And he didn’t bother to find out. I had this movie in my Blockbuster cue and this passage kept running through my mind throughout the whole movie.

I have been on the receiving end of intelligence overconfidence and patriotic zeal (luckily non-lethal). Since Mark’s blog has such extensive readership, I recommend a movie and a couple of books that are real life versions of our overcondfidence in being able to self define good and evil without God.

The Fog of War is an award winning documentary by Errol Morris where an 85 year old Robert McNamara (US SecDef for the Vietnam War – McNamara’s War) wags his finger at the camera and says don’t make the same mistakes I did. How much evil have we done think that we were doing good? There is a book of the same title that has been written since.

Another really good non-fiction book about the early days of the CIA and its ramifications today is a book called All The Shah’s Men. Its the tale of how the CIA overthrew a budding democracy in Iran in the 50’s and put the Shah in power seen through the eyes of Director of Operations, Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Franklin). Pretty scary how that led to the hostage crisis and then the US villification in the Middle East.

This movie kept me up at night. But I guess the most disturbing scene wasn’t one of the violent ones. It was the one where a little boy was so upset by his father’s lack of affection that he cried in Santa’s lap and wet his pants. His dad is silent through the whole thing. I guess its a slap in the face to never be silent around your kids – anybody for that matter. Reminds me to share my pride and share my love.