The Midwich Torturers: 24 Hours And Some Good Hoodia

24 Hours This is a show I have never seen. I am not sure why that was in the past. I know why it is now in the present. I have read about the cute little bundle of joy called 24 Hours (Damien by its mother), and it is not up my alley. Apparently there is torture on the show: the main character versus bad guys and bad guys versus main character. Just the type of thing for America, apparently starving for more, Abu Ghraib having only whet the appetites of the ravening crowds that make up the television viewing audience. I have seen somewhere in the cyber-sanatorium referred to as the blogosphere that 24 Hours might actually be a primer for teaching morality. People have said this. People have commented on it. There is a distinction between Fiction and Reality. I think we should try once again to get this right.

There is a distinction between Fiction and Reality.

About 2 years ago, Allen Dershowitz, an august personage who is (a) well known, and (b) Harvard, made a suggestion to facilitate the war on terror. Mr. Dershowitz suggested that suspects be put to "the question", as they used to call it in the good old days of the Inquisition. He suggested a secret court type of set-up, similar to that that was intended to facilitate the domestic wiretaps, whereby the judge presiding at the Star Chamber would authorize torture when necessary, and issue a warrant.

(When I think of it, I visualize a nasty judge, leering, and saying, "You may have the body!" - which , of course, is the meaning of Habeas Corpus. So there is a scary type of fuzziness.)

There is a good deal more than this, and Mr. Dershowitz makes his case well.

At the time I opposed the idea because of the fiction/reality problem - a point to which we will return very soon.

Of course, in the interim, we discover that government agents even overlooked getting warrants for wiretaps, a procedure that the White House fully endorsed.

I can just imagine how they would perform with torture warrants.

Mr. Dershowitz should realize the nature of the persons with whom he deals.

However, we must return to fiction/reality.

In Mr. Dershowitz's presentation, there was a scenario put forward for an exemplar of the type of case for which torture warrants ( let's call them T-warrants...just like T-bills.) would be issued: (1)there is a bomber who has at least one bomb in a highly populated area, and (2) this bomber is in the hands of the authorities (perhaps the 24 Hour guy, or guys, or gals...or the Bitch of Buchenwald), and (3) this bomb will detonate soon, and (4) we have to get information about at least the location of the bomb.

O.K. Let's get those guys from the Ghraib and do some nasty Hoodia on this sucka!

(I use the word 'hoodia' for all kinds nasty s...tuff. It just sounds right, and I made it up! I know there is a plant and a weight loss thing...I receive about 50 howdies from hoodia each day in my e-mail.

In fact, Hoodia is beginning to remind me of Tone Loc's Funky Cold Medina.)

My problem with this approach is that if I find Mr. Dershowitz's argument compelling, this compelling feeling of rectitude is due to the fact that a scenario for one of Bruce Willis's movies has been used as the argument.

When I watch Mr. Willis, I enjoy the movie and am inexorably drawn along to the point where good triumphs, having laid waste to all evil doers along the way.

Fine.

This is a good story. It compells me along the way from beginning to middle to climax to denouement. It is so enthralling, I do not question it. I would never question why Bruce Willis is fighting Professor Snape ( Allan Rickman ) in a high rise.

The scenario of the bomber is not an argument; it is a story-line.

And it is boffo at the box office.

But it is not the basis for our choice.

We live in a fantasy world.

We have a fantasy government.

We are at fault, for we do not demand reality. We only demand that the government protect us from reality, from the price of gas, from the drug companies...protect us from what is real so we may continue to dream.

Am I raving?Remember that it was not I who suggested using 24 Hours as a moral primer.

The notion is so stupid that I could barely restrain myself from wrting a comment saying so. However, I don't do that. There are plenty of people who will.

Thus, we will view a show with a story from Joel Surnow and Manny Coto.

It will be compelling.

It is FICTION, you stumbling morons!

You will speak and write about the pernicious effects of Hollywood when it serves your purpose, but you will not perceive that merely because a show appears to agree with some of your half-baked political beliefs, it is still but a show.

There can be no moral justification for torture just because it appeared in a thrilling TV show!

In fiction, everything is controlled by the artists.

As Aristotle said of Homer, he was the one who taught us how to lie; poetic license was readily classed as untruth at the time.

It is called poetic license, and it does not matter whether it is left wing nor right wing.

For heaven's sake. A bunch of people with their heads in their hoodias!

(note: 'Midwich' derives from John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, with emphasis on the cuckoos.)