I just went to my Netflix account and added Lives of Other’s to the top of my queue. I remember reading a glowing review of the this suspense flick years ago but it took this story about Saddam Hussein’s spy files on NPR to remind me that I had been interested in seeing it. I was listening to the story while reading the email posted just before this.
I couldn’t help but think of the Duluth School System as all of this swirled through my head. In East Germany before it fell 1 in 50 East Germans were being used as spies on their fellow citizens. I doubt that there are any spies in the school system. Teachers are simply waiting for the tyrant to fall and to get sent to Goodness knows what new school and circumstance. Still, they are so tight lipped they might as well be under the thumb of the Stassi.
Now that General Petraeus has been reassigned to Afghanistan Iraq is one step closer to whatever is fated to befall it as an independent nation. As one of the Iraqies interviewed by NPR told the reporter Iraq is a tribal society (like Afghanistan). Another Iraqi in that story who was asked what had happened to his neighborhoods spy after the Fall of Saddam answered by drawing his index finger across his throat.