Beheading...

Margaret Cho has written a blog entry about her experiences watching (via internet feed) the beheading of one of the hostages in Iraq. Margaret has a fascinating way of forming really funny images in my mind, while, at almost the same instant, chilling my blood to the bone with troubling images. "The gruesome images flashed by both too quickly and too slowly, too fast for me to stop it, too slow for me to miss anything." She also described her feeling that it was her responsibility, as a citizen, to witness. That to deny oneself the horror of watching a person being beheaded makes that life less meaningful, the snuffing of that life less appalling, more palatable.

So I was going to try to find one of the feeds. To watch and be horrified. To witness and be sickened. To be sorrowful and to feel hatred.

But I couldn't do it. I didn't have Margaret's accident of happenstance, when one of her friends, unbeknownst to her, had downloaded RealPlayer so that the image played before her eyes, too fast to stop, too slow to miss.

I couldn't go see Dawn of the Dead because the images of real-looking dead people give me nightmares. I still have a recurrent nightmare, based on 21 Days Later, where I am fighting fast-moving zombies with a ball-peen hammer.

So back to that link to the beheading. I wonder if it's my civic responsibility, my American obligation, my Required Duty as a Member of a Civilized Society... to go watch it.

Maybe I can just read Margaret's entry over and over...

Comments

[Azbigjohn]

I also have avoided watching any of those videos. I was intrigued by her statement that maybe it was my duty as an American to watch, but I can be plenty upset about the killing without watching it.

My concern is also for the poor families of these victims. It is bad enough that their grief is splashed over the news constantly, but for them to be aware the murder of their loved one is out on the web for anyone to see must be excruciating.