If you want to get into the spirit of the occasion, give your friend a big smile and a high-five as you cross paths, right before you sneak up on him with knife in hand. Works even better when you conspire with your friend’s other friends and take turns stabbing. An individual backstabber is likely to be perceived as selfish, not to mention treacherous, but a group of backstabbers seems purposeful and, well, group-minded.
And keep in mind that backstabbing is only fun when the victim seems genuinely surprised by the first knife thrust. That’s why Julius Caesar is such a great role for certain actors. It calls for magnanimity as well as arrogance. And gravitas, of course. Louis Calhern is well-cast in the old film version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the one with Brando as Antony. Rex Harrison is a grand Caesar in the movie Cleopatra, but he sometimes seems on the verge of belting out “Talk to the Animals.” The best Caesar on film is Ciaran Hinds in the HBO series Rome. The man has gravitas and is too sure of himself to heed warnings. He looks convincingly shocked that his friend and protege Brutus is among the conspirators. And the writers were smart enough to leave out the unnecessary et tu.
Odd Man Out 
As luck would have it my own birth fell during the Ides of March, and recently I was back stabbed. It appeared to be a group stabbing, but the assassination may very well have come at the hands of a single individual. This person, or group of people, profess to be progressive and open-minded, yet are quite willing to censure and ban when worlds collide.
This act of treachery might have come as a surprise had it not been projected, in slow motion, over a period of weeks.
The Christ, unlike Caesar, carefully planned and then executed his own assassination to make a point. A point that 2000 years on most people still fail to comprehend.
Every example of backstabbing or assassination lies along a continuum.
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Is there a way to have an Open Thread several times a week? Daily would be very nice. Perhaps Swamp Rabbit might be stimulated enough by the comments to become a tad more involved in the blog before slipping into a drunken stupor.
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1) Right wing crazy Bibi Netanyahu may lose his grip on power today. Netanyahu said on Sunday that if he were reelected there would NOT be a Palestinian state. “We will preserve Jerusalem’s unity in all its parts. We will continue to build and fortify Jerusalem so that its division won’t be possible and it will stay united forever.” As long as the warmongers are in charge of Israel, peace in the Middle East is not possible.
2) The Republican controlled Congress is about to tear itself apart over the budget. The GOP warmongers (McCain, Graham, Ayotte, etc) want more money for defense and the fiscally conservative T-Baggers want to cut defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Let the games begin.
3) The warmongers in both party’s are in the process of shooting themselves in the head over Iran. The Syrian Civil War can’t be solved without Iranian participation. But rather than inviting Iran in on the Syrian negotiations the pro-Zionist, warmongers sit on their hands as thousands die. ISIS can’t be defeated except with the help of Iran. But rather than openly accept Iranian assistance, the warmongers keep telling us that the Sunni’s of Saudi Arabia are our real friends in the ME, while thousands keep dying at the hands of Sunni ISIS. (Let’s not forget that the World Trade Center was attacked by Saudi Arabian Sunni’s like bin Laden.)
4) The three worst Democrats are Bob Menendez of NJ, Joe Manchin of WV and Dianne Feinstein of CA. They should all declare themselves to be the Republicans that they truly are.
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Looks like Bibi will be back for a fourth term, and it was his last-minute appeal to the warmongers that made the difference. Jerusalem will be “united forever.” One need only skim a history of Jerusalem to understand how long “forever” lasts.
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Hopefully, at long last, we can put to rest the ridiculous notion that Israel wants a two-state solution or that it ever did. Unfortunately for the Israelis, who are about to suffer tremendously, the oligarchy (1%) still refuses to recognize that the entire world has changed and it isn’t 1967 any more. A fact that most Republicans and many Democrats also won’t accept.
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You are so right about Ciarán Hinds 🙂
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I had the good luck to see Hinds play Mr. Lockhart (the devil in disguise) in the Broadway production of Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer” in 2007. Great play, unforgettable performances. I wonder if anyone recorded it.
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Had a few hours to kill last night before the Illuminati meeting so I re-watched Odd Man Out (1947) starring James Mason and directed by Carol Reed. Both Fallen Idol (1948) and one of the best films ever made Third Man (1949) were also directed by Reed. Mason’s role was originally offered to Stewart Granger who said later that he regretted having turned it down. Have you ever seen any of these films?
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Oh, I am so envious! I would have loved to see that, but in fact it predates my becoming a fan of Mr. H. I’ve seen all his stage performances from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” to the present, including McPherson’s excellent play “The Night Alive.” But even reading “The Seafarer” is something to savor:
http://linnetmoss.com/2014/03/05/a-wretched-wreck-on-ice-cold-seas/
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You’ve found me out. I love that trio of films by Reed. Graham Greene wrote the screenplays for both “The Third Man” and ‘Fallen Idol,” as you probably know. “Odd Man Out” is one of the best films most movie fans have never seen. Reed and Mason work magic in conveying the surreal solitude of the dying IRA guy.
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Now we have to work on the mystery behind the Gregory Peck thing that’s going on?
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1) Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Clintonite neo-liberal, has finally admitted that she is the cause of the confusion over the passage of the Human Trafficking Bill that has delayed the vote on confirming Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general. Actually she blamed a staff member for the anti-abortion language in the bill, because Amy’s just another political coward looking out for #1.
2) Nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons proliferation is not a good thing. So why does the world allow Israel to have a nuclear arsenal?
Could it be that Israel’s undeclared, uninspected nuclear weapons arsenal might be the real reason that other Middle Eastern countries want a nuclear weapon? It’s time to disarm Israel.
3) Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said that he was guilty of detonating one of the two bombs that exploded in Boston. The only question that his trial will answer is whether or not he will receive the death penalty.
But the bigger question that needs to be answered is whether it’s constitutional for local, state and federal officials to declare martial law and shut down an entire metropolitan area? Can Philadelphia be turned into a giant prison camp at any moment? And if so, under what circumstances?
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“Strange ad promotes an author who isn’t real and a book that doesn’t exist,” and that’s show biz. Eric Jonrosh never wrote “The Spoils of Babylon” or “The Spoils Before Dying” because Jonrosh isn’t a real person. Writers Piedmont and Steel are and so is Will Ferrell who plays the character Eric Jonrosh.
This is how the world really works you silly twits. Made up shit being acted out by well paid people. Nobody is anybody and everybody is a cartoon drawing sleepwalking trough life pretending that it all matters. “The whole world is a stage…..” Who said that William Shakespeare or the Fantastic Four?
Where’s the Swamp Rabbit in this time of crisis?
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knock, knock, knock
Is anyone home?
Is everyone well?
Has Swamp Rabbit finally gone and done it?
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