of unfortunate prisoners, and the dangling organs were beaten until the glass tubes were all broken. Young, developing, boys read this to each other all around the world, and Frodo was one of them. The universal response was "Eeeyewww," accompanied by a shielding handclasp.
Frodo was today asked a hypothetical about torture. He was asked what he would do if he could preserve, with dignity and happiness, all life on the small blue planet, if he merely would tolerate a single instance of torture against one small representative of one small species. Frodo knew that the questioner was trying to elicit his acceptance of the "water boarding" that the Incomparable Moron seems to feel is a legitimate tool to be used in his War against unidentified combatants. As tempting as such an offer is, Frodo could not bring himself to forget the glass tubes in those Hungarian boys.
Frodo once had a BB-Gun, and in his ardor, he began to pursue songbirds. One day, he remembers firing and winging a dove in flight. He pursued the wounded bird from yard-to-field, firing constantly. At last he saw the bird fall just over a hillock, and he ran to the summit in order to view the carcass. Instead, he found the bird of peace bleeding profusely from a hole in his throat. Frodo cocked, and re-cocked, until he could put the creature out of its undeserved misery. That, dear reader, happened decades ago, and the picture is still so vivid and the pumping blood so scarlet, that Frodo has, on innumerable nights, wakened amid his guilt.
Tolerate torture? Frodo would never again have a night's sleep. Nor could he even take a piss. It really makes one wonder what it would take for George W. Bush to wake up, and not be able to go back to sleep.
