Stanley Kubrick on Fluoride

By MARK ZUSMAN

Don't read any further if you think this item will include any useful information on the fluoridation debate. 

But with the apparent successful effort by a number of Portlanders to put the issue of fluoridating our water on the ballot, we thought it might be entertaining to take a look at this clip from Dr. Strangelove, one of the greatest black comedies of all time. In Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satire of a nuclear scare (subtitled How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) an unglued Air Force general orders a first-strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. In this clip, the general (played by Sterling Hayden) offers his thoughts about fluoride to a British exchange officer (played by Peter Sellers).

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