by John Traveler

Created on: May 21, 2009   Last Updated: March 18, 2010

In the movie A Few Good Men, Colonel Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson, is on the witness stand and being questioned by Lt. Kaffee, played by Tom Cruse. After a probative lead up, Kaffee asks the question of Jessep, point blank, "Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?" Before Jessep can answer, the officer presiding over the tribunal, Colonel Julius Randall cautions him, "You don't have to answer that question!" Jessep replies to the judge, "I'll answer the question!" then turns to Kaffee and with intensity and poses the question to him "You want answers?" Kaffee interjects, "I think I am entitled." The tension of the moment escalating, Jessep repeats the question, "You want answers?" Kaffee responds, "I want the truth!" The two men are locked in visual embrace, both now making their contempt for each other perspicuously clear as Jessep replies with an utter sense of indignant disdain, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE  THE TRUTH!"

When it comes to truth we humans are fickle creatures. We spend a good part of our life's energy trying to evade truth, trying to paint reality to be what we want it to be, rather than what it is. Indeed, we begin life with an infusion of deceptions and misrepresentations, mythical yarns spun for us by our parents and other mentors of our cultural domain. In the earliest years of our formative enlightenment, we are spoon fed fairy-tales and enticed to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and so on. Ironically, most of these stories and fictional characters have some factual basis, but more often than not such basis includes concepts considered inappropriate and even psychologically devastating for young minds to entertain. A prime example would be the fable of Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm, a cute anecdote masking the more horrific chronicling of acts of human cannibalism taking place during the Great Famine in 14th century Europe .

The whole saga of Hansel and Gretel, is a metaphorical way to deal with the subject of human cannibalism. There is likely no more gruesome spectacle in the human repertoire of gruesome thoughts, than that of being devoured by beast, except perhaps that of being consumed by beast of our own species. But the story of Hansel and Gretel, in fact, is a bit of lore that attempts to deal with this otherwise untenable notion through analogous fiction. The story stems from the realities of the Great Famine of Europe in 1314-1317 when cannibalism became an unspeakable tactic of human survival,

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