Website Updates

September 27th, 2014 → 5:34 am

“Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.” – King Lear

If you’re wondering where the last couple of posts went, they disappeared!  Literally!  We’re in the process of changing hosting services for this website and, well, things got a bit messed up this week.  Hold tight till we know the new server is up and running correctly…

Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life

ISIS Guest Post – Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

September 19th, 2014 → 5:30 am

“Lend Me Your Ears – Messages from the British Detainee John Cantlie.”

This was the title of a video released by ISIS on YouTube yesterday.  Let me add more from the famous Lend Me Your Ears speech in Julius Caesar:

    “O judgment!  thou art fled to brutish beasts,
    And men have lost their reason.  Bear with me;
    My  heart is in the coffin there with [James Foley],
    And I must pause till it come back to me.”
     

Filed under: Blog & Stupid/Evil People

Ebola

September 17th, 2014 → 5:46 am

“I found him under a tree like a dropped acorn.” – As You Like It

I keep reading reports, posted alongside gruesome photos, of people dying in the streets, outside of hospitals, under trees and beside rivers where the Ebola virus struck them down or family members abandoned them for fear of catching the disease themselves.  It is ghastly.

Filed under: Blog & Other

Guest Post – Shakespeare Deniers

September 14th, 2014 → 5:53 am

“You are as a candle, the better part burnt out.” – Henry IV, Part II

Apparently the age-old Shakespeare denier conspiracy theorists are at it again.  This time a bunch of scholarly professors, battling out whether the theory is worth an academic publication or not.  I can tell you that I did do a bit of research on this myself a number of years ago, and I found it all bunk.  No one wrote Shakespeare but Shakespeare.

Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Stupid/Evil People

Unwitting Guest Post – A Ferguson Mother

September 12th, 2014 → 5:52 am

“I don’t take sides.  At the end of the day, whoever gets cut, they’re going to bleed red.” – Chamaya Johnson

I read this quote from a Ferguson, MO mother the other day and I was struck by how much it echoed Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice:  “If you prick us, do we not bleed?  If you tickle us, do we not laugh?  If you poison us, do we not die?”  We are all human.  We are all in this together.  Amen.

Filed under: Blog & Other

Marriage

September 10th, 2014 → 6:54 am

“Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee.” – All’s Well That Ends Well

Two girlfriends of mine just announced their engagements this week.  How exciting!

Filed under: Blog & Other

Schoolwork

September 7th, 2014 → 5:41 am

“Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun.” – Love’s Labor’s Lost

We’re three weeks into the fall semester and homeworks are being turned in, essay written, exams stressed over.  All you students with slumped shoulders and drawn-out gait, remember, that study is like heaven’s glorious sun – as it brings knowledge, light, certainty, and understanding.  What could be better?

Filed under: Blog & Other

Andrew Madoff

September 4th, 2014 → 6:08 am

    “Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;
    And let us all to meditation.” – Henry VI

Bernie Madoff‘s second son, Andrew, died yesterday.  His first son committed suicide two years to the day of his father’s conviction.   Andrew died of cancer, but he has said the cancer came because of the stress of his father’s actions.  I don’t know if the sons are also guilty (they always claimed innocence), but their death is certainly tragic.  The entire Madoff arc is tragic.  One big, enormous, heartbreaking tragedy.

Filed under: Blog & Other & Stupid/Evil People

To Laborers on Labor Day

September 1st, 2014 → 6:04 am

    “I am a true laborer; I earn that I eat,
    get that I wear, owe no man hate,
    envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good,
    content with my harm.” – As You Like It

We should all be so lucky… 

(Note: “harm” here means the burdens of life.)

Filed under: Blog & Other