Persian Hospitality

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise
--Kubla Kahn, Samuel Taylor Colerdige

Thumbing through the Alice pictures for the previous post, I stumbled upon the above, and thought it an apt explanation for the apparent dissonance between the happy captured British personnel seen in track suits playing checkers on the Persian carpets, and their dour recent recollections of their brief stay.

They said they "were stripped and dressed in pyjamas ... we were kept in stone cells, approximately eight feet by six, sleeping on piles of blankets. All of us were kept in isolation." (''British Sailors say Iran Threatened them with Jail, Reuters'')

Let's see--they were given pajamas. Well, that's a sight better than Sgt. Cary got from the U.S. military hospital, in our recent post. And they were allowed a pile of blankets to sleep upon. Certainly better than the wire cot allowed to Padilla. Probably commensurate with the sleeping conditions of many of the average Iraqis whose homes have been plundered.

" 'Lads, lads, I think we're going to get executed,' " a voice said in the darkness, recalled one of the marines, Joe Tindell. After that, someone got sick, "and as far as I was concerned, he had just had his throat cut." (''Britons Recount Capture, Detention, Washinston Post.'') Well, that is one possible visual before you fall down the rabbit hole.