Tragedy, Comedy...

 ...history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, (tragical-historical-tragical-comical-historical-pastoral,) scene individable, or poem unlimited. (Hamlet Act 2, sc.2 421-424)

With all due respect to Homer's Odyssey, in the last 400 years, no work of literature, (with the possible exception of  holy scripture) has been scrutinized more than Hamlet. 

And no literary character, in the words of Professor Linda Charnes, has been...

explored, expounded upon, analyzed, psychoanalyzed, deconstructed, reconstructed, appropriated, situated, and expropriated...

more than the protagonist of Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

And I would dare add, misunderstood.

Here's an introduction to the play from a random study guide I found online:

Hamlet, a university student, delivers several long monologues and soliloquies throughout the play which plunge the depths of his psyche—or at least seem to—as he tries to figure out the difference between what society has led him to believe and what his own core beliefs truly are. For instance, though Hamlet’s father’s ghost charges him with securing vengeance for Claudius’s brutal act of regicide, Hamlet isn’t sure whether there is truly any honor in revenge—and his inability to decide one way or the other results in his halting, hobbling inaction, his endless musings on the nature of life and death, and his festering inability to tell the difference between what is real and what is perceived...

Hamlet's despicable treatment of his lover Ophelia and his mother Gertrude, his slaying of Polonius, and his public humiliation of Claudius are all consequences of his inability to act simply and decisively—and yet with every day that Hamlet refuses to take action, kill his murderous stepfather, and claim the throne for himself, the “rotten” core of Denmark grows more and more unstable, and vulnerable to foreign interference...

Hamlet’s contradictory personality, convoluted speeches, and tragic fate make him one of Shakespeare’s best-known characters, and one of theater’s greatest enigmas of all time.

One has to admire the chutzpah of a contemporary writer to reduce what is today almost universally regarded as some of the finest verse ever composed to the level of convoluted speeches endlessly musing on the nature of life and death, but there you have it. 

It is said that Hamlet, unique among Shakespeare's plays, has been performed continuously over the centuries since it was written in 1601.   

But in that time, the play has not been universally admired. Here's what the French author Voltaire, not one of the Bard's biggest fans had to say about it:

Hamlet is a gross and barbarous piece, and would never be borne by the lowest rabble in France or Italy. ...

One would think the whole piece was the product of the imagination of a drunken savage. And yet, among all these gross irregularities, which make the English theatre even at this day so absurd and barbarous, we find in Hamlet, which is still more strange and unaccountable, some sublime strokes worthy of the greatest genius. It seems as if nature took pleasure to unite in the head of Shakespeare all that we can imagine great and forcible, together with all that the grossest dullness could produce of everything that is most low and detestable. (From his Preface to the play, Sémiramis, 1748)

In Germany at the end of the 18th Century, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did not share Voltaire's disdain for Shakespeare. He revered the man from Stratford and is considered by many to be the Shakespeare of the German language. Goethe wrote eloquently on the inadequacy of Shakespeare's most famous character to fulfill the mission entrusted to him by the spirit of his father. According to Goethe, Hamlet's sensitivity prevents him from carrying out the role of vengeful hitman. He begins with a quote from the play:

"'The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!'  (Hamlet Act 1, sc 5, 210-211)

In these words, I imagine, will be found the key to Hamlet's whole procedure. To me it is clear that Shakespeare meant, in the present case, to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it. In this view the whole play seems to me to be composed. There is an oak-tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom: the roots expand, the jar is shivered.

A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him: the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him,—not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds and turns, and torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts, yet still without recovering his peace of mind. (from the novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship,  Book IV, Chapter XIII, pg. 223)

In England in the first half of the 19th Century, poet and literary critic, William Coleridge was one of the first to suggest that Hamlet's hesitation to do the deed of avenging his father's murder came about because he thought too much. In Hamlet he says:

we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shakespeare places in circumstances, under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment:—Hamlet is brave and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve. Thus it is that this tragedy presents a direct contrast to that of Macbeth; the one proceeds with the utmost slowness, the other with a crowded and breathless rapidity.

It should come as no surprise that a work filled with so many opportunities for a character to think to himself out loud and in doing so, share the innermost workings of his mind with the audience or reader, that Hamlet would draw the attention of psychotherapists chomping at the bit to analyze his character.  

As you might have guessed, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud has given us perhaps the most famous assessment of all on why Hamlet is unable to kill Claudius for so much of the play. Using examples in the plot where Hamlet actually does kill people, Freud correctly refutes the idea that Hamlet is averse to extreme action because he is either too sensitive or too smart to act. The problem Freud says is that Hamlet can't bring himself specifically to kill Claudius. 

According to Freud:

Shakespeare's Hamlet, has its roots in the same soil as Oedipus Rex...

What is it, then, that inhibits him in fulfilling the task set him by his father's ghost? The answer, once again, is that it is the peculiar nature of the task. Hamlet is able to do anything except take vengeance on the man who did away with his father and took that father's place with his mother, the man who shows him the repressed wishes of childhood realized. Thus the loathing which should drive him on to revenge is replaced in him by self-reproaches, by scruples of conscience, which remind him that he himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish.

And what exactly are Hamlet's wishes of childhood that he's repressing? Why sexual desire for his mother of course.

I can't help but interject here that the noted American literary critic and Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom in refuting Freud's analysis of Hamlet having an Oedipal Complex liked to point out that Hamlet's parting words to his dying mother at the end of the play are:

Wretched queen, adieu. (Act 5, sc 2, 365)

Despite that, the famed actor Lawrence Olivier, squarely in the Freudian camp, directed one of the most famous screen adaptations of Hamlet in 1948. In fact, for the film, Olivier, collaborated with Ernest Jones, a colleague and biographer of Freud's who in 1949 wrote a book summing up the connection between the two classic works titled Hamlet and Oedipus. 

In the "closet scene" of Olivier's film where Hamlet confronts his mother, already the cringiest scene in the entire play, the cringe factor is dialed up to 11 as Hamlet's repressed feelings for his mother appear to unrepress themselves, and the feelings on the part of mom seem quite mutual. This is only reinforced as the role of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother is played by Eileen Herlie, in real life 13 years Olivier's junior.

I can't lie, despite a fine enough performance I suppose by Olivier, there are several things not to like about this movie, not the least of which is that rather than cutting parts of Hamlet with a scalpel, as is typically done in performances and film versions of the play, Olivier used a chainsaw. Several key scenes AND important secondary characters such as Prince Fortenbras as well as the dynamic duo of Rosencranz and Guildenstern are nowhere to be found.

But what really sticks out for me is the introduction of the film  which features the voiceover of Olivier reflecting three centuries of literary criticism, distilling the play down to being "the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind."

In his fascinating book: The Soul of Hamlet: The Play Shakespeare Wrote, drama historian, literary critic and beloved teacher at Brooklyn College, Bernard Grebarnier doesn't buy any of it.

The book written in 1960 makes the point that much of what we've come to understand about the play Hamlet and assume about its protagonist, didn't come to be until at least 100 years after the play was written. Grebarnier suggests before that time, Hamlet the character was not the enigma he is today and that audiences of the 17th and early 18th centuries simply got the play, and him. 

And to get it and him, Grebarnier suggests to us in not so many words: "Just read the damned play!"

Grebarnier truly gets Shakespeare. He concludes the first chapter of his book in his rather dated but charming style with the following:

Is there anyone who does not admire Shakespeare?...

It is a curious fact that two kinds of people know and love him: the simplest and most untutored folk everywhere, and the most cultivated. All over the world people who can barely read their native languages know and love Shakespeare; countless Italians who would not dare approach the Papa Dante they worship by name, are familiar with Shakespeare in Italian translation. Needless to say, the most refined tastes in literature can never be satisfied if he is excluded. But the vast majority of Shakespeare-idolators really love him not at all. What crimes the grammar schools and high schools have committed against him! How thoroughly the school ma'ams have alienated all possible interest in the most rewarding of all writers! They speak of him as if he were a combination of Self-Help and Poor Richard's Almanac.... 

They debase the dramas into horrid little Sunday-school exercises: Kmg Lear teaches one to be kind to one’s father, and Hamlet to be true to one’s self. One almost wishes for a dictator’s fiat forbidding the teaching of Shakespeare below the college level. How is it possible to make comprehensible to immature minds the most adult writing ever penned? What high-school teacher, for example, could succeed in making a murderer credible as the hero of a tragedy for his students, even if he was unusual enough to know that Brutus is the central character in Julius Caesar? To make anything like a story out of the work for the youngsters it is common to transform Antony (sometimes Caesar) into the hero and Brutus into the villain; what happens to poor Cassius in the process is too painful to relate. 

Yet, in more than thirty years of college teaching I have found that every young man and woman old enough to have observed a little of life can be depended upon to love Shakespeare once the plays are given a chance to speak for themselves. I have never taught a boy or girl who did not capitulate to Shakespeare’s magic. It is the school ma'ams who have been killing interest in him. It is their large group — they who have eyes and see not — which goes to the theater to see Shakespeare in the same spirit in which many go to church — not at all religiously, I mean, but out of a sense of duty to be performed. Shakespeare is not to be approached as a divinity, but as the human being who possessed the warmest humanity on record. He is not to be read as though he were an Immanuel Kant. He is better than that. He is the world’s greatest poet and dramatist, and he knew more about human relationships than anyone who has ever written about them; and we can learn more about other people and ourselves through an understanding reading of him than we could gather in ten Hamlet lifetimes of personal experience. But we must come to him with some experience to begin with; and, above all, unless we come with our humanity ready to be touched and exercised, it is better not to come to him at all.

Grebarnier spends the rest of his book challenging many of the assumptions of Hamlet presented above by noting what actually takes place during the play.

Perhaps the most common assumption as presented in the clip from the study guide above, is that at the core of the tragedy is Prince Hamlet's indecision, leading to inaction, needlessly delaying his retribution against his uncle, which is the direct cause of the unnecessary bloodshed that takes place before the play's conclusion.

In other words, had Hamlet killed Claudius from the get go, the lives of "innocent" people, namely Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencranz, Guildenstern, Gertrude, Laertes, and even Hamlet himself who would have gone on to "claim the throne for himself" as proposed by the study guide, could have been spared, and in doing so, the Crown of Denmark would not have been ceded to foreign powers.

The last two parts of that scenario have to be dismissed outright as in killing Claudius the current King, Hamlet would certainly have been put to death himself for high treason. And the power vacuum caused by the deaths of both the King and the Crown Prince would have certainly opened the doors to the attack of the Norwegian forces led by Prince Fortenbras, no different from the ultimate outcome of the play.

So what about the delay?

Flying in the face of much that is assumed about the actions of Hamlet, I don't buy the idea that Hamlet is indecisive at all, nor does he unreasonably delay the act.

Let me explain.

First of all, in order to examine how much Hamlet delays his act of revenge, we need to consider how much time passes between Act One when he learns from the ghost of his father, (or so he believes), that he was killed by Hamlet's uncle, now King Claudius, and Act Five when he (spoiler alert) finally enacts his revenge at the end of the play. 

As is not uncommon in the works of Shakespeare, the actual timeframe of the work may be a bit ambiguous. There are two possibilities: 

Real Time:

We can put together a fairly accurate timeline of Hamlet taking cues from the events of the play of which there are many, regarding the amount of time that has elapsed between scenes. Putting them all together, if one strictly goes by these cues (with the possible exception of one), approximately three- or four-months pass between Act 1 Scene 1 with Barnardo, Marcellus and Horatio witnessing the ghost on the battlements of Elsinore, and the closing scene ending with Fortinbras ordering Hamlet's heroic funeral. We are also told explicitly that Hamlet's father the King, also named Hamlet, died two months previous to the opening of the play.

Shakespeare Time

Quite often, Shakespeare will expand or contract time in order to suit his dramatic purposes. He was after all, a storyteller not a watchmaker. One clue that may make the timeline of the play questionable, is that toward the end of the play, in the graveyard scene it is established that Hamlet is thirty years old. At the beginning of the play, he is a student at Wittenberg University in Germany. Many reject the idea that Hamlet could have been a student at thirty years of age as such a thing would have been unlikely at the time the play is set. This means that up to perhaps ten years elapse from beginning to end.

This distinction matters as it greatly changes the extent to which Hamlet delays his action in killing Claudius.

If you buy the real time scenario, which I lean toward and Bernard Grebanier insists upon, the sequence of action is the following:

• Hamlet learns from the supposed ghost of his father that he was in fact, murdered by Claudius.
• Hamlet immediately tells his companions who also saw, but did not hear the ghost speak, that he needs to check out the story and by investigating it, would "put an antic disposition on" (Act 1, sc. 5, 192) in order to divert attention in the Court from his true motives. 

Two months pass.

• Claudius does indeed become suspicious of Hamlet's antic disposition and enlists the help of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's old schoolmates, to help find the root cause of his strange behavior. Might he have something to hide?
• Hamlet immediately catches on to the true nature of their visit and becomes outwardly hostile to the two.
• Meanwhile a group of travelling actors arrives to perform for the Court. Hamlet, who still has not established in his mind, proof of Claudius' guilt, has the brilliant idea of having the actors stage a play that closely resembles Old King Hamlet's supposed murder. If Claudius reacts suspiciously to the staging, Hamlet will be satisfied of his guilt.

The next evening:

• The play which Hamlet titles The Mousetrap, his riff on an actual play The Murder of Gonzago, has the desired effect by hitting its target too close to home. Claudius demands a stop to the festivities. Hamlet knows it's time to act. 

Later that evening:

• A shaken Claudius realizes Hamlet is on to him and retreats to a chapel where he attempts to confess his crimes to God. Passing by, Hamlet sees his opportunity. Holding his weapon above his uncle's head, Hamlet is prepared to do the deed.

And cut... 

So far, two months have passed since Hamlet learned (or thought he did) the true nature of his father's death. Why did he delay avenging it for so long? I think the answer is obvious, the only evidence he had up to that point that Claudius murdered King Hamlet is the word of a ghost. And that ghost may have been jiving:

The spirit that I have seen

May be a Devil and the devil hath power

T'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps,

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is potent with with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds

More relative than this. The play's the thing 

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King! 

(Act 2, sc.2, 427- 434)

 At the very least, Hamlet needed to convince himself that Claudius was guilty of the crime. 

"Ah mumbo jumbo..." they say, "all this Devil talk is just a stalling tactic to get out of doing the deed."

Perhaps.

But isn't it ironic that folks who have a problem with the Devil tricking people in order to steal their souls have no problem with ghosts talking people into murder? You'd think at least Goethe whose greatest work concerns that very subject would understand.

Gabanier points out that audiences in Shakespeare's day would have readily understood Hamlet's concerns in this regard and his need for more reliable evidence of the crime.

Hamlet's desire for clear evidence is not an example of over thinking or being too sensitive, it is pure common sense that hopefully any reasonable person would follow.

Anyway, after Claudius' reaction to the play, Hamlet is convinced without a doubt of his uncle's guilt.

However, as Hamlet prepares to thrust his dagger into Claudius, it dawns on him that if he kills his uncle while he is in the middle of prayer, Claudius' soul will go straight to heaven. In doing so, Hamlet would in fact be doing his despised uncle a favor. Better kill him later while he's not in a state of grace, preferably:

When he's drunk asleep, or in his rage, 

Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed. 

At game a-swearing, or about some act 

That has no relish of salvation in it.

(Act 3, sc.4, 94-97)

"There he goes again, another example of Hamlet over-thinking the situation, just looking for an excuse to not kill Claudius."

But is it?

For Hamlet, it is not enough to merely take his uncle's life, he needs his soul to be damned for eternity. 

Goethe would argue that Hamlet is too principled a man to murder someone out of revenge. But Hamlet's action, or inaction in Claudius's chapel is not the act of a sensitive or moral person, it comes closer to being the act of a psychopath.

Regardless, the following scene would decidedly prove Goethe wrong.

Hamlet goes on to confront his mother, Gertrude.

Before he learns the true nature of his father's death, Hamlet appears to be just as hostile to his mother for marrying her late husband's brother a scant two months after she became a widow. By this point that hostility toward her has not abated. It is only the command of his father's ghost to spare her, that keeps him in check. 

Shortly before the fateful visit to her room, Hamlet says to no one in particular: 

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none. (Act 3 sc. 2 428-429)

Gertrude truly believes her son intends to use those daggers and cries out for help. Then a noise shouts out from behind the curtains. Hamlet immediately springs to his feet and stabs the intruder through the curtain.

Is it the King?

Hamlet shouts. Then he drags the body out from its hiding place. It turns out he has just murdered Old Polonius, not the King. Hamlet shows no remorse:

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better.

Take thy fortune.
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.

So here's the score so far: Hamlet waits two months until he can convince himself that Claudius indeed is guilty of murdering his father. Common sense. Once he has that evidence he springs into action immediately but decides murdering his uncle while he's in a state of grace while praying is not vengeance enough. 

The very next scene he thrusts his dagger into a man he thinks is Claudius, but it's the wrong man.

Hamlet may be an incompetent hitman, but he's definitely not a man who refrains to act out of over-thinking, over-sensitivity or cowardice, but just the opposite.

The next day Hamlet is sent packing for England where Claudius has sent a letter along with his companions Rosenkranz and Guildenstern stipulating he is to be killed upon arrival. 

Bernard Grebanier argues quite convincingly that it is Hamlet's rash killing of Polonius that sets the stage for the tragedy to come, not Hamlet's supposed indecision and delay.

Whew, that's enough for today. In my next post I'll talk about what comes next in the play, as if you don't already know, and other issues such as why Hamlet is so mean to Ophelia and what if the time frame of the play is indeed Shakespeare time, expanding the amount of time between beginning and end.

Most important of all, we'll explore what gave folks the idea that Hamlet is indecisive in the first place.

Trust me, it's not at all complicated, if you read the play.

Until then, adieu, remember me!

Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Folarin Balogun is the striker and one of the best players on the U.S. Men's National Team that until last week, competed in the World Cup Soccer Tournament, the most important sporting event in the world, bar none.

Playing against Bosnia-Herzegovina in a do or die match on July 1, the winner of which would advance to the next round, in the 64th minute of the game, Balogun received a red card for a foul he committed against Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemovic. 

In going for the ball deep in Bosnia-Herzegovina territory, Balogun landed on Muharemovic's ankle causing it to turn over awkwardly. There was no initial whistle to stop the play but the VAR, (Video Assisted Referee), an official watching the game in the press box whose job is to look for fouls that the field referee misses, caught the infraction and halted play. In turn, the on-field ref shuffled off to the sideline where he reviewed the play from multiple angles and made the final call pulling the dreaded red card out of his pocket.

In soccer, a red card results in a player being ejected and his spot unfilled, meaning his team plays one man short like a penalty in ice hockey, except that in soccer, the penalty extends for the rest of the game. In addition, the offending player receives a one game suspension for the following match. 

Obviously, this is a stiff punishment reserved for actions deemed intentional or bad enough to cause serious injury, as opposed to injuries typical to soccer, that cause a player to roll around in agony until he realizes no one is paying attention, at which time he springs himself back into the game as if nothing ever happened.

Having seen replays of the incident many times, to my untrained eye, as the action may have hurt Muharemovic, (he did manage to stay in the game), Balogun's foul did not appear in any way to be intentional.

But what do I know, the referee disagreed and as red cards are not supposed to be challengeable, his is the only opinion that matters. 

Well, up until now. 

At this late date, I probably don't need to say what happened in the subsequent days when the president of the United States called his BFF the head of FIFA, the international governing body of the game that most of the world knows as football * and asked (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and go with asked) him to review the call.

The BFF said: "sure thing boss anything you say boss" and quicker than you can say Pelé, Balogun was reinstated and made eligible to play in the USMNT's next game against Belgium, to complete for a spot in the quarter finals. Did I mention the U.S. held on to defeat Bosnia Herzegovina 2-0 in that game?

The whole world cried foul, saying rightfully that neither the POTUS nor any politician has any business interfering with the outcome or the regulation of a sporting match.

What hardly anyone mentioned is that in successfully reversing a legitimate, if arguable call on the field, the president didn't do anything to help the U.S. men's soccer team, in fact, his actions very likely contributed to their defeat against Belgium and their exit from the World Cup, and may have caused serious repercussions on the international stage for the game of soccer in the United States for years to come.

That's not to take anything away from the Belgian team who going into the game Monday was ranked eight points higher in the ratings than the U.S. team. But like any other sport, ratings don't mean much when the teams come out onto the field. In this game, without the president's interference, the U.S. should have had several advantages going for them. First, it was played in Seattle and the fans in the stands were overwhelmingly on the Americans' side. Second, the questionable nature of the call against Balogun gave the Americans a chip on their shoulder, which is always helpful in sports. Third, Balogun's absence made the U.S. distinct underdogs in this match, another factor that gives a team a little emotional edge going into a game.

On the flip side, soccer is a game that isn't usually determined by one player. There are exceptions of course, players such as Argentina's Lionel Messi or maybe Norway's Erlig Haaland. But Balogun hasn't the brilliant vision of the entire field like Messi, no one has, nor the awesome physical presence of Haaland.

In the game where Balogun received the red card and was forced to the showers, the U.S. up by the slimmest of margins and down by one man, tightened up and played brilliant soccer, not allowing Bosnia-Herzegovina the chance to score. And the cherry on top was a perfect free kick by Malik Tilman which evaded a Bosnian wall of defenders and curved into the top corner of the net to give the U.S. an insurmountable 2-0 lead.

In a tournament filled with mostly ups for the Americans, the team was riding high, winning their division and looking forward to possibly making it into the elite eight in the World Cup for only the second time in history. That victory against Bosnia-Herzegovina, overcoming the adversity of the devasting loss of arguably their best player and having to play thirty minutes short-handed, was certainly their high point of the tournament, the fulfillment of what became the mantra of the team and its fans: "I believe that we will win."

The momentum from that brilliant win should have carried the team into their match against Belgium.

And it did until the president with his phone call, removed the chip off their shoulder and put it on the shoulder of the Belgian team. 

Maybe we shouldn't blame the president. After all, his entire life has been defined by people, mostly his father, bailing him out of adversity such as all those times he went bankrupt or the time daddy called a doctor telling him to find an issue, any issue that would excuse his boy from military service. Perhaps he felt that "helping out" the American team was his way of settling the score in some perverse way, or maybe some kind of easy karma.

But as I said, the president didn't do the national team any favors because in sports, adversity can be a good thing.

Here's something I came across on the internet:

Fútbol is not just another sport. Fútbol exposes who you really are when everything is on the line. When the pressure becomes unbearable. When the game turns against you. When nobody believes you can survive.

Look at Cape Verde.
On paper, Cape Verde had absolutely no business pushing Argentina to the brink. They were the Cinderella story. The little country that was supposed to be happy just to be there. They had nothing to lose and every reason in the world to play scared.
But they didn’t.
They dreamed.
They believed.
And most importantly, they went onto that pitch and PLAYED like they believed.

That is how  the U.S. National team approached the games they played through the Bosnia-Herzegovina match. They were in fact, albeit to a much lesser extent than Cape Verde, also a Cinderella team in this tournament

And by doing so, they gained the respect of the worldwide soccer community despite the fact that they represent a nation that is at this moment anyway, despised by much of the world. 

Then daddy president called the principal and told him to exempt his kid from the rules that all the other kids at school are subject to. And instead of being Cinderella, the USMNT all of a sudden became Cinderella's wicked step-sister. 

I said above that adversity can be an advantage in sports, but the adversity the president foisted upon the U.S. National Team at the time of the peak of their success was certainly not the kind they wanted or needed.

Here's more from the comment above:

But when adversity came, I did not see a team whose belief became stronger. I saw a team that looked defeated. I saw players pouting. I saw frustration. I saw a team acting like the game was already over before the final whistle.

I don't blame the American players one iota for that. Going into Monday's game against Belgium, they knew if by chance they won that game with their star player back in the lineup (which he was), that victory would be tarnished, as would any possible subsequent victory. 

And unlikely as it may have been, had they gone on to win the whole enchilada, there would have been in the record books, an asterisk forever placed beside their name. 

Perhaps it's a blessing none of that happened. In my comment following the game against Belgium, on Facebook I said simply: "the soccer gods are pleased tonight".

I can't say for sure but I think with the loss of respect that went along with the unfortunate action of the president and the FIFA goon, the American team lost their motivation to win. 

I wouldn't say that if the team had played their hearts out as Mexico did in their one goal loss to England last week, by far the best game I've seen in this tournament so far. 

The U.S./Belgium game could not have been more different.

Despite another brilliant free kick from Malik Tilman to score the only U.S. goal, the U.S. team's offense was insipid and they made several key defensive blunders throughout the game that would have made the coach of an 8U AYSO ** team cringe. The final score was 4-1, in international soccer terms, a devastating blowout. 

Did the American players play to lose that game? No, I don't think so. But sports, especially played at its highest level is a extremely psychological enterprise, and any advantage in that regard, can be the difference between winning and losing. 

Or the difference between losing by one goal, and by three as we saw.

Had there been no interference and the U.S. team played like Mexico in their farewell game, leaving both their hearts and their souls on the pitch after a hard played loss, it would have been a fitting end to a magnificent tournament for the Yanks. Granted there would always be people who would claim that the game was "rigged" against them because of a questionable call. But people who truly understand the game, and the nature of all sports that are on the up and up for that matter, know that bad calls are part of the game, some go your way and some don't. And when they don't, you have to play on. 

As England did after that game against Mexico when one of their players, defender Jarrell Quansah was sent off with a red card after a hard tackle banning him from the team's next game which was played against Norway yesterday. 

Without Quansah, England beat Norway in extra time 2-1 last night. In their infinite wisdom, FIFA has determined that Quansah's foul was serious enough to warrant a two game suspension which means the player won't be available Wednesday either when the Brits have the unenviable task of facing defending champions Argentina and their estimable captain Lionel Messi (who some claim to be the greatest footballer of all time), in the semi final match.

I could be wrong but I didn't hear any stories of King Charles dialing up FIFA and asking that their player be reinstated. 

In the spirit of fairness, maybe the POTUS should try his magic again with FIFA to help our old pals the Brits. 

I'm sure Argentina would be just fine with that.

*One of the glories of the World Cup is the quadrennial appearance of this John Cleese bit on what else, the glories of the game. In the bit he questions the logic of why we Yanks insist on calling it "soccer" and not "football", which given the way the game is played, would seem to make more sense.

As this is a comedy bit, not intended to be a Ken Burns screed, I assume that Cleese, quite the smart guy in his own right knows the answer. But some internet folks have got their panties (or as the English would say, their knickers) all in a bunch over the fact that Cleese doesn't seem know what he's talking about as "soccer" is actually a British term.

Soccer, or Football (not the American variety) came into being in England in the 1860s. In that era, two games evolved simultaneously, Rugby and Soccer, both of which were generally referred to as Football. To make the distinction between the two, the former was referred to officially as Rugby Football, while the latter was called Association Football. 

Those two mouthfuls were eventually shortened to Rugby and Association, and then further given slang terms at the universities where the games were almost exclusively played. In England at the time this meant shortening the word to its root then adding the suffix "er". Hence Rugby became "rugger". For obvious reasons, no, Association did not become "asser" but rather "soccer", using the second syllable of the word rather than the first. 

In the twentieth century, rugby remained a game mostly played at university (hence the description "a brutish game played by gentlemen"), while soccer became largely the game of the working class (hence "a gentleman's game played by brutes" by comparison). The terms soccer and football were used pretty much interchangeably in England to describe the same game until the mid twentieth century when the general term "football" began to replace the more preppie term "soccer". 

American football was developed in the same decade as the other two sports and since it had nothing to complete with at the outset, the name football stuck, as did the names rugby and soccer to distinguish them from the other sports when they made their way to these shores. 

It should be noted that countries with their own version of football such as Australia, South Africa, Ireland and others, also use the term soccer. 

Most other countries have stuck with some form of the word football borrowed directly from the English word so for example, in the countries where Spanish is spoken, you have fútbol, not the Spanish translation pelota de pie. 

Italy would be a major exception as there, soccer is called calcio, which comes from a much older Florentine game Calcio Fiorentino. Incidentally calcio comes from the verb calcare which means "to kick."

In Germany it's Fußball which conveniently enough is the literal translation of the word while surprisingly in France, there is no attempt to translate or francophone the word, there they call it simply football or on the streets, le foot.

**Eight years and under American Youth Soccer Organization

It's Finally Here

After many years of planning and hand wringing, The Obama Presidential Center opened this month in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago. 

Pointedly, it opened to the public on the nineteenth of June, the day we celebrate the federal holiday of Juneteenth, commemorating the day in 1865 when the slaves of Texas were emancipated and with that came the official and final end of slavery in the United States. 

That day can rightfully be called the true American Independence Day as it was the ultimate fulfillment of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4th, 1776. This idea was confirmed by President Kennedy when on June 26th, 1963 while standing in front of Rathaus Schoenberg in Berlin he said this:

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

As I stated in earlier posts, the Obama Center belongs on the South Side of Chicago, the place where the first Black president of the United States spent many of his formative years and the childhood home of his wife Michelle Obama.

I also in those posts expressed my displeasure that the people who built the Center saw fit to place it on the edge of one of the city's most significant and beautiful parks, necessitating the destruction of over 600 trees, many of whom were over a century old, as well as several acres of parkland. 

For starters you can read about the specific site here and here. In total I have written about seven posts on the subject, several of which have links on these two posts. 

Since I've advocated for the Center but railed against its location on so many occasions, I'm not going to beat a dead horse here. Nor am I going to offer an opinion on the design of the campus because I haven't truly experienced it.

Yesterday on my way to a gig at the University of Chicago, I stopped by for the first time since its opening to snap some photos with my phone, two of which are these:

I'll have more to say about the Center after I have time to visit it in earnest.

All I'll say now, is that I'm thrilled the Center is finally built, and even more thrilled that it is on the South Side where it belongs. I just wish so much valuable park land didn't have to be sacrificed to build it. 

That's all.

Have We Learned Our Lesson Yet?

As the last human being to date to set foot on the Moon, Chicago's own Eugene Cernan upon his departure from Planet Earth's natural satellite (or companion planet if you prefer) said this:

As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come...I'd like to just (say) what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. As we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. "Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

At a later date his said this:

Once I finally stepped on the Moon, no matter what was to come of the next three days - or the rest of my life - nobody could take those steps from me. People ask how long will they be there, and I say forever, however long forever is, like my daughter’s initials that I scribbled in the sand [TDC for Tracy Dawn Cernan].  *

And at some point, Cernan also said this: 

I didn't go to the Moon... not to go home.

Meaning of course that he didn't intend to be stranded in space. That ellipsis in the quote represents a pause Cernan made in his statement. As perhaps the most eloquent of American astronauts of his generation, one could assume that pause was made for dramatic effect. Not so says moon landing denier Jarrah White: 

He said it as if he had to pause to remember,.. It was as if he was trying to admit (that he didn't actually go to the moon) right there, and had to make a clarifying statement to basically recover himself. 

Yet another piece of "evidence" that people who claim that the U.S. space program, or at least the part where we landed on the Moon, was a hoax.

According to a fact checking post, a...

...2019 poll, conducted by YouGov, found that 29 percent of respondents 50 years old or younger expressed some belief that the U.S. government “faked the 1969 Apollo moon landing,” with eight percent answering “definitely true” and 21 percent answering “probably true.” Among respondents over the age of 50, only one percent answered “definitely true” and nine percent answered “probably true,” according to the poll.

What to make of that is hard to tell, probably much has to do with the general distrust of government that seems to be running rampant these days. I have nothing to back this up, but I think much of it also has to do with the public's distrust of science. 

Given all that, I have to say it may be surprising the number of doubters is so low.

Obviously, Jarrah White is grasping at straws in his assessment of Cernan's remark, but some of the "evidence" not based on pure conjecture presented by Moon landing deniers is worth taking a look at if only to debunk it, which for the most part is pretty easy.

One remark I heard, doubts the possibility of getting to the moon because it would be physically impossible for a spacecraft to carry all the fuel necessary to travel to the moon and back. This proposition assumes that a spacecraft has to burn its engines continuously as it makes its way through space, much like an aircraft in flight. 

Just a little knowledge of basic physics puts that theory to rest. Issac Newton's first law of motion states:

An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.

Unlike an aircraft which in flight needs to overcome the constant forces of gravity and wind resistance, in the vacuum of outer space, a spacecraft has no such forces acting upon it. So, after two major engine burns, the first to get it off the ground and the second to leave Earth's orbit and head it in the right direction, the spaceship as Newton understood almost 400 years ago, is in the free and clear, continuing in constant motion without the help of its engines, until it encounters an "unbalanced force" like heaven forbid, bumping into something, which is very unlikely in outer space. Newton's second law of motion would deal with the amount of damage that would cause.

It's only when the spacecraft approaches its destination and needs to slow down when it needs to use its engines again, this time for a retro burn to enable it, if it's going to the Moon, to enter the Moon's orbit, then subsequent burns to get the landing craft into position to set itself safely down on the lunar surface. 

In short, Isaac Newton in the seventeenth century figured out all the physics necessary to get to the Moon and back including the most difficult and dangerous part, re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Of course, it would take another three centuries for chemistry and engineering to catch up in order to build the rockets and power their engines. 

That's not to say that landing human beings on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth was a small accomplishment. It is in fact to this day one of the greatest technological undertakings of humankind. 

But still very doable.

So why all the doubt?

I may be completely out on a limb here, but I think much of it has to do with the idea that we don't much like scientists these days either, especially when they tell us things we don't want to hear.

Remember the pandemic and how so many Americans refused the advice of epidemiologists to wear masks and to socially distance themselves? Small wonder the death rate in this country was the highest of any country in the world. Same with the scores of anti-vaxxers whose misguided efforts to ignore scientific research have resulted in the re-introduction of diseases into our country that were thought to have been irradicated years ago.

Then of course there's the environment.

I was introduced to the phenomenon known as the "Greenhouse Effect" when I was in high school back in the seventies. It's no accident that at the time, the Soviet Union was conducting its own foray into space, most notably sending probes to study our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus. That planet whose average temperature is around 800 degrees Fahrenheit, with an atmospheric pressure about 92 times that of Earth's at sea level, is the poster child for what happens when the Greenhouse Effect runs amok. The conditions the Soviet spacecraft that entered the Venetian atmosphere encountered, some of them successfully landing on that planet's surface, meant they survived intact for only a few minutes, which was enough time to send back invaluable information on the brutal conditions of that planet. 

In a nutshell, the Greenhouse Effect takes place when Carbon Dioxide and other gasses in the atmosphere allow energy from the Sun's visible light to reach the surface of a planet, but prevent much of the energy reflected off the surface as infrared radiation from escaping the atmosphere. The Earth's climate is a delicate balance and these naturally occurring gasses are responsible for having kept the planet temperate for tens of thousands of years. But the introduction of excessive amounts of these gasses through human activity has increased the greenhouse effect resulting in a significantly measurable rise in the Earth's temperature over the past several decades. 

While most scientists dispute that Earth may at some point become another Venus, the writing is on the wall that we're in for a very unpleasant future, climate-wise if we don't address our frontal assault on the environment, and fast.

Naturally, we have a president who claims that climate change is a hoax, despite scads of scientific evidence to the contrary. 

Given this, I have to remark that it's more than a little satisfying that this same president who claims to know more about science than the scientists, didn't seek their advice when he decided to paint the bottom of the reflecting pool that spans the distance between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on the west end of the National Mall in Washington DC. In no time after the paint job was completed and the pool re-filled with water, rather than being the same hue as the blue of the American flag as the POTUS intended, the pool turned a lovely shade of green, resembling the Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day. The unexpected color shift was the result of the rapid growth of algae caused by the excessive retention of heat due to you guessed it, the dark color of the blue paint. Algae it turns out, at least the species currently in the Reflecting Pool, love the heat. 

And yes, it was all predictable according to the scientists.

In a recent article in The Atlantic titled "Science Has a Name for What’s Plaguing the Reflecting Pool" staff writer Matt Viser begins with this: 

The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall has become the country’s most high-profile science experiment, with workers battling against nature. After a week of combat, they have essentially killed off one type of algae infesting the pool, only to create the conditions for a new type to take over. And Scenedesmus, a genus of green algae nicknamed “Skinny Dead Mouse” by scientists, is now flourishing, according to testing that was run at the request of The Atlantic.

In the words of Greg Boyer, professor emeritus of biochemistry at the State University of New York, who inspected a sample of water from the pool provided by Viser, (who likely risked arrest in obtaining the sample):

If I was going to design a facility to grow algae, I would probably design a facility that had a lot of surface area and was very shallow, so you have sunlight down to the bottom. And put a lot of nutrients in it. And that’s pretty much what the Reflecting Pool is. It’s just a perfect facility for growing algae.

One would hope this President learns his lesson that it's better to listen to people who know what they're doing rather than people who are merely telling him what he wants to hear.

Otherwise, things could get really out of hand. 

Thank goodness everything is going so well with his little war in Iran.

*One quote I once erroneously attributed to Eugene Cernan was this: 

We set out to explore the Moon and instead discovered the Earth.

That profoundly beautiful remark belongs to Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders who took what would perhaps become the most significant photograph ever made, "Earthrise" as seen from the perspective of the Moon. 

Us and Them

 If you come to Chicago there are three facts you need to know:

• The Lake is always east.
• Never put ketchup on a hot dog.
• You can't be a Cubs fan AND a White Sox fan. *

Last week one of our city's favorite events, the "Crosstown Classic", a series between Chicago's two Major League Baseball teams took place at Rate Field (I think that's what they call it these days), on the South Side. Part two of the series will take place at Wrigley Field, on the North Side in August. From what I could tell, Cubs and Sox fans came together and stayed without their profound differences getting in the way of having a good time for all, although there was one ugly incident involving a player and a fan. The fans even found something they could all agree upon, NFL football and Chicago's team, the Bears.

But they didn't outwardly express their love for the hometown team. Instead of roars of "Bear Down", the chant heard 'round the ballpark was "Green Bay Sucks", referring of course to the Chicago Bear's chief nemesis, the Green Bay Packers. 

Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.

The Bears/Packers rivalry goes back to the origins of the NFL as both teams are charter members of the league. It's a heated rivalry as both teams compete against each other in the same division, their two cities are geographically close and their states border each other.

The Cubs and Sox represent the same city, but they compete in different divisions of different leagues, meaning that unless they are playing each other, the fortune of one team does not adversely affect the fortune of the other. However, the two teams can actually help each other in the standings by defeating division rivals, so for example if the Cubs are playing the Tigers who are in the same division as the Sox, or the Sox play say, the Brewers, in the Cubs division, it makes sense for a Chicago fan to root for their hometown rival against one of their teams' own divisional rivals. 

But that doesn't always happen.

Sox fans are fond of saying that their two favorite teams are the White Sox and any team (presumably even a division rival) playing the Cubs. While there is similar animosity on the other side of town, I've never heard a Cubs fan say their second favorite team is any team playing the Sox. The reality is most Cubs fans don't care who's playing the White Sox on any given day unless of course, it's the Cubs. 

What the White Sox and Cubs also represent are two distinct parts of the city, the South and the North Sides respectively. South Siders have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the North Side, as that part of the city tends to get most of the attention, as does its baseball team. It's much like the rivalry between the old Brooklyn Dodgers and the other New York City teams before the Dodgers and the Giants moved to California in 1958. When the Dodgers were founded, Brooklyn was still an independent city. In 1898 when Greater New York City was established uniting the five boroughs, the team (who wasn't yet known as the Dodgers) proudly kept their association with Brooklyn, which has often been treated as the poor step brother of its swankier neighbor across the East River, similar in a way to the relationship between the South Side of Chicago and the North Side.

My son, a Cubs fan, happens to work at Rate Field (what a silly name). He's told me how on many occasions, late in the season when the Sox are out of contention, which in the last few years has been after the Fourth of July**, the fans in the stands, well some of them anyway, openly root against the Sox if they happen to be playing one of the Cubs' division rivals, just to spite their hometown rival.

What dawned on me when he told me that was that these folks' hatred of the Cubs was greater than their love of the White Sox.

It's an old cliché to say that sports are a microcosm of life, but in this case I have to agree.

To put it simply, hate is a stronger, more easily stoked emotion than love, for some people anyway.

It's true in sports, in our relationships with other people, and especially true these days with political ideology.

I recently read a question and answer in an online site. The question was: "Why are we MAGA folks considered idiots by the other side, after all didn't we win the election?"

The answer I read didn't concern itself with the "considered idiots" part, but directly addressed the "we" part. 

The responder began by saying: "You, (emphasis mine) did not win the election, the candidate(s) you voted for won the election."

His response didn't include a sports analogy but I will. Voters identifying with a political party are much like fans identifying with a sports team. While I contribute nothing of substance to any sports team, except occasionally paying money to see a game, I still identify with the teams I root for. I may not agree with the choices the front office makes, or the way the team is managed, or the way the players perform on the field, but I still root for them as they are my team win or lose. 

While I love my city, from Howard Street on the north to 138th Street on the south, I identify myself as a White Sox fan and not a Cubs fan, thereby declaring my camaraderie with other Sox fans, even though I live a mere three blocks from Howard Street, go figure.

Rivalries are what make sports fandom exciting and fun, and second only to betting, they are the reason why spectator sports exist in the first place.  

It's human nature to associate with people who share our values, who think like us, and are "on the same page" in sports as well as in politics.

So I don't have a problem with folks identifying with a political party or ideology.

The problem begins when the hate part comes in.

In sports, as much as we may claim to "hate" our rivals, any sports fan with half a brain knows that without rivals, there would be no game. Without them, our team would have nobody to play. What would be the point of that?

However in politics, especially in the recent several years, the hate is real for so many of our fellow Americans who believe, (thanks in part to politicians who stoke fear and hatred) that the people on the other side are trying to destroy our country. Therefore they are the enemy, and should be put down by any means possible.

Sports fans who understand the true nature of "hating" a rival team, whether they admit it or not, are fans of the game first, followed by being fans of a particular team. Win or lose we root for them, but if our team does something to hurt the game, as the 1919 Chicago White Sox did by having members of that team throw the World Series for money, it is perfectly reasonable to stop supporting them, at the very least until they clean up their act.

What the responder to that online question was getting at is that in American politics, we may identify with a party, movement or ideology, but it's important to remember that we are Americans first. And when the party or movement you identify with does something to hurt our country such as wage insurrections and illegal wars, making a direct assault of the free press, declaring that everyone on the other side is an "enemy of the republic" just to name a few, it is incumbent on the movement's followers as Americans first, to step back and say no.

There is certainly room for debate on some of the issues I bring up, but for the life of me I can't see how anyone, even the most self-interested voter, could be oblivious to the rampant inflation caused by this president's dubious and illegal war with Iran, never mind the unconscionable suffering this war has brought to so many people. 

If the party and ideology I identify with did all that, I would have gotten off the bus years ago.

To use another sports metaphor, it would have been enough to make a Cubs fan out of me.

* OK I know some of you will get on me for these "facts" so here are a few clarifications:

• The Lake is always east unless you are in the extreme southeast neighborhoods of Eastside, Hegewisch and South Deering in which case the Lake is north. And also east. 
• Yes it's still a free country so you can put whatever you want on a hot dog in Chicago, even ketchup. But local food culture is a serious thing here as it is anywhere in the world. Try ordering a pizza with a topping of ham and pineapple in Naples. 
• There are no exceptions to the third fact. 

 

**But not this year. Go Go White Sox!!!

The King's Speech Parts II and III

Here's a link to a post I wrote in 2011 about a film which centered around perhaps the most important speech ever delivered by a British monarch. The film was appropriately titled The King's Speech and the speech in question was the address delivered over the radio to the people of Great Britain on September 3, 1939 by King George VI, immediately after Britain declared war on Germany, officially marking the start of the Second World War. You can find a recording of the actual speech on that post. 

In the last few weeks, I've been obsessing over perhaps the most important speech NEVER given by an English monarch. If you've been following my posts this year, you probably noticed that I'm on a bit of a Shakespeare kick, more than a bit actually. And if you know your Shakespeare, you might be able to guess which speech.

It's a speech you've probably heard in one form or other at some point. If you haven't heard it within its original context of the play King Henry V, you may have heard the St. Crispin's Day Speech performed on its own in any number of other contexts, including several films which feature a character reciting it. Or you may have heard a speech directly influenced by it, perhaps a scene set in a locker room where a coach at half-time motivates the team who is trailing by a seemingly insurmountable lead, or before a battle where a commander encourages the troops to fight on in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Perhaps such a speech was even addressed to you at some point in your life.

In short, Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Speech is the mother of all inspirational/motivational speeches. 

Here is a link to the speech from Lawrence Olivier's filmed version of Henry V. That film was made in Britain in 1944 and released to coincide with the Allied invasion of Normandy, intended to boost the morale of the English people.

In the scene, Henry V, affectionately referred to in the play as King Harry, is about to lead his vastly outnumbered army into battle against the French. One of his commanders the Earl of Westmoreland, in conversation with the other commanders, bemoans the uneven sides and wishes for more troops.

This catches the attention of King Harry inspiring his speech. He begins:

If we are marked to die, we ae enough

To do our country loss, And if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honor.

This is very powerful because right at the outset, Harry tells it straight to his men, he accepts that the odds are not good and they may die. If that is our destiny he says, so be it, we'll die for our country which is honorable in itself.

On the other hand, if we are destined to win the battle against the odds, fewer men means more honor for everyone who participates. I'm not quite sure if honor really works that way but it's a good mental image. 

Then he goes on to say what really matters to him: 

By Jove I am not covetous for gold,

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost... 

But if it be a sin to covet honor,

I am the most offending soul alive.

The guy really doesn't care about all the trappings of being a king (or so he says), he's just in it for the honor.

In the first half of the speech, much of which is edited out in the Olivier version, Harry asks Westmoreland three times not to wish for any more men to join the battle. In fact he says, maybe they should wish fewer:

He who hath not the stomach in the battle,

Let him depart...

We would not die with the man in whose company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

The key idea here is fellowship and camaraderie, themes which keep ratcheting up as the speech builds to its climax. Given the choice of Harry's words, I doubt that many took him up on the offer.

Now it starts to get interesting:

This day is called the Feast of Crispian,

He that outlives this day and comes safe home

Shall stand a tip-toe when this day is named

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

The speech is fiction but the battle and most of the characters depicted in the play are real. The scene revolves around the famous Battle of Agincourt which took place on October 25, 1415. Every day of the Church calendar is devoted to a particular saint, and October 25 happens to be the feast day of the two saints and martyrs, Crispin and Crispinian, the latter shortened to Crispian by Shakespeare to better fit into the scheme of his verse. 

He that shall see this day and live old age

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors 

and say:"Tomorrow is St. Crispian". 

Then shall he strip his sleeve and show his scars 

And say: "These wounds I had on Crispin's Day"

And the honor from participating in this battle will the participants take to their graves.

Old men forget yet all shall be forgot

But he shall remember with advantages

What feats he did that day...

Here Shakespeare throws in a little humor: "he shall remember with advantages", which is sometimes missed by audiences depending on the way the lines are delivered. 

This story shall the good man teach his son

and Crispin Crispian shall na'er go by

From this day to the ending of the world.

Not only will their honor endure through their lives, but the battle will grant them immortality. It should be noted that the Battle of Agincourt is indeed remembered in England today, and not solely because of Shakespeare's play. 

Now comes the pièce de résistance:

But we in it shall be remembered,

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,

I've heard many veterans of war say that what they were really fighting for was not God, their country, or some noble cause, but rather for their comrades fighting beside them, their brothers in arms. More than 400 years after it was written, Shakespeare's work as always rings so true to life.

If that weren't enough:

For he that today sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother, be he na'er so vile

For this day shall gentle his condition.

The King himself being part of your band of brothers, how cool is that? Do we really believe that after the battle Harry considered all his brothers-in-arms, vile as they may have been, his equals? Unlikely given the way he is portrayed in the rest of the play and in the two previous plays (Henry IV parts one and two) where he is featured as a main character, but there's always the chance.

By the way, there are two possible meanings for that last line above. "Vile" could refer to the way we think of the word today, and in that case the last line suggests redemption. More in keeping with Shakespeare's time, vile could also mean social status, and the "gentling of his condition" could refer to an elevation of rank in society. Double meanings like this run through all of Shakespeare's work. Neither one is wrong.

Finally, the coup de grâce:

And gentlemen in England now abed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

Who fought with us upon St. Crispin's Day.

Ouch.

I don't think even ol' Pete Hegseth would be that direct and crude. What Harry's saying in contemporary speak is that compared to us, the guys back home are just a bunch of pussies. 

With all due respect of course.

Westmorland's response to the speech is this:

God's will my liege, would you and I alone,

Without more help, could fight this royal battle.

Not only are he and the rest of Harry's army inspired, but so too is the audience of the play. One commenter I read said that even though he is a pacifist, every time he hears that speech his soul is stirred and he wants to go out and fight somebody.

Same goes for me.

Here's another, more contemporary interpretation. This is from the Globe Theater in London with Mark Rylance in the title role. Notice how Rylance draws out the humor in the part about the old soldier recounting his story. For my money this version without the histrionics and the uplifting (and overbearing) background music is every bit if not more inspirational than the Olivier version.

But truth be told, Shakespeare's words are so powerful I dare say even a non-actor terrified of speaking in public such as myself could pull it off, with advantages of course.

-----

I'm no expert so I don't know exactly where King Charles III's speech to a joint session of Congress in Washington last week ranks in greatness with all the speeches of the Brritish monarchs. But as it was given directly to American lawmakers and by extension the American people, I can compare it to other important American speeches and honestly, I'd say it's right up there.

King Charles addressing a joint session of Congress
April 28, 2026
Photo by Elizabeth Frantz, Reuters

In saying that, distinctions have to be made. Some speeches such as the "St. Crispin's Day Speech" are timeless and could be plugged into virtually any time and situation. I'd place Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" in the timeless category as well.

Other speeches like King George's September 3rd speech belong to a singular moment in history. The impromptu speech Robert F. Kennedy Sr. gave in Indianapolis on the evening of the assassination of Martin Luther King would also be in that category. 

Charles' speech is interesting because it could fit into both categories. If that exact speech had been given before November, 2016, it would have been regarded as powerful and well-crafted, extolling the virtues of American democracy and the values of the American people, expertly delivered by a man who was literally born for the job. 

Ten years ago and before, there would not have been a bone of contention as the American political leaders of the day, and the vast majority of the American public would have agreed with every word of the speech. And because it would not have been controversial, the speech would have been forgotten as soon as its news cycle had expired in about a week or less. 

However, as the speech was delivered late in April of 2026 (God what a month that was), it will never be forgotten. 

Why? Because King Charles told the American people as politely as he could, but without the slightest hesitation, that we have lost our way. 

It began innocently enough with Charles acknowledging the ties between our two nations. In doing so he threw a bone to the current POTUS:

This, I believe, is the special ingredient in our relationship. As President Trump himself observed during his state visit to Britain last autumn, ‘The bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal. It is irreplaceable and unbreakable'.

That would be the one and only mention of the president by name, but his spirit would remain in the rest of the speech like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room.  

Charles went on to remind us with bits of cheeky British humor and a "by jove" thrown in for good measure (where have I heard THAT one before?) how much our system of government owes to the British:

Two hundred and fifty years ago, or, as we say in the United Kingdom ‘just the other day,’ they declared Independence.... (The Founding Fathers) ... carried forward, the great inheritance of the British Enlightenment – as well as the ideals which had an even deeper history in English common law and Magna Carta...

Then Charles snuck in his first jab:

... the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.

One can imagine that the president was so smitten by the shout out from Charles that he may have missed this little detail. It's a little harder to imagine what was on the minds of the Republicans on the House floor, as they are the ones who daily forgo their responsibility of providing checks and balances on this president. Strangely enough, they responded by giving the King a standing O along with their Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle when he delivered that line.

The Christian zealots on the floor wholeheartedly loved the following: 

And, Mr. Speaker, for many here – and for myself – the Christian faith is a firm anchor and daily inspiration that guides us not only personally, but together as members of our community...

Oh how they ate that one up. But Charles started to sound like the current Pope when he said this:

It is why it is my hope – my prayer – that, in these turbulent times, working together and with our international partners, we can stem the beating of plowshares into swords.

Mr. President any comment? How's that war of yours going by the way?

One might think the following would have rubbed some of the more fervent Christian Republicans in the crowd the wrong way, especially the last phrase:

I am mindful that we are still in the season of Easter, the season that most strengthens my hope. It is why I believe, with all my heart, that the essence of our two nations is a generosity of spirit and a duty to foster compassion, to promote peace, to deepen mutual understanding and to value all people, of all faiths, and of none.

But most of them stood and cheered anyway.

Then Charles brought up 9/11 and once more, that brought the house down. But it got complicated again:

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article Five for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together – as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder, through two World Wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan and moments that have defined our shared security.

According to our president, NATO hasn't done shit for us.

The King begs to differ. 

Then came this:

Today, Mr. Speaker, that same, unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people. It is needed in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace. 

Here you could start seeing cracks in the Republican armor. J.D. Vance seated right behind the King, didn't applaud for that one. Next came this:

So as we look toward the next 250 years, we must also reflect on our shared responsibility to safeguard nature, our most precious and irreplaceable asset.

I suppose that since the King didn't mention the words "climate change", you know, that big hoax we keep hearing about, the MAGA Republicans let that remark slip through the cracks. Nevertheless, the VP sat on his hands for that one too.

King Charles didn't mount a constant barrage of jabs, uppercuts and left hooks, he let up every once in a while, rope-a-doping on occasion to mark some achievement or other regarding our two countries cooperating with each other. But the punches kept coming...

I pray with all my heart that our alliance will continue to defend our shared values, with our partners in Europe and the Commonwealth, and across the world, and that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking.

That one landed.

Now for the pièce de résistance...

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice-President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since Independence.

The actions of this great nation matter even more.

...and, finally the coup de grâce, delivering a knock out punch using no less than a quote from the greatest of all American speeches:

President Lincoln understood this so well, with his reflection in the magisterial Gettysburg Address that the world may little note what we say, but will never forget what we do.

The Reverend Al Sharpton himself could not have delivered as scathing an attack of this administration as King Charles did last week, "a rapier wrapped in ermine" as The Guardian called the speech.

The King formerly known as Prince Charles (a change I have yet to wrap my head around), knows a thing or two about Shakespeare. That's why I couldn't help thinking about Shakespearean double meanings strategically placed into the speech that underscore his and I might add much of the rest of the world's disdain for this administration. 

There were a few, but the following came immediately to mind. At the beginning of his speech, King Charles brought up the incident that took place at the White House Correspondent's Dinner a few days before:

We meet, too, in the aftermath of the incident not far from this great building that sought to harm the leadership of your nation and to foment wider fear and discord.

As the timing of the incident involving a potential would-be assassin was so close to the event, it certainly deserved a mention but there was something in what the King said next that made me think he may have also had another incident in mind, one of vastly greater significance and horrific consequences:

Let me say with unshakeable resolve: such acts of violence will never succeed. 

He's right, such acts of violence, whether they be committed by an individual, or by a mob following the illegal orders of the President of the United States, will never succeed, hopefully. 

Whether Charles and his speechwriters made a conscious connection in that remark to the events of January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol Building or not, once you see it, you can't un-see it.

Charles' speech was a schooling, a master class in hardball diplomacy. 

But did it make a difference enough to change people's minds? 

Probably not. Certainly not the president who was too busy in awe of being in the presence of a real king to notice that he was being taken to the cleaners. Probably not the Republican congressmen who don't seem to be effected in the slightest by having their cowardice and hypocrisy on full view for all to see. And most importantly not to the millions of MAGA faithful who seem to be unmoved by anything coming out of this administration, even matters that personally affect them like the crippling inflation caused by this president's clueless handling of the economy.

In the magnificent St. Crispin's Day Speech, King Harry is speaking to men who are already on his side and prepared to go to battle for him. His words make a difference in that they give his army hope despite the odds, courage, and a sense of purpose. Did I mention they would go on to win that battle?

Likewise, King Charles III's speech last week give those of us who despair at the loss of American values, the virtues of our Democratic Republic, and perhaps most of all, the loss of common decency in our country, the message that hope is not lost and above all, those things are all worth fighting for.

Peacefully of course.

By Jove that speech was brilliant. 

"The Good War"

The astronauts named their spacecraft Integrity because... 

The name Integrity embodies the foundation of trust, respect, candor, and humility across the crew and the many engineers, technicians, scientists, planners, and dreamers required for mission success. The name is also a nod to the extensive integrated effort – from the more than 300,000 spacecraft components to the thousands of people across the world – that must come together to venture to the Moon and back, inspire the world, and set course for a long-term presence at the Moon. Integrity is rooted in a shared core value of NASA, the agency’s astronaut office, and the CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

OK, corporate speak at its finest but the truth is that in everything they did and said before, during and after their magnificent voyage to the Moon and back, the Artemis II astronauts, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Weisman, were exemplars of integrity and in being so as I mentioned in my last post, we Americans and Canadians should be proud of these four brave individuals who represent the best of our two countries. And the entire world can be proud of the integrity shown by the (tens of) thousands of individuals responsible for making the Artemis mission a stellar example of the triumph of the human spirit.

Sadly, their news cycle has already passed, and we Americans are back to witnessing the opposite of integrity, the very worst of our country. Google the phrase "the opposite of integrity" and you will find many words with a variety of meanings, yet each perfectly describing a different aspect of this many faceted administration.

This month, April, 2026, which began so promising with the launch of Artemis II, was a particular doozy.

The other day I had lunch with my friend and we observed how every time we get together, a new low has been reached by the current resident of the White House. The new low since we last met was the following comment posted online:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.

Without actually committing it, it's hard to imagine getting any lower than threatening genocide but I have faith that somehow Donald Trump will manage.

He of course was talking about Iran and what he planned to do to that country if they didn't reach a deal with him to end the war that he and Benjamin Netanyahu started at the end of February.

It's remarkable that no matter how low this man goes, his enablers will find a way to justify him.

That comment just shows what a brilliant dealmaker he is, after all, because of that threat, Iran came to the negotiating table...

is but one example. But this threat is no different than your neighbor having a dispute with you and threatening  to burn down your house and murder your children if you don't comply with his wishes. 

You might say: "well that's illegal and I'd have every right to call the police and have that neighbor arrested." Which is true but in the case of geo-politics, there is no international police force capable of arresting the sitting leader of a country. If there were, Vladimir Putin would be behind bars right now.

Former leaders who committed illegal acts while in power are another story which is why Netanyahu is so keen on staying in power by prolonging the conflicts in which he has involved his country and in starting new conflicts. Unfortunately our own president has his own ulterior motives to start wars, not the least of these motives starts with the initials J.E.

Beyond the grave moral implications of that threat, there is the very practical matter of not being taken seriously diplomatically when he doesn't go through with such threats. Don't get me wrong, the entire world should be eternally grateful he didn't carry out this threat. But make a threat enough times and not carry through, and pretty soon no one will take you seriously, as has already happened in the case with this president and his war with Iran.

As I mentioned in previous posts, this president is best defined not by the complicated characters found in the world's  great literature, but by the simpletons found in Aesop's fables which always end with the moral: "don't be like that guy." Here he is playing the role of "the boy who cried wolf."

To underscore this president's simpleton qualities, this month he famously posted an AI generated image of himself dressed as a Christlike figure appearing to heal a sick man as they are surrounded by concerned citizens (all of them white), in front of a backdrop containing a mix of patriotic, religious, and military iconography.

Ah he's just creating a tiff like he always does, trying to get under the skin of his detractors...

said the sycophants.

What they failed to grasp was his detractors were all laughing hysterically at the idiocy of it all, while tens of millions of his Christian supporters felt betrayed by the idolatrous image.

Caught off guard, never having occurred to him that this image would be profoundly offensive to his otherwise faithful minions, the president took the picture down the day he posted it. Interestingly, he never took down the comment about wiping out Persian civilization forever.

Then he picked a fight with the Pope.

In response, perhaps his most devoted public sycophant Sean Hannity went on the air recently "sending a message to Pope Leo." 

In his "message", Hannity said this:

As of today, I no longer consider myself a Catholic.

I'm sure that message left the Pope quaking in his boots.

Lots of folks naturally took that to mean Hannity stopped being a Catholic after Pope Leo XIV made pointed negative references to the current war in Iran. But Hannity in his rant goes on to contradict himself, it turns out he actually left the Church several years ago because of "institutionalized corruption at all levels of the Church", later joining an Evangelical Christian church.

There are precious few times I agree with Sean Hannity but I too left the Church as an active participant for the same reason, although for what it's worth, I still consider myself a Catholic.

Hannity went on to point out the numerous human rights atrocities committed by the Iranian regime ever since taking power in 1979. I agree with that as well.

Then came a favorite strategy of the MAGA faithful, presenting an argument with the fancy Latin name, the "tu quoque fallacy", a tactic more familiar to modern ears as "whataboutism.". Hannity points out that the Pope criticizes the president but he doesn't say anything about Iran. Quite honestly I don't know if the Pope has ever publicly commented on the Iranian government but if he hasn't there is probably a good reason, his comments would likely fall on deaf ears since the extremist Muslim regime there is not likely to take advice from a Christian leader, any more than our current government would take advice from a Muslim cleric.

What really seamed to get Hannity's panties all in a bunch is the Pontiff's having met in the past with two notable Illinois Democrats, David Axelrod and our "ultra left" Governor J.B. Pritzker which prompted the Fox host to say:

Why is the Pope twisting religion to only attack Trump? Is it because he’s a run-of-the-mill Trump-hating Democrat that lacks moral clarity about radical Islam?

It takes a lot of chutzpah for anyone, let alone that beacon of moral clarity Sean Hannity, to accuse a Pope of lacking moral clarity but there you have it.  

Regarding the Pope's comments on the current war, Hannity takes issue with this comment of the Pope's:

God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.

That is simply not biblically accurate says Hannity. He correctly points out the hundreds of times the Bible references war... 

for equally depicting God as authorizing, commanding, (and) intervening in battles.

Hannity summed it all up by saying the president is right, and the Pope is wrong.

His comments were echoed by another member of team MAGA, J.D. Vance, the vice president who at a conference in Tulsa, attended by far fewer people than seats to accommodate them, made the following remarkable head-scratching comment:

I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.

Later, responding to the Pope's comment about God not blessing conflicts, in what for Vance must have seemed like his brilliant gotcha moment, the VP went on:

Was God on the side of Americans who liberated Holocaust Camps?... I certainly think the answer is yes.

In doing so, the VP and later the current Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson castigated the Pope by invoking the "Just War Doctrine" of the Catholic Church whose origins can be traced in part all the way back to the work of St. Augustine in the fourth century. It should be noted that the current Pope is an Augustinian priest who once led that order. 

Indeed the VP and the Speaker say correctly that our involvement in some wars, like the Second World War, aka "The Good War",* was just.

Now let's assume for a moment that the Augustinian priest, Chicago born Robert Prevost who became Pope Leo XIV last year, knows a thing or two about the Just War Doctrine.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a summary of Catholic teaching, here in their entirety are sections 2308 and 2309 which explain Catholic doctrine on "Just War":

2308 - All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.

2309 - The, strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force (emphasis theirs) require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation of community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain;

-all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. 

The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgement of those who have responsibility for the common good. 

Using these criteria, you be the judge, do the conditions that brought upon the president's war in Iran satisfy ANY of these conditions, let alone all of them? Let's have a look:

Condition One: MAGA might argue that the potential damage of Iran having a nuclear weapon is an existential threat most directly to Israel and only slightly less to the rest of the world. That threat could be potentially lasting, grave and certain. That last point is debatable but the reality is that in 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) was signed between the United States, Iran and other nations that severely limited Iran's nuclear capabilities, especially in the direction of creating a nuclear weapon. The current president in his first term, as part of his sweeping efforts to undo all the work of his predecessor, tore up the deal, thereby freeing Iran from all of the constraints of the pact. 

Condition Two: We attacked Iran on February 28 while we were in the middle of negotiations with the country.

Condition Three: The peace terms currently on the table, would create an agreement that is essentially the same as the JCPA, the agreement the current president tore up. 

Condition Four: Through this war, we have inflicted great harm to the people of Iran, many of them children. I suppose only God will know in the end if it was graver or not so grave as the evil intended to be eliminated. One thing is certain, despite killing the head of the Iranian regime, the regime is still intact and will very likely take a harder line than before.

Answering the criticism leveled at him, the Pope says he is merely preaching the Gospel, not offering up political opinions. While the MAGA crowd searches for anecdotes to justify their cause, and the president threatens genocide while claiming to be "all about the Gospel", the Pope, not interested in debating any them is doing his job, living the Gospel by spending time in Africa, ministering to the growing Catholic Church there, as well as humbling himself by removing his shoes to visit one of the largest mosques in the world, 

And naturally all the while he is calling for Peace.

On the flip side there's Pete Hegseth the bellicose American Secretary of Defense, who likens himself as the Secretary of War. He got egg all over his face this month when at what was labeled a prayer session at the Pentagon, he read what he called a prayer that was used by the Sandy Hook One Combat Search and Rescue Team who rescued the two US pilots shot down over Iran this month. The "prayer" which he said was meant to resemble a passage from the Old Testament, (Ezekiel 25:17), turned out to be nearly a word-for-word reenactment of a scene from the movie Pulp Fiction. He's right that the words resemble the Bible passage, however the spirit is anything but. 

In the movie, a hit man played by Samuel L. Jackson recites the quasi-biblical passage to one of his victims before he executes him. 

Here you can see a clip of the SoD's "prayer", intercut with the scene from the movie.

 And here's the real Ezekiel 25:17:

And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

Note that in the real verse, which is more accurately reflected in the scene from the movie than in the SoD's version, the one executing vengeance is God, not a human being.

Since they like and refer to the Old Testament so much, the SoD, and all the religious warmongers in this administration should take heed of another verse, this one Deuteronomy 32:35:

It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them.

Again, this is God doing the avenging saying in no uncertain terms that vengeance is His job.

Hannity is right, in the Old Testament there is indeed a lot of bloodshed, vengeance and warmongering going on, with God "authorizing, commanding, (and) intervening in battles."

But the essential part is this: according to the Bible it is to be God's will to do these things, not ours.

The warmongers of today like the SoD would argue that the war against Iran is also the will of God, therefore righteous. And that the SoD, the military, and by extension we the American people, whether we want to be or not, are servants following God's will.

Now I have a message to the bible-thumping American warmongers like the SoD starting with this question: 

How do you know that this war is the will of God?

I know this is going to rub a lot of you the wrong way, but it is the truth. The people you folks refer to as "radical Islam" believe the same thing, that God is on their side. Therefore, according to them, each act of violence they commit, sometimes directed at innocent people, what we would call terrorism, is justified. 

How do they know that?

Because they found snippets of text from their Holy Book that back them up.

Just like you.

---

In this remarkable month we have seen two radically different visions of the world.

One vision is the big picture, the view from outer space where our tiny planet, as Buckminster Fuller called it, Spaceship Earth, floats alone in a vast sea of nothingness. All the people alive and all who have ever lived are aboard that spaceship, together as astronaut Christina Koch so beautifully put it, as one crew.

From a religious point of view promoted by Pope Leo, we are all God's children which is precisely why he chose to visit the Grand Mosque of Algiers where he said this:

To seek God is also to recognize the image of God in every creature, in the children of God, in every man and woman created in God’s image and likeness. For us, this means that it is very important to learn to live together with respect for the dignity of every human person.

In this world view, both the religious and the secular agree that while conflict and war are sometimes unavoidable, peace is always preferable and it is our duty as human beings to do everything in our power to promote peace over war.

It is a world view that recognizes that while the resources of our Spaceship Earth are abundant, they are not infinite and we must do everything in our power to protect our planet home for our children, their children and for the generations to come. 

In this vision of the world, people of good will, whether they follow the Pope or not, believe equally that the human race is far stronger when we act together than when we are apart.

In the other world view, division reigns supreme. It is a view that divides the world between the winners and the losers, friends and enemies, the familiar versus the foreign, the nice versus the shithole countries, and us versus them. 

It's a view that promotes fear over trust, that believes the threat to our environment is a hoax. and claims that our God is better than their God.

It is a world ruled (mostly) by men, interested only in acquiring ungodly amounts of power and wealth for themselves and their families, who gain the world but lose their soul by promoting anger, greed, and hatred.

One view values integrity, while the other promotes corruption, deceit, treachery, injustice and all the other terms in that glossary of words that represent the opposite in integrity.

While we still have the power to do so, we are faced with the opportunity to choose the world view we want to guide us into the future, the first or the second.

In my book it's not a difficult choice.

* The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two is the title of a Pulitzer Prize winning book written in 1984 by Studs Terkel, where he interviews a wide range of individuals about their personal experiences surrounding the most devastating war to date in history.