Cloth Masks Don't Filter Out Viruses

From taxpayer supported PBS :

Using a cloth masks to filter out viruses 😷🦠 it like using chicken wire to keep out dust 🐔 pic.twitter.com/DHYcZ750Z5

— Comrade Lysenko (@ComradeLysenko) January 23, 2021

 

When I first saw this documentary about Broadway reopening  I thought Andrew Lloyd Webber was being a jerk & using the Branch Covidian obsession with masks  as a marketing gimmick to promote his stupid Phantom of the Opera musical but maybe he was just making a joke

Relative size of microbes to mask fibers:

American Leftists Hate America and Support America 's Enemies

 

Few clips from the old PBS Charlie Rose show before he was fired for having his robe open and his dingle dangle hanging out🥋

1 Leftists point blank admit $ Obama gave in nuke deal went to Iranian military imperialism

2 Democrat Media Complex respects privacy of Iranian mullahs pic.twitter.com/pVmj3zjern

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) August 22, 2020

Then American totalitarian leftists who only support "free speech" that agrees with their narrative & want to suppress everyone who disagrees with them as engaging in "hate speech" have no self awareness when Turkey 's dictator Erdogan does the same thing pic.twitter.com/M6KOVQUJGQ

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) August 22, 2020

You can't Impeach POTUS Trump just b/c he's GOP

Democrats seem to be advancing the theory you can impeach people just because they belong to a different political party. We don't live in  a one party dictatorship and belonging to an opposition party is not a high crime or misdemeanor.

Also, as pointed out on taxpayer supporter @PBS @AmExperiencePBS the non vegan FLOTUS Dolley Madison served ice cream at bipartisan social functions 🍨to help promote her husband's political agenda pic.twitter.com/nrEXy3q89g

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) October 2, 2019

Trump Didn't Invent Political Discord

However, back to the original point-people have disagreed over politics since the beginning of our Republic-this isn't a new phenomenon

As taxpayer supported PBS points out-it wasn't just Hamilton & Burr -members of Congress used to regularly physically assault & duel each other pic.twitter.com/uX0kEhL9X4

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) October 2, 2019

I was arguing on another thread on this issue. Political disagreement isn't new to the USA & it's disingenuous for the left to pretend either the GOP or Trump invented discord in this election cycle. It goes back centurieshttps://t.co/bMrE3Wvun7pic.twitter.com/uX0kEhL9X4

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) October 2, 2019

Who performed George M. Cohan 's "Over There" 🇺🇸🚢🔱🇬🇧🇫🇷 best?

George M. Cohan 's "Over There" 🇺🇸🚢🔱🇬🇧🇫🇷 was played in the background of the American Experience documentary "The Great War: 1918" https://t.co/GL9NGc9lSr pic.twitter.com/EW1wXjOjB8

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) June 11, 2019

#Thanks to Croatia for helping return 1st Lt. Eugene P. Ford

Thanks & gratitude to the Croatian Navy @MVEP_hr for helping to recover the remains of World War II US Army Air Force pilot 1st Lt. Eugene P. Ford https://t.co/BeN1bPpvBH pic.twitter.com/HNMMCTmLS2

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 21, 2018

From Press, The Associated. “WWII Bomber Pilot's Remains, Recovered through International Efforts, Will Join Those of His Son at Arlington.” Air Force Times, Air Force Times, 15 Nov. 2018, www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/11/15/wwii-bomber-pilots-remains-recovered-through-international-efforts-will-join-those-of-his-son-at-arlington/.

The remains of Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Eugene P. Ford were recovered and will be buried on Dec. 4 in Arlington National Cemetery. (Department of Defense via AP)

From @novapbs "NOVA: Last B-24" pic.twitter.com/XBqyqOTbFa

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 21, 2018

Other USA airmen lost in the Tulsamerican crash: Flight Engineer Charles E. Priest:

Navigator Russell C Landry:

Plane, the last B24 produced in Tulsa, Oklahom:

was lost during the strategic bombing run during Battle of the Bulge / Bastogne:

This documentary also discussing recovering the remains of CPT Lawrence Everett Dickson

Thanks & gratitude to @uniinnsbruck for helping to recover the remains of World War II US Army Air Force pilot Capt Lawrence Everett Dickson https://t.co/gJutk0ytd9 pic.twitter.com/wbhfS5TLy6

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 21, 2018

Clip from @PBS #NOVA "The Last B-24" on the recovery of CPT Dickson 's remainshttps://t.co/iTOb5lAbUG pic.twitter.com/0DvAxVOR5T

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 21, 2018

Alleged Greco Roman #Culturalimperialism Doesn't Cause People to like good looking naked people

From the Civilizations  documentary on PBS

I'm skeptical that Greco-Roman cultural imperialism 💪 is the reason that most normal people - with the exception of #TentaclePorn loving 😘🦑#KurtEichenwald-like to look at good looking naked people, since most people still don't speak Greek or Latin. pic.twitter.com/m5p9IsuaHy

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) May 3, 2018

SJW nonsense from PBS attacking European art and capitalism to promote fat ugly communist chicks:

Chubby British Chick aka Mary Beard: Or are they simply a tease? Praxiteles has established the edgy relationship between a statue of a woman and the assumed male viewer that has never been lost through the history of European art.  

Narrator: Although cultures from around the world have evolved radical different ways of seeing the female form, the impact of both imperialism and globalization has tended to give undue prominence to the way it is seen in the West.  A way of looking that remains a constant source of debate and criticism.  

Skinny SJW chick aka Maya Jasanoff: I still think that we have a lot of really unexamined assumptions about what constitutes a beautiful  or desirable body.  We have a lot of uneaxamined assumptions about what constitutes an attractive or an aesthetically appealing way to look.  And you have only to open up the pages of a woman's magazine as people are commonly pointing out to see how incredibly narrow the space is in  a certain kind of Western aesthetic consciousness for what a woman can look like. Similar kinds of things can be applied to men as well.  

Narrator: Reinforced by commercial interests, the cult of youth and beauty, begun by the ancient Greeks,   is perhaps more powerful than ever today.




Tonkin, Boyd. “How the Greeks Invented the Modern Idea of Us as Human Beings.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 24 Mar. 2015, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/how-the-greeks-invented-the-modern-idea-of-us-as-human-beings-10131361.html.

those beautiful bodies in the British Museum remind us of the Greek cult of flawless youth. To Cartledge, "the ancients have some responsibility" for the time-defying neuroses of the contemporary catwalk, the fashion shoot or the gym. "Old age really was abhorred: physical decay was not something the ancients were keen on – they were the 'forever young' fanatics."

The video editor with their choice of visuals seem to imply that the USA is an imperialist power, although the person being interviewed doesn't explicitly state so.

Narrator: Published in 1764, it was in these pages that Winkelmanm? he elevated the Apollo beyond a mere artwork to become the ultimate symbol of high civilization.

Skinny SJW Chick: When Winckelmann was celebrating the body of the Greek statue, he was laying claim to a certain kind of aesthetic tradition that he then successfully planted in the heart of an ongoing Western tradition and an understanding of what counts as the "beautiful body."

This is a photo of the posterior of the Kostas Dimitriadis statue in Randall's Island Park, New York City so you don't see his naughty bits hanging out all over the place.

Narrator: As a result, the Greco-Roman style was carried to every corner of Europe and far beyond.

Narrator: And just as Winckelmann might have wanted, it became the very emblem of civilization.



Skinny SJW: And so this is why you see at the end of 18th and early 19th Centuries the rebuilding of the French empire under Napoleon.

Skinny SJW: You have the British Empire building itself in the image of the Roman Empire.

Skinny SJW: And you see abroad in places like Calcutta, India expressions of the same kinds of neoclassical aesthetic urge placed there by the British to try and say, "We belong to this tradition"

Skinny SJW: So the dominance of a particular type of aesthetic vision in high fine art in the modern West is an expression of a particular kind of power.

[where video editor cuts to an aerial view of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. strongly implying that the USA is an imperialist power like France or Britain]

The Statues of Mercury and the Apollo Belvedere in a Landscape.

Charles Meynier. French 1768-1832. oil/canvas. pic.twitter.com/JrTK99oTsy

— rebecca (@romepix) April 29, 2018

Encouraging young women to embrace a lifestyle that causes horrible diseases and premature death is not "empowering" or "inclusive," it's incredibly harmful.

This is why 3rd wave feminism is a global laughing stock.https://t.co/o1rs2uMIV0

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 4, 2018

#Grantchester smoking cigarettes in hospital 🚬🏥

From Grantchester Series 1 : Episode 6

Love how patients & visitors both smoke cigarettes in the hospital 🚬🏥 on #Grantchester #MysteryPBS pic.twitter.com/Ih3nWqlzCQ

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) February 13, 2018

In case tweet breaks:


Love how patients & visitors both smoke cigarettes in the hospital 🚬🏥 on #Grantchester #MysteryPBS

Sidney Chambers: So we found him, but he killed himself.


Geordie Keating: Coward's way out.  

Sidney: It was the war.  He couldn't forget.  

Geordie: That's no excuse.  

Sidney:  Isn't it? 

Geordie: We all have that cross to bear.  

A less suboptimal triage solution is to administer morphine 💉 to wounded troops and radio in for a medic 👨‍⚕️vs just shooting them #DeathPanels #Grantchester #MysteryPBS pic.twitter.com/dqbWuqUjS8

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) February 13, 2018

In case tweet breaks:


A less suboptimal triage solution is to administer morphine 💉 to wounded troops and radio in for a medic 👨‍⚕️vs just shooting them #DeathPanels #Grantchester #MysteryPBS

Sidney: I killed one of my own men.  I said, "all clear." 

[cuts from hospital room to a flashback to WWII battlefield]

Sidney: We're clear!

[ cuts back to hospital]

Sidney: I told them it was all clear....but we missed the German.  I told them to stay down....but he was already on his feet, and the bullets they just....I put my hand on his stomach....but there was....  

[cuts back to a flashback to WWII battlefield]

Injured soldier: I want to go home 

Sidney: I know you do, Sandy [pulls out pistol and shoots injured soldier dead]

[ cuts back to hospital]

Sidney: I had no choice.  He'd written a letter to his sweetheart, but I never sent it because it was covered in his blood...and I thought that no one should see that.  

Geordie: You did what you had to do, Sidney. It's all any of us did.

I'm not the only person who thought Sidney over reacted to an injured soldier in his command. From Howse, Christopher. “Grantchester, episode 6, review: 'undemanding'.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 10 Nov. 2014, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11221087/Grantchester-Final-Episode-Review.html.

"Later we found out that Sid was woozy on the Ten Commandments. Simply because a man in his wartime platoon had been dying painfully of a wound, he had shot him dead. I see that the Rt Rev Mark Santer, the nice old former Bishop of Birmingham, was “Church Adviser” to the series, but I expect they only asked him about cassocks and hassocks, which seemed flawless. James Runcie needed no adviser to create Sidney Chambers, who had much in common with his father, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Scots Guards, tanks, MC, Belsen). But I don’t think he murdered any of his men, even out of kindness."

#Grantchester museum paintings 🖼️

There a couple paintings at the beginning of "Grantchester" Season 1: Episode 6 that the characters Sydney and Amanda admire:

The first:

Appears to be a fuzzy version of Philips Wouwerman on Polish-Swedish "Deluge" from Dariusz caballeros's SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2011 post "Baroque painting - Philips Wouwerman"

Guard: Morning, Miss Kendall

Amanda: Morning, Albert

Sidney: Do you work here?

Amanda: Restoration. And you? Look at you! 

Sidney: Who'd of thought it, eh?

Amanda: Who'd of thought? [ referring to Wouwerman painting] It's a dreary old thing, isn't it? 

Sidney: No, it's not dreary. It's....[ laughing] It's desperately dreary! 

The second painting Sidney and Amanda comment on:

appears to be a painting by Jan Gossart of "An Elderly Couple" painted in 1520 from "Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance" Metropolitan slideshow 

Sidney: [referring to Gossart painting] She's down in the dumps 

Amanda: So would he be if he were married to him

Sidney: I think he forgot to put his teeth in this morning

Amanda: I think she knows where they are but she has no intention of telling him [both laugh] 

[an onlooker stares at them both]

Sidney: [addressing the man glaring at them] It's alright, she works here [man shakes his head] 

The daily Page not found is out! https://t.co/LWClK8Vbvb #marketing

— Christian Gericke (@cgericke) February 7, 2018

And as Bob Ross says, "Every day is a good day when you paint!"

For #MemorialDay J. D. Salinger & Julia Child in WWII

A couple of  PBS American Masters documentaries touch on the war time service of two famous Americans.

Novelist Salinger  perhaps, if he wangled his connections, could have obtained an OTS commission since he graduated from the Valley Forge Military Academy:

However, Salinger volunteered to join and fight in the US Army enlisted ranks in WWII

After first being rejected by the medical board, Salinger fought against the Army bureaucracy for the privilege of serving in the ranks:

Salinger's first introduction to combat was in the infantry during the D-Day Normandy landings. Salinger then joined the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) in France.

Watch Full Episodes Online of American Masters on PBS | S26: Salinger's Work in World War II Army Intelligence

J.D. Salinger was part of the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) on the ground in Europe during World War II. Salinger formed a strong bond with three other men in the CIC and they dubbed themselves the Four Musketeers. One of them took the only known photo of Salinger writing "The Catcher in the Rye" during his army service.

In case the above links breaks:

Salinger fought in Hurtgen Forest, Battle of Bastogne,  and liberated a sub camp of Dachau:

Salinger suffered a nervous breakdown/combat fatigue/PTSD and was stationed to a military hospital to recuperate. After being discharged,  he worked with the US Army de Nazification program:

Pfc J.D. (Jerome David) Salinger  - Military Timeline

In the Pacific Theater, TV cook Julia nee McWilliams Child and her soon to be husband, Paul Child, served in the OSS

"She found that chance in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Like many Americans her age, she hurried to Washington to work for the war effort, finding a job at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Eventually she volunteered to go to the Near East. In March 1944, she set sail for Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, to work for the OSS office in the ancient city of Kandy. Here, far from home, she finally had her chance for adventure – and for love."

And finally, for something completely different

!!!NAUGHTY WORD ALERT!!!

Gordon Ramsay vs Julia Child. Epic Rap Battles of History 

(in case you're offended, Geoffrey Chaucer also used naughty words and discussed adult situations, but he did so in Middle English, so it's not as understandable)

Roger Rees = my favorite British actor who played historical American characters for PBS documentaries

Roger Rees was my favorite British actor who played historical American characters for PBS documentaries, if those are enough caveats. He played Thomas Paine in the PBS documentary on the American Revolution "Liberty" reciting "These are the times that try men's souls" from "The American Crisis"

Baby Roger Rees as Thomas Paine pic.twitter.com/bKwVv7fUi7

— Caitlin Snark (@CaitlinSnark) October 30, 2015

Roger Rees also played William Bradford in the PBS American Experience documentary on "The Pilgrims"

The late Roger Rees is so brilliant in this. These closeups are beautifully lit, very effective. #thepilgrims

— Joe Bua (@JoeWatchesTV) November 25, 2015

How sad is it #RogerRees is playing William Bradford on #thepilgrims. He died recently. But he's perfect

— Kimberly Winston (@kjwinston11) November 25, 2015

Bradford explains his understanding of faith:

Happiness is God's peace in your heart! pic.twitter.com/xGHmehJBFO

— Linda Lawrence (@llawren7) November 28, 2015

Bradford on his inspiration to emigrate and leave England:

Bradford on trying to recreate his concept of community described in the Bible sans church hierarchy and bureaucracy:

Bradford on realizing his and his coreligious temporal travails are chalked up to being mere pilgrims on this earth, anticipating the spirit of John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress".

Bradford coming to terms that his ship, the Mayflower, was blown off course into isolated New England territory, either by fortune or by treachery, as the Spencer Tracy film "Plymouth Adventure" speculates, from Mark Tooley – 11.26.14 "The American Spectator" review "SPENCER TRACY AT PLYMOUTH ROCK: Today’s secular intolerance wouldn't abide such a Thanksgiving movie"

"Tracy, true to his own real-life personality, effectively portrays a grumpy, unlikeable, and chronically depressed but competent Captain Christopher Jones, who meanly accepts a bribe to deliver the Pilgrims to chilly Massachusetts rather than the desired southerly Virginia."

Bradford comments on his sense of isolation after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to America:

An anthropologist, not quoting primary sources, asserts Pilgrims viewed Native Americans not as future converts but as mere vermin:

Alyssa Rosenberg's November 24 "Washington Post" review "‘The Pilgrims’ challenges the myths of the first Thanksgiving" notes Bruchac's comment:

"'I think it’s necessary to ask who the savages were,' the anthropologist Margaret Bruchac says. 'Were they the people who had lived in this territory for millennia? Or were they these people who had forced themselves into someone else’s home?' That’s a sort of rhetoric that can easily become trendy and hyperbolic, but 'The Pilgrims' brings the historical ammunition to back it up, while also providing a fair assessment of the community’s genuine accomplishments in self-governance.
That commitment to a comprehensive understanding is what makes 'The Pilgrims' useful, rather than merely polemical. It’s a call to enlarge our understanding of Thanksgiving, rather than to chuck the holiday out altogether as some sort of political gesture."

It doesn't seem to occur to leftists that perhaps everyone should be treated equally, and broadly stereotyping and disparaging entire groups is inappropriate. The "Washington Post" also compares the Pilgrims to ISIS terrorists:

"Despite their theological extremism, oddball reputations and the logistical obstacles to success, the Pilgrims managed to plant themselves in America. It may not be comforting to see even the broad parallels between the Pilgrims and the extremists of the Islamic State (both groups shared a sense that the apocalypse was — in the form of the Thirty Years’ War — or is nigh), but it’s true that some small, determined religious movements do actually change the world."

Ric Burns speculates Bradford's poem was written in memory of his lost wife:

Bradford on the tremendous death toll from famine and exposure:

Bradford plans of a preemptive strike against perceived potential enemies:

The "New York Times" in their review also implies that the Pilgrims were similar to current day ISIS pointing to this decapitation scene

From NEIL GENZLINGER NOV. 23, 2015 article "Review: In ‘The Pilgrims,’ Ric Burns Looks at Mythmaking"

"gives us a clearer picture of who the religious separatists on the voyage were, and their fundamentalist interpretation of their faith and desire to create a community based on it might put you in mind of a far different group that has been in the news.
The Pilgrims and their fellow travelers weren’t terrorists, of course (despite an instance of putting the severed head of a perceived enemy on a pole), but they and those who followed certainly did effect a cultural conquest."

It's rather anachronistic as well as disingenuous to compare capital punishment practices from nearly half a millennium ago to contemporary practices, but par for the course for leftists seeking moral equivalency between the US and its modern day opponents.

I think it's also disingenuous for the film to imply the Puritans in Boston were loyalists to the British crown:

"the [Puritans] who go to Boston make a fuss that they are NOT separating from the Church of England"

A few years after starting colonies in America, Puritan leader, Oliver Cromwell, led a Civil War in England which resulted in King Charles I being deposed and eventually beheaded. Scene from the biopic "Cromwell" illustrates being accused of treason:




Trial of Charles I from "The Sword Divided"



Charles I execution scene from "To Kill A King".




Back to Bradford and his philosophical acceptance on the limits of his accomplishments

Bradford feeling abandoned by former associates

An essay from seeming leftist social justice warriors at Gordon College "The "Log of The Mayflower": Memory and Desire in the Winter of William Bradford" describe Bradford's ideological conflicts:

"he saw how the voluntary alliance of the 'Lord’s free people' could be rattled by the unruly liberties of its own individuals. Bradford came to understand that liberty needed to be balanced by 'conscience'—which he understood as the public commitment to uphold the mandates of Scripture."

Bradford learning Hebrew at the end of his life:

Anthropologist Margaret  Bruchac seems simpatico with people celebrating a Day of Mourning vs Thanksgiving for losing the King Phillips War.

The film ends "somewhere, William Bradford might have smiled"

Presumably, the "somewhere" Bradford and his followers hoped to be smiling from is not in this realm but in his heavenly Father's house

#MadameButterfly on #PBS #TheCrimsonField

"The Crimson Field" the British WWI version of MASH,  included a hospital scene where the doctor tries, unsuccessfully, to implement music therapy to calm down a patient undergoing an epileptic seizure by playing the aria from Puccini's  opera "Madame Butterfly":

So much for the healing power of opera. #warishell #TheCrimsonField

— Bas Bleu Bookseller (@BasBleuCatalog) July 13, 2015

Maria Callas singing same "Madame Butterfly" aria: 

#Fortnight4Freedom 2015 #trcot #ReligiousLiberty #1A

Fortnight For Freedom is scheduled to run from June 21 - Jul 4

Religious people bring society an emphasis on strong families! #Fortnight4Freedom day 8 here: http://t.co/u0lmW720E5 pic.twitter.com/8ZcCxBXg8z

— Phoenix Diocese (@PhoenixDiocese) June 28, 2015

And concludes with a televised mass on Saturday July 4, 2015

Be sure to join us on Saturday at 12pm ET for the #fortnight4freedom Closing Mass | http://t.co/jPo2Zjw3yl pic.twitter.com/QzoRXsU6xS

— CatholicTV (@CatholicTV) June 30, 2015

The start date coincided with the eve of both Saint Thomas More and John Fisher Feast Days i.e. the day they were executed. It seems US Council of Catholic Bishops hedged its bets with a possibly unorthodox Christian humanist philosopher inspired by the even bigger unorthodox Erasmus by celebrating both More and Fisher, the latter clearly a Catholic martyr.

Kind of weird that both left wing radicals & the Vatican claim Thomas More as their own #Fortnight4Freedom https://t.co/2THZX8R4ta

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

It looks like Thomas More

St. Thomas More, pray for us! #FeastDay #FortnightForFreedom pic.twitter.com/77RgXLRIcx

— Tony Mangia (@TonyAtTheTable) June 22, 2015

might be Dudley Moore's long lost cousin, since there appears a distinct family resemblance:

and they both appear to have had run ins with the law. Father Jerabek's Blog April 22, 2014 post "St. Thomas More: His Cell and His Tomb" includes photos of Thomas More's Tower of London prison cell:

And Dudley had his mug shot snapped by the Los Angeles Police:

Harriet Lessy wrote a  breathtakingly unPC March 23, 1994  article with the most horrible pun in poor taste title "DUDLEY MOORE STARS IN HIT DRAMA" in which she downplays Moore's domestic violence arrest:

No laughs coming from the home of Brit comic/actor Dudley Moore.
Moore, 58, who was taken into custody Monday night by L.A. police, was booked on suspicion of domestic violence. He walked after posting $50,000 bail.
The fuzz apparently heard from the actor first. The star of "10," ''Arthur" and "Foul Play" (no kidding) called to report a domestic dispute at his home in the burbs.
Then the cops heard from his girlfriend, who told them the pint-sized actor ''had just battered her."
LAPD sped to the scene and found the unidentified woman suffering "visible trauma to the neck area." Moore was invited to take a ride to L.A.'s version of the Roundhouse.
Now Moore, who also lists "Best Defense" in his film credits, may need a defense lawyer. He faces a possible cohabitational abuse charge. If that charge sticks, the 1981 Academy Award nominee will be looking at a potential sentence of four years in the slammer and up to $6,000 in fines.

It seems Ms. Lessy is a gay rights advocate from Michael Alan Goldberg "Philadelphia Weekly" Apr. 27, 2011 article: "Boy Scouts Panel at Equality Forum: Gay-rights activist Harriet Lessy discusses the decision to allow the Boy Scouts to retain the use of city property"

So, Ms Lessy supports gay men's rights, but not the rights of straight women not to be physically assaulted by men. Guess Ms Lessy is a femalephobe.


However, if there is thespian connection, it appears that Thomas More was the Bette Davis of Tudor England, since the poor fellow, or at least his character in "A Man For All Seasons" experienced a similar fate to Bette Davis' Margo Channing in "All About Eve"

"An ingenue [ Eve Harrington ] insinuates herself in to the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends."

Further off topic, allegedly Claudette Colbert instead of Davis was supposed to play the lead role, which would've been a different movie altogether, from "Stardust: The Bette Davis Story":

Thomas More's Eve Harrington was the character named Richard Rich, and it always annoyed me that the Rich character wasn't held accountable during his lifetime for his treacherous treatment of More.

Counterpoint to More. MT @adagioforstring: Rather annoying that weasely Richard Rich didn't get his comeuppance on earth. #AManForAllSeasons

— Steven D. Greydanus (@DecentFilms) August 17, 2013

More loses everything to preserve his self, his soul. Rich forfeits his soul, not for the whole world, but for Wales. @adagioforstring

— Steven D. Greydanus (@DecentFilms) August 17, 2013

Comeuppance in this life for Rich wouldn't test/examine More's attitude toward this-worldly consequences in the same way. @adagioforstring

— Steven D. Greydanus (@DecentFilms) August 17, 2013

Back to St. Thomas More .... "America Needs Fatima" JUNE 22, 2013 blog post "St. Thomas More – He Confronted the Mandate" goes into rather gruesome detail about the final disposition of poor St. More's remains. More was beheaded:

"The head, after being parboiled, was exposed on London Bridge for a month when [ Thomas More's daughter] Margaret Roper bribed the man, whose business it was to throw it into the river, to give it to her instead. The final fate of the relic is somewhat uncertain, but in 1824 a leaden box was found in the Roper vault at St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, which on being opened was found to contain a head presumed to be More’s."

However, from THE CENTER FOR THOMAS MORE STUDIES Thomas More's body was buried at the Tower of London:

There still seems to be a raging literary controversy as to whether More's magnum opus, "Utopia", was a serious proposition blueprint for society in the vein of Karl Marx "Das Kapital", or simply a satirical commentary in the style of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." The controversy might explain why it took More so long to become saint (but not as long as poor Bede tho):

@NWcarol28 @bombaylychee @BBCiPlayer Maybe literary controversy is why it took until 1935 for Thomas More sainthood pic.twitter.com/l6RHUIfnc2

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 22, 2015

And a Thomas More quote possibly pertinent to Obama:

@NWcarol28 This quote seems to apply to Obama "if any king were ... so behated by his subjects" pic.twitter.com/CMrL48yhQf

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

Mark Levin dislikes big state authoritarianism described in  More's "Utopia", and works along the premise that More was sincere vs satirical in his fictional writing:

.@NWcarol28 #MarkLevin didn't like Thomas More 's Utopia & thus named his book Ameritopia http://t.co/IAXtozxWgp pic.twitter.com/UVVc2UnMJt

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

Aha I'm not surprised the founder of the Democrat party has a copy of Thomas More 's dystopian Utopia https://t.co/lO8jL3tViW

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

From Dick Morris on February 8, 2012 "Book Review Of Ameritopia By Mark Levin"

"Broadly, [Mark Levin] divides them into two camps: Utopians and Libertarians. He explains how utopians laid the basis for modern socialism, leftism, and Obamaism and how the libertarian (he calls it Americanism) enlightenment philosophers set the stage for modern conservatism and free market economics.
His most important intellectual contribution is to identify the search for utopia — the perfect world — with the politics of the left. From Plato’s Republic through Sir Thomas Moore’s Utopia and Hobbes’ Leviathan and Marx’ Communist manifesto the storyline is the same: A super-lawgiver brings about a transformation of our flawed society into a perfect world. To Plato the superhero is the philosopher-king. To Moore it is King Utopus. To Hobbes it is the super dictator/strong man. To Marx it is the working class dictatorship. But the formulations are all the same – a big strong man saves the world. No democracy needed here. All we need is the right man in charge."

Allegedly More liked bunnies in "Masterpiece Theater" "Wolf Hall" film:

The rabbit-loving Thomas More depicted in WOLF HALL *almost* makes me enthusiastic to lecture on Utopia at 9am. pic.twitter.com/qkhuFOERAf

— Rachel Sykes (@rachelizasykes) February 1, 2015

.@rachelizasykes Did Thomas More support the eating of hasenpfeffer in his Utopia ? pic.twitter.com/k40ahCrnjQ

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 22, 2015

The hasenpfeffer reference was a h/t in a 6 degrees of separation kind of way to Henry VIII. "Hasenpfeffer" is a frequent exclamation in the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Shishkabugs" in a mashup with  Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance":





and the original unedited cartoon: here!!!!!!



The fat spoiled king in the Bugs Bunny cartoon was based on Charles Laughton's portrayal in "The Private Life of Henry VIII":




I suspect Henry VIII, the abusive narcissist  who murdered his wives, is misogynist Harriet Lessy's favorite monarch.

A Protestant, but non Anglican -- so still an outsider, Faraday, admired More:

First ed of Thomas More’s Utopia, 1551, owned and rebound by Faraday, complete with his name sticker #flyleafFriday pic.twitter.com/SSQfCHuZtY

— Ri_Science (@Ri_Science) October 24, 2014

.@Ri_Science Faraday exemplified benefits of networking getting a job after giving Davy a book http://t.co/YNeDstugU3 pic.twitter.com/j02a00Xwuk

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

More's "Utopia" promoted learning and scholarship, which bookbinder cum scientist Faraday would appreciate:

"Even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of the people; the like exemption is allowed to those who, being recommended to the people by the priests, are, by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants, privileged from labour, that they may apply themselves wholly to study; and if any of these fall short of those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they are obliged to return to work; and sometimes a mechanic that so employs his leisure hours as to make a considerable advancement in learning is eased from being a tradesman and ranked among their learned men.  Out of these they choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of late their Ademus."

Hence, I believe he and his Utopian hosts would turn a jaundiced eye to overdue library books, especially since they originally only wrote on tree bark before More's character introduced them to printing presses:

"The minds of the Utopians, when fenced with a love for learning, are very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry it to perfection.  Two things they owe to us, the manufacture of paper and the art of printing; yet they are not so entirely indebted to us for these discoveries but that a great part of the invention was their own.  We showed them some books printed by Aldus, we explained to them the way of making paper and the mystery of printing; but, as we had never practised these arts, we described them in a crude and superficial manner.  They seized the hints we gave them; and though at first they could not arrive at perfection, yet by making many essays they at last found out and corrected all their errors and conquered every difficulty.  Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds, or on the barks of trees; but now they have established the manufactures of paper and set up printing presses"

Took Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" from the family bookshelf for my flight. A hefty late fee is on the horizon. 1981?!?! pic.twitter.com/QsO3gg6hXv

— Bobby Goepfert (@GeffMan47) July 26, 2014

Not certain More's philosophy on police, but according to Cliff Notes, More's Utopia had no police, which is prescient of poor More considering the coppers threw him in the clink:

"The extraordinary efficiency of the entire business structure is explained in part by superior management, as has been said, but also partly because they have eliminated several costly and time-consuming activities, freeing the citizens for more productive work. There is no army, no navy, no police force; there are no lawyers, bankers, or salesmen."

.@GeffMan47 You're luck the Library of Congress Police dissolved in 2009 o/w you might end up in the hoosegow pic.twitter.com/uve4yvNGrT

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

More was presciently ahead of his time:

Map of Thomas More's Utopia by Ortelius (circa 1595) pic.twitter.com/6hB9RfnBEp

— Imaginary Cities (@Oniropolis) May 9, 2014

.@marialenacarr @Oniropolis Thomas More was ahead his time w/ prototype Pacman = monster & 4 ships = 4 ghosts pic.twitter.com/cCFGjNZd1j

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 23, 2015

From short bio in Whiting, Bartlett Jere, Fred Millett, Alexander Witherspoon, Odell Shepard, Arthur Hudson, Edward Wagenknecht, and Louis Untermeyer. The College Survey of English Literature. Shorter ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942. Print. More considered becoming monk, but instead entered secular public political world and ended up a martyr and a saint:

Unlike Levin's critique of More's supposed ideology, Whiting et al attack More's aesthetics: "although attempts have been made, especially by R.W. Chambers, to establish More as the first modern prose stylist, most readers find his prose formless and undisciplined and his controversial manners the equal of Milton's worst." Since my writing resembles that remark, I'm going to give More the benefit of the doubt.

Conversely, St. Francis Assisi, whose parents wanted him to become a soldier and a statesman, disappointed his family when he opted to become an impoverished monk. I wonder if Francis and Thomas had chosen the proverbial Robert Frost path less trodden opposite professions whether either would have been beatified. According to biography.com article on St. Francis, he successfully survived his stint in the slammer, unlike poor Thomas More:

"After fighting in a battle between Assisi and Perugia, Francis was captured and imprisoned for ransom. He spent nearly a year in prison—awaiting his father's payment—and, according to legend, began receiving visions from God. "

Whiting et al don't settle the dispute as to whether More was serious or not, but point out "there is certainly no psychological incongruity between the regimented society of Utopia and More's severe, ascetic practices."

A more sympathetic portrait of More as a laid back Christian humanist is limned in Burns, Edward McNall, Robert E. Lerner, and Standish Meacham. Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984. Print. with coffee mug stained cover:

Burns et al paint More and his Christian humanist mentor Erasmus as laid back "basically conciliatory in their temperaments [who] preferred to express themselves by mean of wry understatements" in distinct contrast to how poor More was portrayed by the PBS "Wolf Hall"

Tappan, E. (1905). A Short History of England's Literature. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. is also sympathetic to More and describes More and Tyndale as "two of the three or four best writers of English prose that during [Henry VIII's] reign"

I quoted from Tappan to counter the mean anti - More (must be an Anglican) snarkiness:

.@bombaylychee @BBCiPlayer Thomas More was funny & witty but only in Latin - perhaps humor lost in translation pic.twitter.com/oC4Tfm5Vgp

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) July 2, 2015

Woods, G., Watt, H., Anderson, G., and; Holznecht, K. (1958). The Literature of England: An Anthology and a History (Fourth ed., Vol. One). Chicago, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company challenges Tappan's assertion and questions whether More really did write "The History of Edward V and Richard III".  Woods also disabuses readers of Tappan's implication that the creator of freethinking Utopians was simpatico with Tyndale by pointing out More wrote tracts critical of the translator of the English Bible.

More's reputation is defended by, of all sources, the British leftist "Guardian" newspaper in Jonathan Jones' 29 January 2015  article "'Wolf Hall' is wrong: Thomas More was a funny, feminist Renaissance man"

"Why does 'Wolf Hall' demonise one of the most brilliant and forward-looking of all Renaissance people? Its caricature of Thomas More as a charmless prig, a humourless alienating nasty piece of work, is incredibly unfair...He was a literary wit, a family man ... and a proto-feminist."

And, in conclusion, Fr. Robert Barron discusses the rapprochement between Pope Benedict XVI and the Anglican Church over St. Thomas More:




With a quick screen save summary:

Conversely, a youtube commenter pointed out another reason that might have held up More's canonization, he allegedly tortured people:

More might curmudgeonly counter Mossy McSharry from his 1534 "A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation"

"And would God that those that drown themselves in the desire of this world's wretched wealth, were not yet more fools than he! But alas, their folly as far surpasseth the foolishness of that silly fellow as there is difference between the height of heaven and the very depth of hell. For our Saviour saith, "Woe may you be that laugh now, for you shall wail and weep." And "There is a time of weeping," saith the scripture, "and there is a time of laughing." But, as you see, he setteth the weeping time before, for that is the time of this wretched world, and the laughing time shall come after in heaven. There is also a time of sowing and a time of reaping, too. Now must we in this world sow, that we may in the other world reap. And in this short sowing time of this weeping world, must we water our seed with the showers of our tears. And then shall we have in heaven a merry laughing harvest forever. "They went forth and sowed their seeds weeping," saith the prophet. But what, saith he, shall follow thereof? "They shall come again more than laughing, with great joy and exultation, with their handfuls of corn in their hands." Lo, they that in their going home towards heaven sow their seeds with weeping, shall at the day of judgment come to their bodies again with everlasting plentiful laughing. And to prove that this life is no laughing time, but rather the time of weeping, we find that our Saviour himself wept twice or thrice, but never find we that he laughed so much as once. I will not swear that he never did, but at least he left us no example of it. But on the other hand, he left us example of weeping.
Of weeping have we matter enough, both for our own sins and for other folk's, too. For surely so should we do—bewail their wretched sins, and not be glad to detract them nor envy them either. Alas, poor souls, what cause is there to envy them who are ever wealthy in this world, and ever out of tribulation? Of them Job saith, "They lead all their days in wealth, and in a moment of an hour descend into their graves and are painfully buried in hell." St. Paul saith unto the Hebrews that those whom God loveth he chastiseth, "And he scourgeth every son of his that he receiveth." St. Paul saith also, "By many tribulations must we go into the kingdom of God." And no marvel, for our Saviour Christ said of himself unto his two disciples that were going into the village of Emaus, "Know you not that Christ must suffer and so go into his kingdom?" And would we who are servants look for more privilege in our master's house than our master himself?"

FYI, More was paraphrasing Psalm 126:6 in his treatise:

"Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them." 

Which reminds me of Don McLean's  "Babylon"




which is based on English Standard Version translation of Psalm 137:1:

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion."

which, of course, if More had completely succeeded over Tyndale, neither the English Bible nor McLean's song would exist...but I'll give More the last word: