I read a brief mention of Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn going on a hunger strike in support of Cindy Sheehan, which initially really surprised me. Obviously those two have been vocally opposed to the war, so the issue wasn't a surprise, but a hunger strike is pretty serious business. While studying a film about the hunger strikers in the Maze in 1981, I got a detailed account of how the human body starts to break down without food. The damage done to the eyes and other organs is permanent, and significantly shortens the life of most hunger strikers. Bobby Sands died after 66 days, but well before that he and the other strikers in the Maze lost their eyesight, become delirious, unable to keep down water, and eventually went into comas as their bodies shut down. In other words, it isn't like that Simpsons episode where Homer gets up after not being on a hunger striker for weeks and eats the hot dog with southwestern toppings on it.
Given all that, I thought it was hard to believe that Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Willie Nelson, and Danny Glover were willing to sacrifice their bodies to the extent you have to before a hunger strike gets serious. I'll concede, Sean Penn seems nutty enough, maybe Willie looks at his drug-riddled 73-year old body and wants wants his onrushing death to mean something, and I'm sure Danny Glover doesn't have anything better to do. Since Susan Sarandon says she protests out of responsibility to her children, I think she might also find it irresponsible to tell them mommy has to protect their future by leaching all the nutrients out of her internal organs, deliriously and blindly vomiting on them when they visit her, and lapsing into a fatal coma to make a point to the press. In any case, of the 546 constitutional office holders, 544 don't have any influence over the war, and the other two only watch Fox News (who probably won't cover the story).
So fortunately, the initial report was misleading, and the hunger strikes won't interfere with production of "In Search of Captain Zero", "The Colossus", or "Be Kind Rewind". Apparently there will be a "rolling programme" [sic] of hunger protests, in which the actors will take turns abstaining from food for a day. So every day, there will be a single rich person abstaining from food, which I'm sure the president will find intolerable. I mean, he'll spend a whole day fretting about Susan Sarandon being inconvenienced, then he doesn't get any relief when her day ends because then Danny Glover will be uncomfortable somewhere. Until September 21st, International Peace Day, when they conclude their protest after less than three months. They couldn't even keep going until the midterm elections? Will the Minnesota DFL even have chosen
candidates for congress and the senate by then? I think I should find six people and have rotating food hours until Bastille Day. I'll start us off: I won't eat between 8 and 9, and 2 and 3, somebody will take between 9 and 10 and 3 and 4, and by July 14, I'm sure America will have rallied behind us.
One other note about hunger strikes, I find it amusing that the British government recently campaigned to get a name change for the street in Tehran where their embassy is located. Previously it honored former prime minister Winston Churchill, but in the 80s the Iranians renamed it after another former member of parliament... Bobby Sands (better known for his poetry and terrorism than his three week term in office). Iranian passport control officials apparently sometimes greet Irish tourists by raising a fist and saying "Bobby Sands, no food. Welcome to Iran."
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