Idioms and Icons

I like Doonesbury...I find the commentary interesting and I like the humor. I've been enjoying the current story line very much, but today it occurred to me that some younger readers might not get the more subtle secondary reference:

I know that I use the phrase "drank the cool-aid" a lot, I find it illustrates the consequences of following blindly quite poignantly. But I recently found that my younger friends had no idea what I was talking about. So I related what I knew of the Jonestown cult and their leader Jim Jones...and the death of the cult members after knowingly drinking the poisoned cool-aid.

But this is one of those incidents in history that I've held on to, a lot of my generation has. I'm tempted to file some of these moments away along with teenagers not understanding how to use a rotary phone, but unlike the phone there is an important lesson to be remembered here. Sadly it seems to be one we keep having to learn. Following blindly may be easier, but it isn't necessarily right. "Just following orders" is no longer supposed to be an excuse, yet we hear it still, usually associated with accounting scandel or military action like Abu Ghraib .

And for the record I make a distinction between that disgrace and some of the horrible stories we are now hearing about the military out in the field. While I cannot condone those murders (outside of active combat), I can understand the fear and the anger that push people into committing them. But there is a difference between the heat of battle and working in a prison where the "enemy" is locked away and you humiliate them. Do you think by walking someone around on a leash that you are actually going to get valuable information? I'm not condoning torture, but please...I don't think that would even work in a bad comedy.

So those are my thoughts for the morning. See what a little cool-aid can lead to?