Plaid Adder...you kicked butt today!

That was truly a great column. Thank you for writing it and getting it out there. Ya hit a home run!
:yourock:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Also thank EarlG for going through not one, but two corrections after I spotted errors in the originally posted version! Go EarlG!

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

Facing up to moral ambiguity is more disturbing to Americans than facing actual evil. That would explain a lot of puzzling things about the recent political landscape.

I generally like your stuff, P.A., but this was just plain hitting in a different league than usual.

It reminded me of a comment by comedian Jeff Stilson, observing that Jeffrey Dahmer apparently had used a condom during necrophiliac acts, and marveling that of all the messages society beamed at this man, that one ("Have safe sex") got through while others ("Don't kill and eat people") failed to. You raise the disturbing but compelling notion that this dichotomy really isn't that unusual, it just fits the pattern of our culture.

FWIW, I saw Apocalypse Now for the first time a few months ago, and my smacked-with-a-board expression probably wasn't too different from your students' (though I'd had a bit of prior warning). My own explanation would have been that I was overwhelmed by the absolute (diagetical) pointlessness of all the violence ... which I suppose is a superset of the observation "You can't tell the good guys". To find the "good guy" is to identify a goal worth accomplishing that justifies the violence, which Apocalypse simply isn't going to let you off the hook with. Strangely, it seems, neither will Iraq ...

Anyhoo, megadittoes :-) and keep up the good work.