I watched "Pinochet's Last Stand" last night

[Taverner]

Wow - Derek Jacobi was amazing in that role - he had all of Pinochet's mannerisms, his grunts, and his arrogance down cold.

And it reminded me what an evil monster that man was. A lying sack of shit from start to finish. One might argue he out-Franco'd Franco.


Anyone else see this movie?

[Octafish]

1. General Pinochet at the Bookstore

Thanks for the heads-up, Taverner. Big fan of Jacobi and "I Claudius."
Look forward to seeing the film about a monster from our times -- another fiend of Bush.



Gen Pinochet at the Bookstore

Santiago, Chile, July 2004

The general’s limo parked at the corner of San Diego street
and his bodyguard escorted him to the bookstore
called La Oportunidad, so he could browse
for rare works of history.

There were no bloody fingerprints left on the pages.
No books turned to ash at his touch.
He did not track the soil of mass graves on his shoes,
nor did his eyes glow red with a demon’s heat.

Worse: His hands were scrubbed, and his eyes were blue,
and the dementia that raged in his head like a demon,
making the general’s trial impossible, had disappeared.

Desaparecido: like thousands dead but not dead,
as the crowd reminded the general,
gathered outside the bookstore to jeer
when he scurried away with his bodyguards,
so much smaller in person.

-- Martín Espada