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#130086 07/05/04 09:03 PM
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I just heard an interesting topic on a BBC Radio4 programme about Saddam Hussein as a romantic novellist. Apparently, he has already published several novels, all based around rather obvious political allegories about kings and princes, etc. (the commentator described his style as "...interesting") The programme was suggesting that in fact, many leaders of the past, esecially those with the dispotic streak in them, have turned to some form of art as a form of justification for their actions - does anyone know of any examples?


#130087 07/06/04 12:24 AM
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... and I heard he was ghosted ... Anybody know any different?


#130088 07/06/04 01:25 AM
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The first one (present-day) that pops to mind is John Ashcroft... he's definitely got a despotic streak, and that song is simply ~ um... wow.

http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/ 02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html



#130089 07/06/04 10:37 AM
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Then there was Hitler, the frustrated artist... (though here we have a chicken-and-egg example)


#130090 07/06/04 12:42 PM
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... and I heard he was ghosted ... Anybody know any different?



Dunno about writing, but when the Iraqi courts are through with him he'll be a ghost, I'd say.


#130091 07/06/04 05:34 PM
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>Hitler

wwh reminded me of this in a PM earlier, but did he continue his painting into his reign or was it part of the reason he went into all that dictatory stuff in the first place?

I remember hearing a mention of Gaddafi(sp?) being a short story writer or something but I can't remember the details now.


#130092 07/06/04 05:43 PM
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>ghosted

Judging by the critics' responses to the quality of his work I don't know why he bothered hiring a ghost writer! Though he did apparently write under a psuedonym (if he did indeed write them himself), and wrote in classical Arabic, which apparently translates into rather overly-florid prose in most modern languages.


#130093 07/06/04 08:08 PM
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did he continue his painting into his reign or was it part of the reason he went into all that dictatory stuff in the first place?

Yeah. That's why I mentioned chickens and eggs. I was taught it was the latter...


#130094 07/07/04 01:16 PM
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The Emperor Nero fancied himself as a musician, dancer and actor.

Hitler, I have read, was a painter of landscape scenes for picture postcards. Don't know if that's actually true or the result of some denigratory wartime propaganda. He did write Mein Kampf while he was in prison, they say; not exactly art though!

#130095 07/07/04 04:16 PM
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Oh yes, Hitler tried to make a living as a small-time artist in Vienna before WWI. Failed miserably. His paintings were completely without merit.


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