Covid and Shakespeare: The Dark Heart Of The National Epic
By John Stone
Today AoA revives my article from 2016. Monday’s epic launch of the Pfizer vaccine in the UK featured the fact that the second person to be vaccinated was someone called William Shakespeare. The release of this culturally resonant information cannot have been accidental since it would otherwise have breached confidentiality. I was also put in mind of Prime Minister Johnson’s talk the other week of the “scientific cavalry” arriving: nothing could point more to the danger of politicising either science or sickness for the benefit of an elite.
The theme of my 2016 article was that Shakespeare’s play Henry V represented the opposite of a national triumph. The invasion (perhaps “the rape”) of France by England (with representatives of our other three nations in tow) is based on political expedience and vanity, rather than any convincing claim: a false narrative is created. If the war is superficially successful it is not based on the rightfulness of the claim, the will of God, or even superior tactics. The battle of Agincourt is pure chaos and when the French surrender King Henry actually thinks he’s losing, and is engaged in cutting the throats of his prisoners. Meanwhile, the disgusted figure of the infantryman Williams rages across the battlefield, posing the questions which undermine the entire moral basis of the enterprise, or so many other political enterprises, including how they distort and destroy the lives of ordinary people. Even today the play is usually cut to hide its fundamental ironies. I am sure I have not done the play justice - it needs a much longer and more careful essay - but it tells the inner truth of the bad politics of every age, including our own...
Incognito at Agincourt: Shakespeare Accuses the King
‘…the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place’...
This article is intended as a piece of literary criticism, however it also poses questions about the legitimacy of the political order which resonate today. It is an interesting question how - in what is now called the early modern period - an ordinary subject could challenge a monarch (and by implication the order for which the monarch stood). But supposing two men were in disguise, they might briefly exchange ideas on a level playing field. The confrontation between Henry V before Agincourt and the common soldier, Williams, in the play Henry V has occasionally been recognised as a crux, notably by leading Shakespeare scholar Frank Kermode in his brief discussion of the play in his late book The Age of Shakespeare (2004 p.81):
Here is one of the moments when Shakespeare can make us feel out of our depth: the part of surly the Williams is so strongly written, his arguments so persuasive compared with Henry’s, that we are left querying our assent to the royal cause, however warmly solicited.
It was unusual feature of Shakespeare’s career as a playwright of the Elizabethan and Jacobean age that he was also an actor within the company he was writing for. Scholars generally believed he took smaller roles, and it is against this background that the following suggestion is made.
The night before the battle of Agincourt, in the play, King Henry borrows the cloak of company commander Sir Thomas Erpingham indicating that he seeks anonymity and solitude, but perhaps with the real intention (as it follows in the action) of eavesdropping unrecognised on his men. He first runs into his former low-life acquaintance Pistol who fails to recognise the king even when Henry all but identifies himself as “Harry Le Roy”, and is presumably gratified that Pistol speaks well of him:
I love the lovely bully.*
They also exchange banter about the garrulous and absurd Welsh captain, Fluellen. Fluellen has been first encountered in the play at the siege of Harfleur driving the soldiers “into the breach” and trying to engage the infuriated and irascible Irish captain MacMorris - who is busy digging tunnels to lay explosive – in a conversation on “the disciplines of war”. MacMorris gives him a piece of his mind:
It is not time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day is hot and the weather and the wars and the king and the dukes: it is not time to discourse. The town is beseeched [besieged], and the trumpet call us to the breach, and we talk and, by Chrish, do nothing…
To make the point of Fluellen’s fantasy world further as Pistol exits Henry overhears an exchange between Fluellen and Captain Gower, Fluellen insisting that Gower speak more softly despite the deafening clamour coming from the enemy camp.
Henry’s next encounter is altogether more troubling for him. The second scene begins with three common soldiers – for the immediate purpose it might seem that they do not need to be allocated names, but perhaps it is part of the point that they have names as they appear in the character list even if no one knows them. Indeed, the name of only one of them, John Bates, is ever mentioned in the action. The first speaker, who has only a single line, is identified in the Folio as Alexander Court, which is very likely a play on the name of the company’s sixteen year-old apprentice Alexander Cook, the court of Alexander the Great being referenced in a succeeding scene by Fluellen.
The most significant and complex of the three characters, who is never named in the action, but present when the death toll from the battle is announced in the final scene of the act, bears the name Michael Williams. It is my suggestion that Shakespeare was marking the role to be played by himself: barely encrypted it might be saying “My call – William S”. Why Michael Williams otherwise? There is no such historical character from the chronicles. It is - to re-inforce the point - Michael Williams who “calls out” to Henry in the night in his opening line:
We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?
Henry is drawn into the justification of the military campaign by Williams and Bates, leading to the double-edged statement:
Methinks I could not die anywhere so contentedly as in the king’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.
To which Williams responds bluntly:
That’s more than we know.
Indeed, it is. The justification for war as we have seen in the first act of the play have hinged on the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury anxious to escape a parliamentary bill attacking the wealth of the church, and the provocative slight to Henry by the Dauphin (heir to the King of France) of the tennis ball gift. The chilling cynicism with which the archbishop instigates the invasion of France by looking for pretexts in ancient history and canon law could scarcely be more blatant (as it already is in Shakespeare’s main source, Hollinshed’s Chronicle). Following this Henry had responded to the French ambassador over the tennis balls insult with his famous “mock” speech:
…….For many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock mock out their dear husbands
Mock mother’s from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.
In this way Henry places responsibility for his proposed hideous actions on the Dauphin, for the Dauphin’s admittedly irresponsible taunt – a particularly narcissistic version of honour is being invoked.
It is the character Bates who immediately responds to Williams’ “more than we know” rebuke to the disguised king:
Ay, and more than we should seek after, for we know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes out the crime from us.
Williams, however, picks up the argument:
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place’; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle….
Henry now embarks on extended legalistic defence of his position:
Besides there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrament of swords, can try it out with unspotted soldiers…Every subject’s duty is the king’s, but every subject’s soul’s his own…
To which Williams responds:
Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head – the king is not to answer it.
This perhaps slyly evades the king’s continuing responsibility for their deaths and momentarily defuses the argument. But Henry’s next ploy is a red rag: encouraged by the readiness of Bates to fight for the king come what may, he ventures:
I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.
To which Williams rejoinders:
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne’er the wiser.
At this point Henry either becomes very offended, or pretends to be, and a comic sub-plot is formed. Williams promises to box the stranger on the ear if they should both survive the battle, and they exchange gloves as a means of recognition. It is against this background that the comic figure of Fluellen has ultimately been inserted into the action. Obviously, an ordinary man cannot be allowed to strike the king on the ear even in error but after the battle Henry prevails on Fluellen to wear the glove in his cap, and Fluellen is in some respects an excellent substitute: a man who comically believes in warfare as an honourable activity (“the disciplines of war”) although he has a continuous struggle with brute reality of war from his early encounter with Captain MacMorris onwards.
As it plays out Henry’s noblesse oblige requires an act of magnanimity towards Williams and he tells Exeter to fill the glove with crowns and present it to him: Williams can scarcely refuse the king but when Fluellen tries to further patronise him by offering him another twelve pence his bluntness returns:
I will none of your money.
This is his last line but I think it is significant that Williams remains on the stage for remainder of the scene as the dead are numbered and in some cases named, and it is perhaps worth considering what follows in the light of his remark : “I am afeard there are few die well who die in battle”. Preponderantly of course it is the French who do not die well in battle, and in large numbers – their arrogance and insouciance having been a persistent motif of the play. When it comes to the English the list is short:
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, Esq; None else of name; and of all other men
But five and twenty….
So much for Henry’s “band of brothers” of the St Crispin’s Day speech:
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispinian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..
It is a good speech (and Henry has a good speech writer) but people like Bates and Court and Williams and the murdered camp boys, who have names but do not at the same time, are only brothers momentarily when it suits.
I do not think this is incidental: the very topic is foreshadowed at the opening of Shakespeare’s immediately preceding play Much Ado About Nothing as if it was on his mind:
Leonato: How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?
Messenger: But few of any sort, and none of name.
Leonato: A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers…
Those that have died have already disappeared from recall and do not count. Perhaps, Shakespeare is telling us ahead of the event, that this is the reflex of a man, Leonato, who is a little too quick to disown his daughter when the social group turns against her (people in fact he has not even previously met).
Henry’s final strategy, of course, is to declare that it was God’s work. Fluellen asks:
Is it not lawful, an please you your majesty to tell how many is killed?
Henry replies:
Yes, captain; but with this acknowledgement, that God fought for us.
Williams or perhaps William S – still on stage - looks silently on.
The important point, I think, is not that Shakespeare is offering us a celebration of a famous victory. Shakespeare’s Agincourt has no brilliant strategy, no archers even – Shakespeare does not even mention the archers – though they figure so much in virtually every presentation of the play. It is chaos – the French kill the boys in the English camp (which even momentarily upsets Fluellen), Henry unconnectedly orders the slaughter of the French prisoners, and when the French concede defeat Henry has not a clue that he is winning. What we are really offered is a dense and still relevant debate about the social order and its hidden assumptions - based on the prosperity of the class of people with names and status?
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*The word “bully” does not have its modern connotations, but simply signifies a fine person.
John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.
@John Stone
Big Ben mystery solved! We must have been near a pub. LOL!
"St Stephen's Tower: regularly used in newspapers, guide books and by 'that bloke down the pub who likes correcting people'. Pros: sounds more official than Big Ben. Cons: it's completely incorrect. St Stephen's is another (smaller) tower over the main public entrance. The tower never officially held this name, but many think it did."
https://londonist.com/2012/06/big-ben-the-tower-with-five-names
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | December 16, 2020 at 03:35 PM
Emma
I have been trying to sort this out - the tower which houses Big Ben was until recently just “the Clock Tower” but became the Elizabeth Tower in 2012. The main entrance of the Palace which is half way along the building on the Westminster Square side is the St Stephen’s entrance and it has features of a tower with minarettes but is nowhere near as high as the towers at either end.
Posted by: John Stone | December 15, 2020 at 05:15 PM
@John
St. Stephen's Tower. Thanks for the correction. My travel memories were from twenty years ago; that is probably why at least four locals very politely informed us of the name of the tower and pointed out that only the clock was called "Big Ben." I thought it was fascinating information and respected their desire to preserve accurate history.
As far as traveling with children with autism and ADHD, I agree that intuitively you would be correct. However, at the time I was desperate and still did not know the source of my children's unfortunate behavior. My husband travelled internationally for his job and we had lots of frequent flyer miles and an invitation to visit our friends in Northern Ireland. I threw caution to the wind and decided we would all go, knowing that any small travel experience would be better than suffering isolated at home. To my surprise, the 4 year old with autism was FASCINATED with his flying experience and wasn't much trouble on the plane. Of course he later had a two hour melt down in our hotel room, but there was enough to keep his attention while sight seeing that kept his autistic behavior to a minimum. We continued our international travel over the years as part of the children's home school education. This experience paid off as now the elder two with autism and ADHD are totally independent self-supporting adults who occasionally travel for their respective jobs. We will be hit hard if vaccine cards are required to fly because of Covid.
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | December 15, 2020 at 04:29 PM
Emma
Tourism and autism are often not great companions. I may mention also that even on this side of the pond everyone will look a you blankly if you mention St Stephen’s Tower.
Posted by: John Stone | December 15, 2020 at 03:34 PM
@Grace and John
I have thoroughly enjoyed discussing this timely topic, and as an American, it is engaging to hear a Brit's insights on their native son. Because of my ancestors, I have spent more than a few years reading British history and Shakespeare. My one trip to London was quite extraordinary. My husband and I had a seven month old, a three year old, a four year old, and a thirteen year old in tow. One had yet undiagnosed autism and the other ADD. We stayed near Victoria Station and our first outing was to Shakespeare's Fish and Chips. LOL! That did not end well. As soon as we were all seated at the table, my seven month old suddenly needed a new "nappy." I had to quickly take him back to the hotel to remedy the situation. By the time I got back, the others had finished their meal and were ready to go. The closest we got to sightseeing was to get on the Underground and ride to various stops to see the Tower of St. Stephen ("Big Ben" to Americans) and the London Bridge. We also managed to see Buckingham Palace and St. James Park- a favorite of the children. While I wistfully saw the outside of the Albert and Victoria Museum as our double decker headed towards Harrods of London, I hoped I could one day return to do some real sightseeing. The best way to handle our younger active children was to take them to the Thomas the Train display at Harrods. The thirteen year old wanted to check out the English video game department. Even our lunch at the Harrods eatery was not without incident. The seven month old managed to stick his tiny hand into my very hot meal as we were waiting to pay. He started to scream at the top of his lungs and in moments, we were surrounded by multiple very apologetic Harrods employees. A glass of ice water for his reddened little hand calmed him down. Our stay was short, but memorable. The next day we were off to visit friends in Northern Ireland. That, of course, is another story.
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | December 15, 2020 at 01:22 PM
Emma,
I didn't mean to suggest that you hadn't read the article, just that anyone who hadn't might be alerted to it by our conversation! Thanks for your background details. For what it's worth, I do believe that the solution to the present political/medical authoritarianism will be for all those who are delivering goods and services (ie. not working in the public sector) to withhold their goods and services and taxes from those who are attempting to destroy us - politicians, civil servants, lawyers, police, doctors, nurses, journalists etc., and set up an alternative society. They do not have authority over us.
Posted by: Grace | December 15, 2020 at 09:43 AM
Emma
I think the historical dialectic you have singled out is somewhat different from the one I have outlined (although not entirely incompatible with it). Actually Shakespeare’s chorus does link Henry’s unprincipled invasion of France with Essex’s military campaign in Ireland - which is perhaps a great historical hint of what he thought about it all. It also seems unlikely when later on a minion of Essex approached the company to perform Richard II that they were apprised of the full conspiracy to overthrow the Queen (and the company were not held to account for it following investigation). Of course, when Shakespeare uses history as his subject matter he is probably commenting on contemporary events and at the same time little concerned with documentary accuracy. I think, oddly, we have discussed before that Essex was the brute who revived the ancient practice of decimation among his troops in Ireland.
Posted by: John Stone | December 15, 2020 at 04:43 AM
Just came across this....
‘Gresham’s Law’ Review: Queen Elizabeth’s Banker
The brilliant, corner-cutting, high-living titan who built London’s first Royal Exchange also manipulated foreign exchange rates, conducted espionage and dealt in armaments.
"Gresham’s story, in Mr. Guy’s expert hands (the author is a historian of Tudor England at the University of Cambridge), is the chronicle of the stirrings of modern finance in a time of religious and political upheaval. As Catholics faced off against Protestants and contending descendants of Henry VIII fought for the English crown, Gresham effected a quiet revolution of his own. Not until he began to keep his ledger in the format of debits and credits had any Briton known to Mr. Guy employed the Italian innovation of double-entry bookkeeping."
"The son of Richard Gresham, a textile merchant and “one of the most hated men in London” (a reputation burnished by the eviction of a widow from a house on which Gresham held a mortgage), Thomas was apprenticed to the family business and proceeded to make an independent career as banker to a succession of English sovereigns. For Elizabeth I, whom he served longest, he floated loans, manipulated foreign exchange rates, conducted espionage, dealt in armaments and acted as a kind of personal shopper. He served the queen well enough so that, by 1574, he could proudly announce the full repayment of England’s once outsize foreign debt."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/greshams-law-review-queen-elizabeths-banker-11584742563
I think I will order this.
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | December 15, 2020 at 02:53 AM
@ Grace
I have read it. Sir Henry Neville comes to mind; he was a contemporary of Shakespeare and purported distant relative. It just so happens that his ancestor Ralph Neville, "for his loyalty to King Richard ll, was created Earl of Westmorland and given several other rewards. One must also know that the Neville family had close ties with John of Gaunt, and the earl married John's daughter Joan in 1396. It was these ties that most likely helped Neville's decision to put his support behind Henry Bolingbroke, Gaunt's son, who invaded England in 1399 to ultimately seize the crown. After Bolingbroke was crowned as King Henry IV, Westmorland was given a number of important titles and responsibilities and became one of the king's most trusted advisers. The earl's rise to power was certainly strengthened by the fact that he was the new king's brother-in-law." http://www.shakespeareandhistory.com/earl-of-westmoreland.php
Shakespeare's three history plays, Richard ll, Henry lV, and Henry V, all involve Neville's ancestor. Well educated (tutored by Sir Henry Savile) and from influential families, including the Greshams, Sir Henry was a member of Parliament and was appointed Ambassador to France during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He later sided against her and became involved with the Essex Rebellion of 1601 and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Perhaps because of his mother's Gresham family's good standing with Queen Elizabeth, Neville's life was spared; he was released from the Tower by James l after the Queen's death. Interestingly, the night before the planned Essex uprising in London, Shakespeare's company of actors were paid extra by the plotters to perform his play, Richard ll, hoping it would stir up support. The theme of the play is similar to Henry V, a clash with the Medieval belief in "divine right of Kings" and an emerging "modern" desire for shared rule with commoners. Sir Henry Neville even lost favor with James l after advocating that the King surrender to the demands of the House of Commons.
I am convinced that the English merchant class, as represented by Sir Richard Gresham, Sir Thomas Gresham, and the investors in the original London East India Company, Virginia Company, etc., were seen by Neville and others as the future of England. They were the economic engine and supplier of goods for the Crown and commoners alike. This vision was realized in the American and West Indies colonies. Over time, there was a huge shift in economic power from the Crown to the private corporations via mercantilism and capitalism. Today, it is not King Henry V's inept governance that befalls us, but the likes of corporatists run amok. King Bill Gates, anyone?
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | December 15, 2020 at 01:44 AM
I'm sorry, I seem to have rather sabotaged John's excellent and pertinent article, but hopefully, when people have stopped hissing, they might be prompted to read it!
Posted by: Grace | December 14, 2020 at 07:48 AM
Emma,
I don't know about General Ewell, or the place name, but we do have double "l's" in England which are just pronounced the same as one. (I did love your description of your own ancestry on another thread.) Have another go - it' easy. Form your mouth as if to say "l", then hiss through it (as Benedetta politely describes it). Immediately say the second "l" as normal. Done!
Posted by: Grace | December 14, 2020 at 07:44 AM
@Grace
I've always wondered how the Ll was pronounced in Welsh. Is the town of Ewell, England an Anglicized version of Llewelyn? There was a (U.S.) Confederate General Ewell who claimed to have descended from the Llewelyn tribe.
How to pronounce Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PSotifsGKA
My tongue cannot make that sound. LOL!
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | December 13, 2020 at 05:12 PM
Benedetta,
Yes, that's about it. The first "l" is the hissing sound as you put it and the second is pronounced the way we would expect. The English speakers tend to say "fl" or "cl" because they can't manage it. So now, can you say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerichwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch.
Posted by: Grace | December 13, 2020 at 02:32 PM
Thank you John Stone .I love your extensive vocabularly ,some new words to look up in the dictionary ha ha?
What is machiavellanism dark triad ? Go find out for your own selvies!
How to Rebuild your Shattered Relationship After Lockdown
By Neil Ferguson
thedailymash.co.uk May 06 2020
and
Why all the sexy ladies want epdemiologists
By Professor Neil Ferguson
thedailymash.co.uk
"Professor pants down ?" No carona crown, Halo and pants round ankles!"
We got our forensic lectures about "sheep" without foot and mouth disease!, at Lennox Castle Hospital and Carstairs State Mental Hospital That was the biggest culture shock ever !
Professors giving their limp stethoscopes a big stiffie in public, ain't a good look for their integrity.The silly wee sausages ?
Paolo Nutini Pencil Full of lead Official video You Tube
Posted by: Morag | December 13, 2020 at 08:03 AM
Outstanding work John! I'm so glad this gem from 2016 was reposted or I might never have seen it.
I do expect the vaccine will be a tragedy.
Posted by: Pete | December 11, 2020 at 10:02 AM
Well Grace -- tell it girl, cause all I am getting is that the Welsh double L sound was hard to pronounce for the English language, some kind of different sounding hiss -- and starting it with an Fl kind of made that sound of the hiss, and an attempt of English to Welsh?
Social orders, now a days , must be who ever gets the most money from China while selling out nameless ---- fellow citizens? Yeah, I get this analogy is easy enough connected to what is going on today. .
Analogy extends, and includes to my knowledge that high born Fauci released this Corona virus, I know it and so does dear, sweet famous Dr. Breggin. Breggin's wife found the research paper from 2015, and there were Chinese scientist in with Chapel Hill, North Carolina a cooking up lab pets that kill the old rats.
Sounds like there have been a lot of Henry types through out history right on up to modern days
Which makes it a sad state of affairs for the human race. Using the name of Shakespeare for a nameless human lab experiment, when Shakespeare wrote a whole wonderful play on nameless people is irony for sure.
However; there will always be talented types of William Shakespeares that will write -about people that gained the whole world but lost their souls. Eventually though the entire human race will always find out, know and judge.
So with that; Fauci's crime with lab pets will soon be found out, no dying old in his own, warm, golden bed for him I think.
After that ; I am sure, that the next crime found out will be all the minimal brain injuries to every child with in vaccine with in reach, and that includes all the damaged hypothalamuses and sex orientation problems.
The human race may well be on the edge of a golden age for man kind. Do not despair
Posted by: Benedetta | December 10, 2020 at 11:54 AM
Well Grace -- tell it girl, cause all I am getting is that the Welsh double L sound was hard to pronounce for the English language, some kind of different sounding hiss -- and starting it with an Fl can of got the hiss, and an attempt of English to Welsh?
Social orders, must be who ever gets the most money from China while selling out nameless ---- fellow citizens? Yeah, I get that analogy easy enough.
Analogy extends, and includes to my knowledge that Fauci released this Corona virus, I know it and so does dear, sweet famous Dr. Breggin. Breggin's wife found the research paper from 2015, and there were Chinese scientist in with Chapel Hill, North Carolina a cooking up lab pets that kill the old rats.
Sounds like there have been a lot of Henry types through out history right on up to modern days
Which makes it a sad state of affairs for the human race. Using the name of Shakespeare for a nameless human lab experiment, when Shakespeare wrote a whole wonderful play on nameless people is irony for sure.
However; there will always be talented types of William Shakespeares that will write -about people that gained the whole world but lost their souls. Eventually though the entire human race will always find out, know and judge.
So with that; Fauci's crime with lab pets will soon be found out, no dying old in his own, warm, golden bed for him I think.
After that ; I am sure, that the next crime found out will be all the minimal brain injuries to every child with in vaccine with in reach, and that includes all the damaged hypothalamuses and sex orientation problems.
The human race may well be on the edge of a golden age for man kind. Do not despair
.
Posted by: Benedetta | December 10, 2020 at 11:51 AM
Grace
Yes, I have always assumed that.
Posted by: John Stone | December 10, 2020 at 08:32 AM
I'm wondering if Fluellen was the Anglicized version of the Welsh name LLewelyn. We've all had to practise our "Ll's" since those days, especially if we went to a Welsh-speaking university! (If anyone in the USA doesn't understand I'll try to explain.)
Posted by: Grace Green | December 10, 2020 at 07:12 AM
Cooking the Courts.
My brevity has no soul.
Posted by: annie | December 10, 2020 at 03:07 AM
Thanks, John. Well done. Beyond astonishing that governments would shove enormous gobs of the citizenry's tax money at a convicted felon for a clearly dangerous drug not yet shown to do the slightest bit of good at combatting a cold virus of little consequence to anyone metabolically healthy and nearly everyone below 70. Criminal governments we have, but, at least in the U.S., and especially since the 90's, politicly powerful criminals are never held to account. They continue to wield the levers of power whether in or out of office. No longer does the press have any interest in exposing them. At least during Elizabethan times and before and after, they would occasionally separate them from their heads.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | December 09, 2020 at 11:03 AM