Another Light Lost

Thousands of years ago Plato wrote The Republic, one of the most famous and widely studied works in western civilization. He tells the tale of the trial of Socrates who was condemned to death and executed by poison. A few hundred years later in Calvary the Romans crucified someone. We can now add Benazir Bhutto to the list of leaders murdered.

To what extent she and her husband stole money or committed corruption exceeds my blogger budget. Bhutto lived in a reality surrounded by death. Her father was hanged and her brothers were both killed. She lived a life on thin ice and knew it.

I remember feeling physically sick when I heard of the assassination of Anwar Sadat. I felt even sicker when I heard of the assassination of Yitzak Rabin and will never forget waking up that fall 1980 morning to the news that John Lennon had been murdered. For what?

No language can capture the magnitude of the violence that occurs on this planet, but the deaths of the nameless and faceless don’t deliver the blow and sense of loss that occurs when someone “known” is murdered. When someone I respect (and flaws noted, I respected Bhutto) is killed, I feel ill. It hurts, and I want to hurt back. If I wish, I can permit rage to flow through my veins, the cool sensation of hatred towards a demonized foe I would like to tear apart. Forget compassion and seethe with the lust for blood.

During the movie days about fifteen years ago I wrote a script for a feature length science fiction film and had some Hollywood people read it. I went all out and produced a treatment, synopsis, even a detailed budget. I could have produced it for $15 M (1992 dollars). They complained, "How can you have a movie about people on a space ship and never see space or the ship? How can you film aliens that don’t have bodies?"

I explained Tarkovkey’s Solaris to no avail. Alas, no film, the typical result for a screenplay. Biological themes and pandemics are thick in the story. The aliens ultimately take us out, all of us, regarding humanity as a disease, bacteria of the cosmos to be eradicated to preserve universal well being.

I also wrote a short story once, a take off on Childhood’s End where aliens land on the planet and deliver a tough love speech. Bottom line of the speech: You people are completely messed up and need to get your act together. Here’s what you need to do and here are the guidelines for getting it done. Handle it or else.

To any superior, benevolent extra-terrestrial aliens that might be reading, forget the nonsense about non-intervention and every species determining its own fate. Really, it’s okay.

When our leaders try to do good, we kill them. It's time for the Overlords to kick some ass.