The Slaying of Argos
Never known for his faithfulness, Zeus became involved with a mortal named, Io. His wife, Hera becomes suspicious of his actions and vies to catch the two lovers together. However, Zeus is privy to her plan and just before hera discovers them, Zeus turns io into a cow. Far from believing the innocence of the scenario before her, Hera suggests that the cow be given to her as a gift of honor from her oh, so loving husband. Hera then places, Io under the watch of a creature named, Argos, who makes for a fitting guard seeing that he has one hundred eyes. Naturally, Zeus feels bad for his lover, the imprisoned cow, and conspirers to free her yet cannot sneak around the ever watchful Argos. Zeus then calls upon Hermes to attempt the liberation, yet he too is unable to make it past. Hermes then goes directly to Argos and begins to tell him the long, convoluted and dull history of the pipes, or the pan flute. Eventually, Argos’ eyes all droop and the creature falls into a slumber at which point Hermes draws his sword and slays the guard. Upon finding Argos and his charge gone, Hera takes his one hundred eyes and places them on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock, as a reminder to Zeus that he may have succeeded in his intentions but that his actions had not gone unnoticed.
Whether it was for war profiteering, daddy displacement, or any other host of reasons, George W. Bush chose to attack Iraq in spring of 2003. Yet to do so required the approval of the senate, whose one hundred members are given the power to declare war. Beginning in 2002, most of the administration’s top and public officials repeatedly invoked the aluminum tubes confiscated in Jordan that Iraq had purchased in 2001 as “irrefutable evidence” (as quoted by Dick Cheney in September) that Iraq was on their way to developing nuclear weapons and that their intention was another attack on the United States (directly or indirectly, who wants to take that risk?) Congress, as well as the American people, were railroaded into and saturated with the righteous road to war and self preservation. I, too, failed to recognize fully what was happening and fell into the complacent mass at the time. The peacock was painted as a reminder to myself, as well to others, to not fall asleep in this manner again.