"The Marxist Professor"

A vote for the Marxist professor
. . Hastens our decline
Who says his predecessor
. . Arose from deepest brine?

October 30, 2011

"Somewhere an Ass is Braying"

Somewhere an ass is braying
To punctuate our Gloom
Somewhere a nun is praying
To save us from our Doom.

October 27, 2011

Shakespeare signs covered in protest of 'Anonymous' film

"Shakespeare is at the core of England's cultural and historical DNA, and he is certainly our most famous export. Today's activity barely scratches the surface, but we hope it will remind people of the enormous legacy we owe to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon."

SEE: BBC News

Rebuttal to James Shapiro's NY Times column

Dear NY Times: If you fact-checked the column by James Shapiro (Oct 17) you would do your readers a great favor. Here are some of the lies in that column that any responsible reporter would have questioned:

1. Lie #1- The lesson plans by Sony Pictures are being distributed to literature and history teachers “in the hope of convincing them that Shakespeare was a fraud.” Not true. These plans are being provided to teachers to inform them about the authorship controversy, which has been subject to much censorship in the academic world, and to encourage students to think for themselves on this controversial issue.
2. Lie #2- J. Thomas Looney [pronounced LONE-ee] “loathed democracy and modernity” and argued that “only a worldly nobleman could have created such works of genus.” Not true. Looney was a schoolmaster who was dissatisfied with teaching the traditional biography of Shakespeare, who argued that the Bard’s marvelous works revealed characteristics that we would expect to find in the author. These traits included a superior education, knowledge of several languages, familiarity with European courts and powerful aristocrats, some ambivalence about women, and so forth. Shapiro’s ad hominem attack attempts to paint this sincere, dedicated teacher as a snob. That oft-repeated accusation has been decisively refuted by many brilliant non-snobs who question whether the Stratford businessman had the background necessary to have produced works of such profound knowledge and literary talent as Shakespeare produced.
3. Lie #3 – “Promoters of de Vere’s cause have a lot of evidence to explain away, including testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else that confirms that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him.” Not true. These supposed records either refer to non-literary court records about the Stratford man’s legal problems or they refer to the author by his pen name, “William Shakespeare” — like saying “Mark Twain wrote Mark Twain‘s work.” They do not in any way “confirm” that the Stratford resident is the same person as the author.
4. Lie #4 – This one is REALLY a whopper! “not a shred of documentary evidence has ever been found that connects de Vere to any of the plays or poems” Demonstrably untrue. Many scholars have provided documentary evidence of de Vere’s writing talent in letters and published poetry. There is also printed evidence that he was regarded by his peers as being a talented playwright and poet. Many scholars have provided evidence that de Vere had the background necessary to write the plays, including ability to read classic Greek and Latin works that had not been translated into English, evidence of travel through Italy in places accurately described in the plays, and so forth. Researchers are somewhat frustrated by the fact that de Vere’s malicious father-in-law suppressed or destroyed evidence that might have proved one way or the other that he wrote the plays and the sonnets. Ironically, it is the Stratford-worshippers who have never produced one single piece of writing in Shakespeare’s hand, and no documentary proof that Mr. Shakspere (that’s how he spelled his own name) attended the Stratford Grammar School (those records have been destroyed).
5. Lie #5 might be convincing if it were true. “The greatest obstacle facing de Vere’s supporters is that he died in 1604, before 10 or so of Shakespeare’s plays were written.” The truth is that nobody knows when the plays were written. We only know when they were performed and when they were published (sometimes in pirated quartos as “anonymous” work). Dr. Shapiro cannot explain why Mr. Shaxpere (another way that he spelled his name) did not edit his own plays for publication during his years of retirement, if indeed he were the same person as the famous author. The First Folio was not printed until 1623, long after Mr. Shagspere’s death (another way that he spelled his name). And the Sonnets were published in 1609, while Mr. Shakspere was alive, yet the Dedication refers to the author as “ever-living” — which means that the author is dead, but his works are still immortal.
6. Lie #6 – “later de Vere advocates . . . claimed that de Vere was Elizabeth’s illegitimate son and therefore the rightful heir to the English throne.” There are only two strong advocates for the “incest theory,” and the movie does not give this theory any credence (the subject is mentioned and then dismissed as a lie). On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that Elizabeth had a love affair with Edward de Vere, and at least one noted historian reports a rumor that they had a love-child who was being raised as the Third Earl of Southampton. Those Oxfordians who find that to be a credible scenario would consider Southampton the possible heir to the throne. The first 17 sonnets are addressed to the “Fair Youth” that a consensus of Shakespeare scholars believe to be Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton. That makes a lot of sense when you read those sonnets as being from a loving father to the son that he cannot acknowledge, as he says in Sonnet 36:

I may not evermore acknowledge thee
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor you with public kindness honor me,
Unless thou tak’st that honor from thy name.
So let us indeed stop telling lies to school children. Let’s give them the facts — ALL the facts, not just those carefully selected by the traditionalists who have maintained a taboo over the subject of the authorship for decades now. Students can learn to think for themselves, and Roland Emmerich will give them much more to think about than Dr. Shapiro has done.

---

Helen Heightsman Gordon, M.A., Ed. D., is an English professor emeritus of Bakersfield College in Bakersfield, California, and the author of “The Secret Love Story in Shakespeare’s Sonnets [2008].

DANGER: Watching This Video Could Change Your Mind

"Sprays the Man With Mace"

Right there in its name
Right there on its face
Puts the man to shame
Sprays the man with mace.

October 22, 2011

I Think It Works!!

I fashioned my own one of these AM radio antennas . .

And it seems to help.  Using heavier wire than necessary, I'm sure, don't have it by the window, and haven't really turned it too much (supposed to be directional, the frequency).

What I really need is one that trains in on the signal automatically--not to mention a remote with a seek function.    These AM stations tend to go in-and-out.

For now, though, I'm happy to have stations hanging around a little longer, a little louder, and a little clearer.  Lots of interesting broadcasts after the sun goes down.

Twitter Micropoets

PS SMS: "Since twitter has become a great outlet for micropoets, it’s only natural to create a list of twitter micropoets."

'via Blog this'

"I Believe in Second Chances"

I believe in second chances
Don't you?
I believe in chance romances
(We're through.)

October 13, 2011

"To Talk to Alcohol"

To talk to alcohol
Gets nowhere at all
What's said is not remembered
Lest from host dismembered.

October 13, 2011

Roland Emmerich: 10 Reasons Why Shakespeare Is a Fraud

Roland Emmerich, director of ANONYMOUS (which opens October 28), offers his top ten reasons why the official Shakespeare story doesn't add up:

1. not a single document--play, poem, letter--has been found in his hand
2. both of his daughters were illiterate
3. he wrote from the aristocratic perspective, and obsessively about the royal court, yet he was lower class
4. six 'shaky' signatures are all we have in his hand--he apparently had difficulty signing his own name
5. not a single play or poem reflects his life
6. no record proves he attended (even) grammar school
7. retired in his 40s to Stratford, and wrote nothing there
8. never traveled outside England, but wrote with great knowledge of foreign lands
9. the original statue of him at his graveside in Stratford shows him holding a sack of grain
10. his last will and testament mentions no literary works

Video: Roland Emmerich examines the arguments against Shakspere

The Oxfordian Godfather (and Oxfordian Silence)

According to Peter W. Dickson . .

• J. Thomas Looney did not include knowledge of the law in his original eighteen (18) indicators to help identify the author of the works attributed to 'Shakespeare'.
  
• Looney, the 'Godfather of the Oxfordian movement', must have known the work of the barrister Sir George Greenwood, who became a member of the first Oxfordian-related organization in the 1920s in Britain (The Shakespeare Fellowship), and others before him, who noted the Bard's deep familiarity with the law, legal teminology, etc. which Stratfordians cannot easily explain with their candidate.
  
• in his 1920 book "Shakespeare" Identified Looney postulated a second pen or second Bard -- whom he refused to identify -- to explain certain dramas that reflect the Bard's strong connection to the Lancashire region and the Lancastrian cause during the War of the Roses.
  
• Looney came close to accepting in his subsequent debate in The National Review with the Derby advocate (MacDonald Lucas) in 1922-1923 that De Vere's own son-in-law (Derby) had a role.
  
• Four Stratfordians -- Canino, Daugherty, Manley, and Ian Wilson -- seem in their books tantalizingly close to suggesting that Ferdinando Stanley (Lord Strange, patron of Lord Strange's Men) was the dramatist for the H6 Trilogy plus Richard III.
  
• But they have to back off to minimize the import of Burghley's sudden rush to marry Oxford's daughter to William Stanley while Ferdinando's body was still warm.
  
• Daugherty's book instead of having the phrase Shakespeare's Patron in the title could have easily read The Assassination of Shakespeare: Investigating the Death of the Fifth Earl of Derby.
  
• Canino addresses the Stanley-Shakespeare relationship in Shakespeare and the Nobility where she underscores the massive power and wealth this family accumulated during the War of the Roses and the first 50-60 years of the Tudor era by always picking the winning side in unpredictable upheavals.
  
  • The family invested heavily in the arts, theater, and world of entertainment, far more than Oxford.
    
  • Their luck ran out in part because Ferdinando and William's mother (the Countess of Derby), who had an unrivaled legal claim to the English throne, was a spendthrift who nearly bankrupted the family.
    
  • Canino gives more detail on the vicissitudes of the Stanleys over their long run at the top of the heap of British politics, but she recoils when it comes to the Oxford/de Vere-Derby marriage in 1595.
    
• Greenblatt and Ackroyd, enthralled with the story about Fernando and Stratford for them had to be one of Fernando's actors/dramatists -- they only make passing reference to this marriage in 1595 of Fernando's brother to whom? to Burghley's granddaughter.
  
• Greenblatt and Ackroyd 'choke and gag' at the thought of saying 'marriage to Oxford's daughter'; thus they keep hidden from readers any Oxfordian-Derby overlap or symbiosis.
  
• the Stanleys with their vast estates and extravagant court -- what the Queen called "the Northern Court" -- were primed to take over after her death. This is clear and cannot be denied if you read Daugherty's new book.

Peter W. Dickson
pwdbard@aol.com
703/243-6641

"Christmastime in Crunchyville"

It's Christmastime in Crunchyville
Granola hangs from trees
Everything sustainable
So Mother Earth agrees.

October 8, 2011

"With Each Boozy Breath"

The rest of the family drinks
. . Is drinking itself to death
The hopeful future shrinks
. . With each boozy breath.

October 8, 2011

"The One-Ton Pumpkin"

The one-ton pumpkin
. . Goal of every farmer
Suits a country bumpkin
. . Like a plate of armor.

October 7, 2011

"Not a Logical Construction"

Not a logical construction
. . But a fraud
A fraudulent deflection
. . By a broad.

Logic makes it
. . Come undone
And puts the wild chick
. . On the run.
October 7, 2011

'The Nine-Spotted Ladybug'

The nine-spotted ladybug
. . Lost to all the World
Has made a big resurgence
. . Extinction she has hurled.
October 6, 2011

Popular Narrative Poems: September 2011

The website traffic counter my 'web guy' set up for me says the narrative poem index is the sixth largest entry page.

Popular in September

1. "The Man Who Wrote Shakespeare"
   
2. "The Madness of Heracles"
   
3. "I Asked the Angels"
   
4. "Confession"
   
5. "Dionysus"
   
6. "When Love Met Hate on the Causeway"
   
7. "The Man Who Saved History"
   
8. "An End to War"
   
9. "Orion"

Narrative poems made up all of the poetry receiving traffic--until the sonnet "What If Everything I Know Is Wrong" comes up.