SALON interviews Terry Jones

see also Terry Jones' Home Page

Americans may know Terry Jones best as a naked organist and a purveyor of crunchy frog-filled chocolates and "being hit on the head" lessons, but the founding member of the British comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus has plenty of other talents. He directed the films "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "The Life of Brian" and "Monty Python's The
Meaning of Life," among others, and he's written several books on the Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (the latest is "Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery"). And early in 2003, English-language readers worldwide were reminded of just how funny Jones can be when an Op-Ed he wrote for the Observer in London, titled "I'm Losing Patience With My Neighbors, Mr. Bush," was quickly disseminated across the Internet.

In the essay, Jones explains that a couple of his neighbors -- Mr. Johnson and "Mr. Patel, who runs the health food shop" -- have been giving him "funny looks." "As for Mr. Patel," he wrote, "don't ask me how I know, I just know -- from very good sources -- that he is, in reality, a mass murderer." Exasperated with friends and authorities who demand evidence of these crimes "while Mr. Johnson will be finalizing his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr. Patel will be secretly murdering people," he resolves, using the example of President Bush, to take preemptive action, "since I'm the only one on the street with a decent range of automatic firearms."

"I'm Losing Patience" and other Op-Eds Jones wrote for the Observer and the Guardian have been collected in a new book, "Terry Jones' War on the War on Terror." In them he subjects the logic of the current war on terror to subtle twists that expose its nonsensical aspects. Contemplating the likelihood of significant civilian casualties just before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he writes, "Mr. Bush says that one of the reasons he wants to kill a lot of Iraqis is because Saddam Hussein has also been killing them. Is there some rivalry here?" Nevertheless, "you can bet that if George W. Bush is going for the record he's going to beat Saddam Hussein hands down."

Salon reached Terry Jones at his home in London, where he talked about the bizarre rationales and twisted vocabulary of the war on terror, the difficulty of satirizing Thatcherism and the similarities between the politics of Chaucer's day and our own.

Continued at: http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1023015.htm

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Terry Jones Takes On the War on Terror Aired: Friday, February 18, 2005 8-9PM ET
Most Americans will know Terry Jones best as the founding member of the British comedy troupe, "Monty Python's Flying Circus." He has directed many films, including "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life." He is also a leading Medieval scholar and author of several books on the Middle Ages, the latest of which is on poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

But more recently, the former Python's attention has turned to the politics and the post-9/11 age. He has taken satirical aim at George W. Bush and his own country's Tony Blair in a series of essays published in British papers over the past three years. His brutally funny observations have now been published in a new book entitled "Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror."

Tune in to hear more from Monty Python's Terry Jones on politics in the White House and Downing Street, and what it means for us all.