Poor Richard Phillips: may his wife have a short wait until he is safe. Four pirates in a lifeboat that seems to be some kind of raft, pirates who have the nerve–because of greed or because of desperation or because of influences I don’t understand–to hold Capt. Phillips hostage, do so in spite of a rather large military presence in the area and in the face of one and soon-to-be two military vessals. What kind of catastrophe is building here?
Watching the news on television, I was struck by a quick solution to end this mess, and I mentioned that perhaps we should capture their families and display them on deck, cutting off fingers periodically to speed things up. !!! That was a horrible flight of imagination, born from some red flash in my brain. I know and truly believe that cutting off fingers is not any way to treat human situations, and there is no justification for treating the wives, parents, and children of the accused this way. It’s not civilized, and we need to evolve a bit before we’re truly civilized anyway, so those of us who are aware need to be on our best behavior.
But no, said hubby: that’s some little efficient Nazi scenario you’ve got going there. And he went on for minutes telling me things that I already know about propriety. I was abashed.