They Make Such Bloody Good Cameras

For some even stranger love than the previous post, first read this delightful picaresque. I couldn’t help but think of another memorable exchange from my (clearly) favorite film:

GEN. JACK D. RIPPER: Did they torture you?

GROUP CAPTAIN LIONEL MANDRAKE: Ah... yes, they did. I was tortured by the Japanese, Jack, if you must know. Not a pretty story.

RIPPER: Well what happened?

MANDRAKE: Oh... well... I don't know, Jack. Difficult to think of under these conditions. But, well, what happened was they got me on the old Rangoon HNRR railway. I was laying train mines for the bloody Japanese puff puffs.

RIPPER: No, I mean when they tortured you, did you talk?

MANDRAKE: Ah, oh no, I ah... I don't think they wanted me to talk, really. I don't think they wanted me to say anything. It was just their way of having... a bit of fun, the swines. Strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras.

I know that the merest suggestion of undirected brutality at the heart of the American military’s apparent predilection for torture gives Chucky Krauthammer and the No Girls Allowed Club the vapors ‘n’ faints, but honestly now . . .

Paintball practice? It’s as if the Pentagon intentionally reinvented itself as the al-Qaeda Western Marketing Division.