Challenging Scientism

Shakespeare, Not Shakespeare
Part One: His Second Best Bed
Interview with Mark Anderson
by Liam Scheff

“Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon us the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies…”
—King Lear, Act V, Scene iii

Who was Shakespeare? A poor, unschooled glover’s son from a rural English village? Or a man of great learning and talent – and of sensitive political stature – who chose to hide his compromising poetic and political works behind the name of another, less important, less politically vulnerable man?

If we are to believe conventional wisdom, we must choose the former – the village lad of no means and no instruction in the arts, letters and sciences. If we choose the latter, we must argue against what is currently written in history books – that William Shakespeare was an uneducated, only passably literate calf-skinner, who just happened to write the greatest works in the English Language – because he also happened to be a genius.

In this series, Mark Anderson, author of “Shakespeare by Another Name,“ takes us through the history of the history of the Bard, and explains why biography is the only lens through which the works of Shakespeare can truly be understood. What is genius, and what is required in the training of that mind, to create history’s greatest works?
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Here in the great State of Massachusetts, a great many irritated people, tired of immense taxation, voted for a pretty decent, hard working fellow from a local town to represent their interests and to oppose D.C. desires, as State Senator.

And it’s good as far as it goes. It might hold up the massive health care fraud. It does announce that many old Dems will be vacating their positions soon, and Congress and the Senate will see some new blood, most of which will be quickly corrupted.

New can be good, but it only goes so far…

Democrats will remain what they have been, and so will Republicans. Read the rest of this entry »

Originally from Dec 1, 2007. Happy Saturnalia…

From today’s Wall Street Journal, a very good, and succinct History of the holiday, by historian and author John Steele Gordon. A few excerpts:

“In its earliest days, Christianity did not celebrate the Nativity at all. Only two of the four Gospels even mention it. Instead, the Church calendar was centered on Easter, still by far the most important day in the Christian year. The Last Supper was a Seder, celebrating Passover, which falls on the day of the full moon in the first month of spring in the Hebrew calendar. [...]

By the time of the Council of Nicea [325 AD], the Christian Church was making converts by the thousands and, in hopes of still more converts, in 354 Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the church calendar. He also decided to celebrate it on Dec. 25. It was, frankly, a marketing ploy with a little political savvy thrown in.

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It’s about time for two from the archive:

Is Gore’s Global Warming Just Another Narcissistic Leftist Fantasy?

And

Al Gore Causes Global Warming.

The second post, in which I ridiculed the Left’s useless suggestions for decreasing pollution, and then suggested raising money for “Global Warming” programs by making star-studded environmental disaster movies, was published years ago at the now dead and defunct GNN.tv (where a damned lack of upkeep and organization on the part of the owners killed a most promising endeavor).

The post caused a furor of galactic proportions, as the users declared that I was an ‘environmental hater’ and ‘global warming denier’ and some such variety of things. I explained my long-standing vegetarian lifestyle, lack of auto, intentional lack of contribution to the factory farming industry, and my feeling for the eternal, transcendent living world, of which nature is one of the truest, or most direct manifestations.

‘Screw you,’ was the response, ‘if you don’t love Pope Gore.’
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Let me ask my friends, especially my liberal friends, the following question: What’s the last large Government-run program that went really reeeaally well?

I mean, when was the last time that a large, costly, immense, gargantuan, nation-straddling tax-and-spend program came in within. . . oh. . . 150 percent of its original budget? 200 percent?

Some large Government-run programs of the past 40 years:

• The Vietnam “police action”
• The Iraq “democratization”
• “No child left behind”

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It’s historic, and I congratulate, and embrace my finally multi-cultural-to-the-top nation. (If “Harvard” equals “multicultural). But, whatever, I get it, and wish the dude well. But it’s gonna be rough seas, Captain.

So, who has made the best, most prescient, and most succinct political analysis thus far?

None other than my childhood touchstone, Mad Magazine?
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I present for your edification and enjoyment, two chapters from Mark Twain’s short biography of one “Will Shaksper”, or William Shakespeare, the man from Stratford. Twain, nee Clemens, had some singular and small doubts about some of the more popular claims about this great writer (for example, that he was who he was claimed to be).

But, I’ll say no more, and let the great Mississippi Riverboat Pilot speak for himself.
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You’ve heard the news?

Court Voids Gay Marriage Ban. California [Here].

And I’ve heard the radio talk-show hounds tell me that it’s “Anti-Democratic! Against the Will of the People to have a Law Forced into Our Lives!”

(But we’ve heard that before….)
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And it’s so clear, straightforward and logical, that you’re gonna have a “Why isn’t that already a LAW!” moment, I guarantee.

Let’s call it….

The XXVIII Amendment:

No Children,

No Siblings,

And No Spouses.

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Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands.

Also, on one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said Christopher [Columbus] has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of diverse kinds and qualities.

Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes, after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of the rise and spread of the Catholic faith, as was the fashion of your ancestors, kings of renowned memory, you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to the Catholic faith.

Europe finds its legal rationale for the taking of the Americas. Do it in the name of God, almighty. Really, it’s our duty! (The gold, spices and very many precious things don’t hurt, neither).

Today we’d say they all had “Aids”, or “Bird Flu”, and we needed to condomize, spray, spay and neuter them. And so we would try. But then, it was a simpler time, and conversion to the faith was more straightforward.

Spain was awarded the Americas by Pope Alexander VI, (a friend of the family), while Portugal had been awarded Africa by his predecessor (a friend of the Portuguese royal family). So it goes. (Keep friends in high places, I suppose, is the lesson).

The Papal Bulls as Pertaining to the Americas

Read the rest Here

We [therefore] weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso—to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery …

The Colonial Impulse finds its method in Africa. Convert them? Maybe, maybe not. Take their property? Of course! But first and foremost, Enslave them.

The Bull Romanus Pontifex

Read the rest Here

The Father of our Country was a practical man, to be sure. How to deal with a never-ceasing enemy? When killing them won’t work, use the coin. Below find reprinted a letter from George Washington to James Duane, dated September 7, 1783, in which General, and President Washington gives expression to an ever-evolving idea:

How to deal with those not of your tribe, whose land and possessions you want to hold? Accuse them of attacking you. Once defeated, drive them to extinction. But how?

War is more expensive than undermining their rights through the manipulations afforded through commerce. Taking “their country” from the Indians, writes Washington, “is like driving the Wild Beasts of the Forest which will return as soon as the pursuit is at an end and fall perhaps on those that are left there.”

It is dangerous business, he councils, to wage war on an such an adversary as this. Better, he says, to overwhelm those, “Wild Beasts of the Forest” by purchase of their lands:

”[W]hen the gradual extension of our Settlements will as certainly cause the Savage as the Wolf to retire; both being beasts of prey tho’ they differ in shape. In a word there is nothing to be obtained by an Indian War but the Soil they live on and this can be had by purchase at less expence, and without that bloodshed, and those distresses which helpless Women and Children are made partakers of in all kinds of disputes with them.”

This is the progression from the Crusades ethos or philosophy, which stated that land could and should be taken from the Infidel, Pagan, and Saracen (muslim) by order of almighty God, for the purposes of training the uncivil hordes in the ways of European grace. By the 1800s, the argument had moved to a more openly economic rationale – that plus Manifest Destiny – which is, in effect, the same as the Crusade rationale.

Today we use tools like “Sars”, “Bird Flu” and “Aids” to infiltrate and overthrow national sovereignty, and to push the poor, uncivil, and “infidel” out of the way.

Read the Rest Here

I’d like to be a bee and other poems, from Introduction to Italian Poetry

Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

“Un’ape esser vorrei”
I’d like to be a bee

Un’ape esser vorrei,
Donna bella e crudele,
Che susurrando in voi suggese il mele

I’d like to be a bee, beautiful (and cruel) lady, who, murmuring, would suck the honey in you,

E, non potendo il cor, potesse almeno
Pungervi ‘l bianco seno

And, not being able to reach your heart, could at least, sting your white breast,

E ‘n si dolce ferita
Vendicata lasciar la propria vita.

And in so sweet a wound, leave my own life, avenged.

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I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against my conscience is neither right nor safe. – Martin Luther at his hearing, 1521

From Will Durant’s Heroes of History, abbreviated from his Story of Civilization Volume 6, The Reformation. Read more WillDurant.com

Luther Growing (1483-1517)

The man who was to have more influence upon subsequent history than anyone but Copernicus and Columbus was born in Eisleben, Germany, to a peasant-then-miner named Hans Luther and his wife Margarethe. Frightened by a theology of terror and punishment, they brought up their children with such rigor of word and rod that the “severe and harsh life I led with them,” recalled Luther, “was the reason that I afterward took refuge in the cloister and became a monk.”

Parents and children believed in angels, witches, and demons roaming in the air, and in a God condemned the larger part of his human creations to an everlasting hell. Martin met his tribulations with a vigor of body and will that molded his rough features and kept him undefeated to his death.

At school in Mansfeld there were more rods and catechism. martin was flogged (we are told) fifteen times in a day for misdeclining a noun. At fourteen he was transferred to the School of St. George at Eisenach, and had three relatively happy years in the comfortable home of Frau Cotta.

He never forgot her remark that there was nothing on earth more precious than the love of a good woman. In this atmosphere he developed the natural charms of youth—health, cheerfulness, sociability, frankness. He sang well and played the lute.

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I’m going to China… The thought is sinking in…

Mostly because it’s true, but also because it’s happening soon (3+ weeks), and I have so much to do before I go…

Empty an apartment, get rid of furniture, box the remaining books, and figure out what to do with the bits of a/v cable, stacked data CDs, (curiously but indecipherably scribbled on in permanant marker), audio tapes scattered under a cabinet, clothes I won’t wear for 4 months, or maybe a year…

In a short time, this and all manner of flim-flam will hit the Goodwill, sidewalk, or, (with alligator tears)…the garbage.

Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and environs. And then into Japan, for a couple of weeks. (C’est cher la bas).

I’ve been exposing my ears and mind to the sound of Mandarin. Ni Hao, back atcha.

Chinese: Four words out of one syllable: Ma, ma, ma and ma. One like a sigh, one a statement, and two as questions expecting very different answers.

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