"Lincoln" smears Connecticut.

"I could not believe my own eyes and ears," said Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney. "Placing the State of Connecticut on the wrong side of the historic and divisive fight over slavery is a distortion of easily verifiable facts."

"It is historical fiction -- a noble genre going back to Shakespeare and well before -- not history," [said Columbia University historian Eric Foner].

And yet we're pressured to go see that movie because of the way it explains history. 

By coincidence, Shakespeare is getting some negative press this week, after bones found under a parking lot in England were determined to have belonged to Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, supplanted by the Tudors, whom Shakespeare had reason to flatter as he portrayed Richard III as a villain.

No “bunch-backed toad,” no “slave of nature and the son of hell,” no “bottled spider,” the exhumed Richard is enjoying a remake as a physically challenged fellow with spinal curvature who might have starred in last year’s London Paralympics if given the chance.

Alas he got clobbered several times with a halberd (presumably wielded by a halberdier ignoring late 15th century safety regulations), and may have suffered the ignominy of being sodomized with an unlicensed dagger while being carried naked on horseback to Leicester. ....

“I’ve spoken to scoliosis experts and they say acute scoliosis like that was painful,” Philippa Langley, a Richard III enthusiast, told The Guardian. “So we know that he was working through the pain barrier every day just to do his job.... He had an incredibly powerful, strong work ethic. This man never stopped. He was on a horse every day, fighting skirmishes, doing everything they had to do.”

Imagine a movie about Lincoln that does not cater to the tastes of the present-day dynasty. There's plenty of old material to rake over. He wasn't called "bunch-backed toad" or a "bottled spider," but he was called "The obscene ape of Illinois." And:

The illustrious Honest Old Abe has continued during the last week to make a fool of himself and to mortify and shame the intelligent people of this great nation. His speeches have demonstrated the fact that although originally a Herculean rail splitter and more lately a whimsical story teller and side splitter, he is no more capable of becoming a statesman, nay, even a moderate one, than the braying ass can become a noble lion. People now marvel how it came to pass that Mr. Lincoln should have been selected as the representative man of any party. His weak, wishy-washy, namby-pamby efforts, imbecile in matter, disgusting in manner, have made us the laughing stock of the whole world. The European powers will despise us because we have no better material out of which to make a President. The truth is, Lincoln is only a moderate lawyer and in the larger cities of the Union could pass for no more than a facetious pettifogger. Take him from his vocation and he loses even these small characteristics and indulges in simple twaddle which would disgrace a well bred school boy.

"A team of archaeologists confirmed Monday that ancient remains found under a parking lot belong to long-lost King Richard III..."

"The verification came after scientific tests were used to match DNA samples taken from Canadian-born Michael Ibsen, a direct descendent of Anne of York, Richard’s elder sister."

Richard III supporters such as Philippa Langley, a screenwriter and member of the Richard III Society, were driven to find the lost king’s remains by a desire to reopen the debate over his place in history....

“I think the discovery brought the real Richard into sharp focus,” Langley said. “People are realizing that a lot of what they thought they knew about Richard III was pretty much propaganda and myth building.”

Why does finding the body have anything to do with the historical project of finding out what really happened in the past? There's something in the human psyche that makes us care about an ancient controversy because we are confronted with the man's bones. But there is also some relevant evidence:

Trauma analysis of the skeleton found 10 battle wounds, eight on the skull and two on the body, which were inflicted around the time of death, according to Jo Appleby, project osteologist of the University of Leicester. Many of the wounds provided evidence of “post-mortem humiliation injuries,” exacted on Richard III after death by his adversaries.

It looked a little something like this:



Warning: That was propaganda. And Class A scenery chewing.

By the way: As I was setting up that clip for the embed, Meade came over and said: "From just the audio, I couldn't tell if that was Laurence Olivier or a Monty Python parody."

ADDED: There's a Richard III ward in the Hospital for Overacting:

"It is with the greatest confidence that I will pass on the throne on April 30 to my son, Prince of Orange."

Says the Queen of Purple.



I mean Queen Beatrix.

"Can you tell us a little bit about how you've gone about intellectually preparing for your second term as president?"

The New Republic promotes its "redesign" in email that says I "signed up to get an early look at." (I did?) I'm sent to this interview with Obama, which takes so absurdly long to load that I go off and write other posts before rediscovering the open tab. I see Obama's smiling eyes peeking out over the top of the headline "Barack Obama is Not Pleased." I pause and contemplate 2 things: 1. Do the redesigners not understand the rules of capitalization? and, 2. Did they intend to allude to the famous Queen Victoria quote "We are not amused" — that is, did they intend to imply that Obama uses the royal "we"?

The subtitle is "The president on his enemies, the media, and the future of football," so I guess that's what he's "not pleased" about. I can see not being pleased by one's enemies, but how can he not be pleased by the media? The media fawn over him. What more can he want? And the future of football... I guess TNR threw that in to signal that there's going to be some fun somewhere on this page that took so long to load.

I scroll down past 6 paragraphs of introductory text to get to the actual interview, and that's the first question: "Can you tell us a little bit about how you've gone about intellectually preparing for your second term as president?" See what I mean about fawning? My first bite of the "redesign" is thoroughly cloying. It seems to be cloying even to Obama. He says:

I'm not sure it's an intellectual exercise as much as it is reminding myself of why I ran for president and tapping into what I consider to be the innate common sense of the American people.

I wish I could read what went through his head when he heard that question, before he said, in so many words, that's a stupid question. I think it was something like: These elite media guys are so in love with their idea of me as an intellectual. 

That first question was asked by Chris Hughes. It took 2 fawning elite media guys to interview Obama. The other one is Franklin Foer, and his first question is: "How do you speak to gun owners in a way that doesn't make them feel as if you're impinging upon their liberty?" Later, FF comes up with:

Sticking with the culture of violence, but on a much less dramatic scale: I'm wondering if you, as a fan, take less pleasure in watching football, knowing the impact that the game takes on its players.

Wait. We were talking about the "culture of violence" when we talked about gun rights and we're continuing to talk about "the culture of violence" when we talk about football?! Noted.

By the way, credit to FF for extracting from Obama that he shoots guns "all the time," "up at Camp David," where "we do skeet shooting." I never hear about Obama going to Camp David. Where are the photos of Obama skeet shooting at Camp David?

There's some mystery within that pronoun "we."

Danny Boyle has declined a knighthood.

He's about being "an equal citizen," he says.

Who else has declined a knighthood? Among others:

David Bowie, musician
Francis Crick, physicist and Nobel Prize winner
Michael Faraday, scientist
Albert Finney, actor
E. M. Forster, author and essayist
Michael Frayn, novelist and dramatist
John Galsworthy, playwright and novelist
Graham Greene, novelist
Stephen Hawking, scientist
David Hockney, CH, RA, artist
Aldous Huxley, author
Rudyard Kipling, author
Henry Moore, sculptor
J.B. Priestley, novelist and playwright
George Bernard Shaw, playwright and critic
Paul Scofield, actor
Ralph Vaughan Williams composer
H.G. Wells, writer

Meanwhile, also at the link: Winston Churchill declined a Dukedom, Neville Chamberlain declined an earldom, John Cleese declined a barony, and John Lennon returned his MBE "in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts."

The United States is constitutionally forbidden to grant titles of nobility. How different would we be now if we'd been doing that sort of thing all these years?

Dignities and high sounding names have different effects on different beholders. The lustre of the Star and the title of My Lord, over-awe the superstitious vulgar, and forbid them to inquire into the character of the possessor: Nay more, they are, as it were, bewitched to admire in the great, the vices they would honestly condemn in themselves. This sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

Said Thomas Paine.

"Kate Middleton's pregnancy: 10 stories I don't want to read."

Aw, come on. We're not supposed to amuse ourselves with the reproduction of the royals?

"The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby..."

"... St James's Palace has announced."

"Their Royal Highnesses had every expectation of privacy in the remote house.

"It is unthinkable that anyone should take such photographs, let alone publish them... The incident is reminiscent of the worst excesses of the press and paparazzi during the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, and all the more upsetting to the Duke and Duchess for being so."

"Ann Romney slammed for $990 Shirt, Michelle Obama praised for $6,800 jacket."

What a sharply tailored double standard!

But let's take a closer look. Michelle Obama was consorting with royalty and representing the United States at a very posh event of the highest importance to Great Britain. Her clothes had to express our country's respect. They had to be completely appropriate and a thorough defense against criticism, as she would be minutely examined by hundreds of millions of persons, many of whom love to slag her, especially when they get their hands on pictures of her next to Kate Middleton, the #1 fashion icon in the world, whom the Brits love to fawn over and adore. Do you think that's was all narcissistic fun for Michelle? Remember last time she was photographed with Kate? Everyone went wild over Kate's simple beige dress, while Michelle stood there in something very shiny and colorful that ended up looking really awful. There was a lot of pressure to get it right this time, and she did. It was pretty, it was flattering, it was not overly showy, and it was appropriate for the occasion.

Ann Romney was going on TV in that $990 short. It was just another public appearance. She needed to look pretty and appropriate, but there was no gala event and no anticipation of comparisons with other women. She could have worn a $25 long-sleeved black top and been perfectly fine. No one would have thought to ask about it. But she wore a top with a giant photograph of a yellow fish printed across her chest. Of course everyone's going to talk about it. Naturally, we found out the price of the shirt. We wanted to know all about it. It was so in our face, that fish face. Ann Romney and her stylists chose to make us talk about her fish shirt. They knew many of us would be flummoxed by the style, that we'd hear the price, and we'd be all you paid a thousand dollars for that?! It's not just that the very rich lady wears thousand-dollar shirts. It was that particular shirt. It shouted at us that she wanted to be judged as a style icon. She wanted to stir it up. Maybe she wanted at least some of us to think: It will really be fun to have her as our First Lady.

In short: This isn't proof of a double standard. The 2 things compared are not equivalent. (And I'm currently really disgusted with the extreme pro-Obama bias in the press. It was going to be the first thing I blogged about this morning, but I got distracted. So I am absolutely not a defender of the neutrality of the press.)

"Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own."

I didn't write this on my own. In fact, I didn't write it at all. Meade wrote this:

Lord North: Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by colonists and yeomen who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.

George Washington: Without our consent, we reject your taxes.

Lord North: There are a lot of smart people out there in the New World. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking British subjects of the Crown out there.

Thomas Jefferson: Stop coercing us, Lord North. Your Acts are intolerable.

Lord North: If you yankees were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great King somewhere in your life. Some members of Parliament helped to create this unbelievable Royal Navy system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in French and Indian Wars and the East India Company.



Alexander Hamilton: The King is your king. He is only our king by our agreement.

Lord North: If you've got a medical practice or silver smithery or a cabinetmaking business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The printing press didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the printing press so that all the pamphleteers could make money off the printing press.

Sam Adams: Hey, Lord North, shove your Stamp Act where the sun don't set.

Lord North: All right, all right - everybody just calm down. In politics, we all tolerate a certain amount of spin. I understand these are the games that get played in political campaigns. Although when folks just, like, omit entire sentences of what you said, they start kind of splicing and dicing, you may have gone a little over the edge there, you pesky Americans.

"What else an one expect from a Republican magazine, they probably dislike themselves."

Outrage over photoshopping Kate Middleton's teeth for a magazine cover about how something's "rotten" in Great Britain. But the magazine is The New Republic... not the New Republican.

"Nothing of importance happened today."

Wrote King George III in his diary, July 4, 1776. Not. He didn't even keep a diary.

From a list of "10 Things You Didn't Know About the Fourth of July."

Happy 4th!

Also, a Meadhouse dialogue:

MEADE (singing): We carried you in our arms...

ME: Why are you singing "Tears of Rage"?

MEADE (talk singing): ... on Independence Day...

ME: Oh....

And here I was thinking he was reading about the Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise divorce, within which there's the topic of Suri getting carried everywhere. I'd just read: "Kids as young as five can be sent to the military like Sea Org. I’m guessing she can’t bring her child-heels or get carried everywhere, which is something Katie would not approve of."

Oh what dear daughter ’neath the sun
Would treat a father so
To wait upon him hand and foot
And always tell him, “No?”

That's what Bob asked, mysteriously. Who is this daughter who always says "no," but waits upon him hand and foot? She sounds pretty devoted. The opposite of a daughter who says "yes," but does nothing. I'm assuming the official Bob Dylan website erroneously placed the question mark inside the quotation mark.

Perhaps the song really is about Independence Day, and the daughter is the United States, carried in the arms of England....

"I think if I work very hard, I should be able to gather the fruits of my labor."

"And I think if you’re not about to work, you should get minimal and leave me alone. I think if you don’t wear a helmet and you fall off your bike, you pay for the doctor."

Says Joan Rivers, who denies she's making a political statement. She hates politics.

"They’re all a bunch of garbage... I’m definitely in favor of a monarchy because they’re there, they look good, and they always have good gift shops when you leave the palace. … I feel that it’s just all about party affiliation and it’s all about voting the way your party wants to vote and it’s not at all about what we should be about."

(Here's a movie about Joan Rivers. It's really good. One of the very few movies I've seen in the theater in the last 3 years. )

One year into Obama's presidency, David Brooks wrote "he has come to seem like the sovereign on the cover of 'Leviathan'..."

"... the brain of the nation to which all the cells in the body and the nervous system must report and defer."

Brooks is talking about the bookcover that illustrates the previous post ("Romney, the man who says 'marvelous'"). He writes that "the illustration shows the British nation as a large man. The people make up the muscles and flesh. Then at the top, there is the king, who is the head and the mind."

Does Brooks marvel at Obama visualized as a large man and  we us the People as the muscles and flesh that constitute his body? Did Brooks abase himself and slobber that much?

In many ways, Barack Obama has lived up to his promise. He has created a thoughtful, pragmatic administration marked by a culture of honest and vigorous debate. When Obama makes a decision, you can be sure that he has heard and accounted for every opposing argument. If he senses an important viewpoint is not represented at a meeting, he will stop the proceedings and demand that it gets included.

Oh, brother.

If the evidence leads him in directions he finds uncomfortable, he will still follow the evidence. He is beholden to no ideological camp, and there is no group in his political base that he has not angered at some point in his first year.

But his has become a voracious pragmatism. Driven by circumstances and self-confidence, the president has made himself the star performer in the national drama. He has been ubiquitous, appearing everywhere, trying to overhaul most sectors of national life: finance, health, energy, automobiles and transportation, housing, and education, among others.

He is no ideologue, but over the past year he has come to seem like the sovereign on the cover of “Leviathan” — the brain of the nation to which all the cells in the body and the nervous system must report and defer.

Oh, my lord. Defer! Defer has been a big word these past 2 weeks, as the Obama administration demanded deference from the judiciary.

The country is now split on Obama, because he is temperate, thoughtful and pragmatic, but his policies are almost all unpopular....

Many Democrats, as always, are caught in their insular liberal information loop. They think the polls are bad simply because the economy is bad. They tell each other health care is unpopular because the people aren’t sophisticated enough to understand it. Some believe they can still pass health care even if their candidate, Martha Coakley, loses the Senate race in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

That, of course, would be political suicide. It would be the act of a party so arrogant, elitist and contemptuous of popular wisdom that it would not deserve to govern. Marie Antoinette would applaud, but voters would rage.

Oh, really? How's that rage going these days? Rage or deference? What are you seeing?

If I were President Obama, I would spend the next year showing how government can serve a humble, helpful and supportive role to the central institutions of American life. Even in blue states like Massachusetts, voters want a government that is energetic but limited — a servant, not a leviathan.

But as brooks are not oceans, Brooks is not Obama. And Obama did not take that advice. "Political suicide" was committed. Is it noticeable? The health care bill was passed, even after Ms. Coakley lost. And now, the people — who made it perfectly clear at the time and continue to make it clear that they did not like Obama's policies — look to the Court to save them from the Leviathan, and the Leviathan says defer.

"TIL the practice of 'ace-high' in card games first gained popularity after the French Revolution..."

"... it represented the promotion of the 'common man' over royalty and the nobility."

TIL = today I learned (chez Reddit).

"Barack Obama was probably not aware that he was doing anything unusual when making a toast 'to the Queen' and then continuing with a short speech."

BBC explains:

According to protocol, however, he should have stopped after the toast.

The band, taking its cue from the word Queen, struck up with the national anthem leaving the president struggling to make himself heard.

What happens when the Queen is toasted is all part of protocol, an elaborate set of customs and rules that govern interactions with the British royal family....

[I]t stems from a time when monarchs were accorded an almost divine status and had to be treated accordingly....

Whatever the original or the details, the President intended and wanted to follow the protocol, and somebody on his staff did him a grave disservice by not making absolutely certain he was getting it right. 

I find toast-botch too painful to mock.

What if you gave a toast and nobody raised their glass with you, because they were in the middle of a solemn ritual that you had thought was the solemn ritual that is your toast but was their national anthem and the elderly queen was queenly enough to say gently to you "that's very kind"? You would carefully place your glass on the table and stand stiffly like everyone else and hope that the wide frown on your face expressed not your nightmare experience but some simulacrum of the "national anthem face" you should have had there all along, when you were blabbing that Shakespeare — Shakespeare! — to try to butter them up about what a great country they think they have. Oh! The rigidity of this horror!

"The tanned Duchess of Cambridge blew Michelle Obama out of the water."

Insane Daily Mail headline. It's supposed to relate to the fashion:

For their first meeting yesterday, Kate wore a simple but stylish £175 bandage dress in fashionable ‘nude’ from Reiss, one of the few truly British fashion brands left on the planet....

Michelle Obama, on the other hand, looked like a little girl in a too short pink bolero (I hate boleros – and only six-year-olds should wear pink!) that my fashion spies tell me is not even vintage, it’s just old. Ouch.

Fashionable nude and impossible pink... apparently.

"At least bin Laden lived to see the Royal Wedding..."

Oh, yes... and to hear Obama's marvelous comic routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

A Drudge photo juxtaposition, presented for your intepretation.

You've got Obama, turning to his right, gleefully chomping a chocolate-dipped strawberry, with the heading "Obama Ready to Eat the Press." (The linked article is about the White House Correspondents' Dinner tonight.) The photo underneath Obama is his father, turning in the opposite direction, a pipe clenched in his teeth. (The heading beneath that pic is "Obama's father forced out at Harvard...," linking to an article referring to Harvard's "difficulty... figur[ing] out how many wives he had.") The third picture freezes Mitch Daniels in a gesture that gives the impression — to my eye — of being quite rude.



Come on, Matt. What's this supposed to mean? A wider view may flesh out the meaning: