Chilling TV
22 September 2002 18:36![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandragoraDue to a friend's illness I ended up staying in last night and settled down to see if there was anything worth watching on the telly. Despite having about 70 channels to choose from pickings looked to be slim. However Channel 4 came to my rescue.
First up was a documentary called The Model Empire which looked at why the Roman Empire was so successful and compared Ancient Rome's domination in the past to that of America today. The point the documentary was making was that the Roman Empire succeeded by making the conquered nations want to be Roman. If the Romans had depended solely on military might, their Empire would not have lasted for almost a thousand years.
In a similar fashion, the US exports its culture world wide, through TV, movies, the internet and the ubiquitous fast-food - Coca Cola and McDonalds are now pretty much everywhere. Although the US maintains a military presence in well over a 100 countries worldwide it does not, and cannot, rely solely on military might to maintain its dominance, even though it has the best armed and equipped military force in the world. Rather like the Romans in their day.
The Romans were bewildered when any nation attempted to reject all that Rome had to offer. Sometimes client nations rose up in revolt and slaughtered any Romans living in their midst - there was a massacre of 80,000 Roman citizens living in Italy, for example. The Romans could not comprehend why anyone hated them so, because surely what they had to offer was worthwhile and progressive? The programme pointed out the similarity of Rome's reaction to that of the US following the horrors of September 11 last year.
The pace of modern life makes it unlikely that America will be able to maintain its dominance for as long as the Roman Empire lasted, (modern empires are a bitch to maintain - just ask the British) and the programme made the point that America has to make some hard decisions about its role in the world in the next decade or so, but the parallels made for very interesting viewing.
Later, there was one of the most chilling TV programmes I've ever seen. It was called The Pact. In July 2000, the bodies of four women were discovered lying in a house in Dublin. They had all died of starvation.
Three of the bodies were found in the lounge, each huddled in blankets. The other was in the kitchen, collapsed across a pile of rubbish bags, much of which consisted of carefully shredded documentation - the women apparently went to some pains to ensure that their lives remained as private as possible.
The women were related to one another, one was the aunt of the other three, who were all sisters, and two of whom were twins. The aunt had come to live with the sisters' family at the twins' birth in order to help the family out and had ended up in effect raising the twins and their younger sister while the parents were busy working to support the family. There were five girls in all, but the oldest two sisters were raised by their parents, not their aunt. According to old school friends the three younger sisters kept very much to themselves, although they were always polite and well spoken.
The aunt and the sisters lived at home, working in the family hardware shop, until the sisters were all in their late twenties/early thirties. They then left home to go and live with their aunt in a house in the suburbs of Dublin by the sea. They lived there for twenty years, but again they kept very much to themselves.
However, the landlord of the house they were living in evicted them for non-payment of rent and they were forced to relocate in a much less salubrious part of Dublin. In the new house they were even more rarely seen than in the old, keeping all the curtains drawn at all times and only venturing out to shop for food or attend church, making sure that they didn't go to the local church where they might be forced to interact with their neighbours. They also cut off contact with their relatives, including their two older sisters.
At some point the women made a decision - a pact - to die, in effect to commit suicide. This despite the fact that they were all fervent Catholics. It was meticulously planned. On 31 March the aunt and one of the sisters took their last trip outside the house, as testified by the taxi driver who drove them back home from central Dublin. From receipts found in the house this was the last time they bought anything and therefore ventured outside.
They then sealed themselves up in the house and never left it again.
It took them a long time to die. Although they stopped eating they took fluids, thus prolonging how long it would take until the end. It takes the human body between thirty to sixty days to die of starvation if liquids continue to be drunk. The aunt, who was the oldest and was in her eighties, was the first to go. She actually died of pneumonia brought on by starvation. One of the twins followed her a couple of days later. The remaining sisters lasted another two weeks, one dying a day or so before the other. The last to die was the sister whose body was in the kitchen.
The horror of this is almost beyond words. The women condemned themselves to an extremely cruel and protracted death - dying of starvation is one of the worst ways to die as the body in effect eats itself, consumes its own organs, in a desperate attempt to sustain life.
It appears that one of the twins had second thoughts, as a letter addressed to her fellow twin was found underneath the mattress on which her body lay. In it, she pleaded with her sister to reconsider, writing movingly of how terrible their suffering was. The letter was apparently written over a period of days and the sister's handwriting deteriorated considerably as the effects of starvation ever worsened, However, she didn't actually hand it to her sister and died a few days after the last entry.
I am trying to imagine what it must have been like for the remaining two sisters in the last couple of weeks of their lives, lying beside the bodies of their sister and aunt. I cannot comprehend how horrible it must have been.
People have suffered and died in a similar fashion since the human race began. However, this was usually due to circumstances beyond their control, or for a 'cause', such as the IRA hunger strikers. In the case of the latter, their protest took on a life of its own. The eyes of the world were on them, they were receiving great publicity for the IRA's aims etc and that would put the onus on them to continue on with their hunger strike until the very end. But this was the aunt and sisters' choice. They could have stopped at any time, but didn't. This choice and the fact that they did not stop I cannot comprehend.
They believed that they were casting off their fleshy shells and would ascend to heaven, to the spirit realm. But even so, how tragic that they thought that life had nothing to offer them. Worse, that they chose just about the most cruel method possible by which to die. Slitting their wrists would have been much quicker and less painful.
Photographs of the women show that the sisters were all very pretty women, who could have easily had lovers and friends and lived full lives. The aunt was a handsome determined-looking woman, who presumably again could have lived and enjoyed life. Maybe she did - after all she was old when she died, unlike the middle-aged sisters.
Tragically, it seems that the last sister to die was attempting to escape her tomb when she collapsed and died. The Garda believe that she was trying to get hold of the key to the locked back door in the kitchen, but was too weak and fell onto the rubbish bags.
The bodies were not found until two months after the last sister died. The landlord came round to see why the rent hadn't been paid, and forced entry when there was no response to his hails.
I have seldom seen anything so disturbing on television. It makes the usual horror movie look suitably laughable. Because this was real.
First up was a documentary called The Model Empire which looked at why the Roman Empire was so successful and compared Ancient Rome's domination in the past to that of America today. The point the documentary was making was that the Roman Empire succeeded by making the conquered nations want to be Roman. If the Romans had depended solely on military might, their Empire would not have lasted for almost a thousand years.
In a similar fashion, the US exports its culture world wide, through TV, movies, the internet and the ubiquitous fast-food - Coca Cola and McDonalds are now pretty much everywhere. Although the US maintains a military presence in well over a 100 countries worldwide it does not, and cannot, rely solely on military might to maintain its dominance, even though it has the best armed and equipped military force in the world. Rather like the Romans in their day.
The Romans were bewildered when any nation attempted to reject all that Rome had to offer. Sometimes client nations rose up in revolt and slaughtered any Romans living in their midst - there was a massacre of 80,000 Roman citizens living in Italy, for example. The Romans could not comprehend why anyone hated them so, because surely what they had to offer was worthwhile and progressive? The programme pointed out the similarity of Rome's reaction to that of the US following the horrors of September 11 last year.
The pace of modern life makes it unlikely that America will be able to maintain its dominance for as long as the Roman Empire lasted, (modern empires are a bitch to maintain - just ask the British) and the programme made the point that America has to make some hard decisions about its role in the world in the next decade or so, but the parallels made for very interesting viewing.
Later, there was one of the most chilling TV programmes I've ever seen. It was called The Pact. In July 2000, the bodies of four women were discovered lying in a house in Dublin. They had all died of starvation.
Three of the bodies were found in the lounge, each huddled in blankets. The other was in the kitchen, collapsed across a pile of rubbish bags, much of which consisted of carefully shredded documentation - the women apparently went to some pains to ensure that their lives remained as private as possible.
The women were related to one another, one was the aunt of the other three, who were all sisters, and two of whom were twins. The aunt had come to live with the sisters' family at the twins' birth in order to help the family out and had ended up in effect raising the twins and their younger sister while the parents were busy working to support the family. There were five girls in all, but the oldest two sisters were raised by their parents, not their aunt. According to old school friends the three younger sisters kept very much to themselves, although they were always polite and well spoken.
The aunt and the sisters lived at home, working in the family hardware shop, until the sisters were all in their late twenties/early thirties. They then left home to go and live with their aunt in a house in the suburbs of Dublin by the sea. They lived there for twenty years, but again they kept very much to themselves.
However, the landlord of the house they were living in evicted them for non-payment of rent and they were forced to relocate in a much less salubrious part of Dublin. In the new house they were even more rarely seen than in the old, keeping all the curtains drawn at all times and only venturing out to shop for food or attend church, making sure that they didn't go to the local church where they might be forced to interact with their neighbours. They also cut off contact with their relatives, including their two older sisters.
At some point the women made a decision - a pact - to die, in effect to commit suicide. This despite the fact that they were all fervent Catholics. It was meticulously planned. On 31 March the aunt and one of the sisters took their last trip outside the house, as testified by the taxi driver who drove them back home from central Dublin. From receipts found in the house this was the last time they bought anything and therefore ventured outside.
They then sealed themselves up in the house and never left it again.
It took them a long time to die. Although they stopped eating they took fluids, thus prolonging how long it would take until the end. It takes the human body between thirty to sixty days to die of starvation if liquids continue to be drunk. The aunt, who was the oldest and was in her eighties, was the first to go. She actually died of pneumonia brought on by starvation. One of the twins followed her a couple of days later. The remaining sisters lasted another two weeks, one dying a day or so before the other. The last to die was the sister whose body was in the kitchen.
The horror of this is almost beyond words. The women condemned themselves to an extremely cruel and protracted death - dying of starvation is one of the worst ways to die as the body in effect eats itself, consumes its own organs, in a desperate attempt to sustain life.
It appears that one of the twins had second thoughts, as a letter addressed to her fellow twin was found underneath the mattress on which her body lay. In it, she pleaded with her sister to reconsider, writing movingly of how terrible their suffering was. The letter was apparently written over a period of days and the sister's handwriting deteriorated considerably as the effects of starvation ever worsened, However, she didn't actually hand it to her sister and died a few days after the last entry.
I am trying to imagine what it must have been like for the remaining two sisters in the last couple of weeks of their lives, lying beside the bodies of their sister and aunt. I cannot comprehend how horrible it must have been.
People have suffered and died in a similar fashion since the human race began. However, this was usually due to circumstances beyond their control, or for a 'cause', such as the IRA hunger strikers. In the case of the latter, their protest took on a life of its own. The eyes of the world were on them, they were receiving great publicity for the IRA's aims etc and that would put the onus on them to continue on with their hunger strike until the very end. But this was the aunt and sisters' choice. They could have stopped at any time, but didn't. This choice and the fact that they did not stop I cannot comprehend.
They believed that they were casting off their fleshy shells and would ascend to heaven, to the spirit realm. But even so, how tragic that they thought that life had nothing to offer them. Worse, that they chose just about the most cruel method possible by which to die. Slitting their wrists would have been much quicker and less painful.
Photographs of the women show that the sisters were all very pretty women, who could have easily had lovers and friends and lived full lives. The aunt was a handsome determined-looking woman, who presumably again could have lived and enjoyed life. Maybe she did - after all she was old when she died, unlike the middle-aged sisters.
Tragically, it seems that the last sister to die was attempting to escape her tomb when she collapsed and died. The Garda believe that she was trying to get hold of the key to the locked back door in the kitchen, but was too weak and fell onto the rubbish bags.
The bodies were not found until two months after the last sister died. The landlord came round to see why the rent hadn't been paid, and forced entry when there was no response to his hails.
I have seldom seen anything so disturbing on television. It makes the usual horror movie look suitably laughable. Because this was real.
