Saddam Hanged

Sunday, 31 December 2006
SADDAM
Mood: incredulous
Now Playing: tearfully - boo-hoo!
Topic: News Views

WHEN I WOKE UP yesterday with the radio telling me of the last moments of Saddam Hussein as he approached the hanging scaffold… turned down the offer of a hood, bowed his neck, calmly accepting the noose… exclaimed, “God is great!” — his last words — then:— WHAM!

I was always against the death penalty when I was younger… (What if they got the wrong guy?)… more recently my mind began to change. Saddam Hussein kept alive in Iraq would always be liable to jailbreaks from his mobs of “insurgents”…

But I have to admit, and I’m hardly Saddam’s #1 fan, that of all the things to feel on hearing of his death, I felt tearful. Why? Why do we feel sad when anyone dies? It’s often because of all that person didn’t achieve and all they were not. That’s why when someone like Mother Theresa goes, having lived a full and worthwhile existence, barely a tear is shed. But someone with a troubled life, someone like Princess Diana… see what I mean?

Well, that’s my theory.




Posted by gledwood at 1:55 PM GMT
Updated: Sunday, 31 December 2006 9:34 PM GMT
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Tuesday, 2 January 2007 - 10:40 PM GMT

Name: "ggirl"
Home Page: http://ggirl.tblog.com
E-Mail: ggirl@space.la

To paraphrase one of my favorite poems, we are mourning for ourselves. I think people did cry when Mother Theresa died. I guess it just depends on your point of view. The loss of human life is...a reminder of our own mortality.

Reply to this Comment
Wednesday, 3 January 2007 - 4:01 PM GMT

Name: "Gledwood"
Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog


Yeah, I suppose that might have sounded a little unfeeling of me... I didn't mean so much that nobody would have cried when Mother Theresa died as that the tears cried are very different ones to say those wept over Diana...

I remember when the Queen Mother died about 3 years ago. I fell asleep with the TV on (as per usual). BBC was playing a constant news loop of Queen Mum funeral coverage. This excerpt kept coming up of the Queen, "We should remember her with happiness," type of thing. But there was deep sadness in the Queen's voice. You could hear it. Of course it was her own mother's funeral. That clip kept going on again and again, it went into my subconscious, into my sleep and dreams... I woke up feeling very sad on what (for me) wouldn't have been an otherwise sad day. (I do like the Royals, but not in an OTT way)...

Ok then,

Gleds