Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well may have been co-written by Thomas Middleton

William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well may have been co-written by Thomas Middleton

Daily Mail | Apr 25, 2012

Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well might have been co-authored with a fellow playwright, Oxford University academics have found.

Thomas Middleton, writer of The Changeling, was the most likely co-author of the comedy in the First Folio of 1623, according to analysis of the text, spelling, speech prefixes and narrative phrasing.

Professor Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith, both of Oxford University’s English faculty, said writers have their own distinctive literary fingerprints and anomalies within the play show ‘markers’ strongly linked to Middleton.

Dr Smith said: ‘We are not saying that Middleton and Shakespeare definitely worked together on All’s Well but Middleton’s involvement would certainly explain many of the comedy’s stylistic, textual and narrative quirks.

‘The narrative stage directions, especially ‘Parolles and Lafew stay behind, commenting on this wedding’, look as though it is the point at which one author handed over to another.’

Londoner Thomas Middleton lived between 1580 and 1627 and became a celebrated writer, remembered for works such as Women Beware Women.

An analysis of the textual composition of All’s Well supports Middleton’s involvement, with whom Shakespeare also collaborated on Timon Of Athens at the same time, the academics said.

‘The proportion of the play written in rhyme is much higher than usual for Jacobean Shakespeare: 19 per cent of the lines are in rhyme, which fits Middleton’s norm of 20 per cent,’ added Professor Maguire.

‘Shakespeare tends to use ‘Omnes’ as a speech prefix and ‘All’, preferred by Middleton, only occurs twice in the Folio: both times in All’s Well.’

The research suggests act 4, scene 3 was written by Middleton, Professor Maguire said.

‘This scene sees Parolles describing Bertram as ‘ruttish’, a word whose only other occurrence as an adjective is in Middleton’s The Phoenix,’ he said.

‘It also sees an unusual number of Middleton’s known spelling preferences.’

The word ‘ruttish’ means lustful – and its only other use at that time is in a work by Middleton.

More of his ‘modern’ grammar can be found in the text and its phrasing and spelling is closer to Middleton’s style than Shakespeare’s.

It is believed that if Middleton and Shakespeare did collaborate on All’s Well, it could provide an interesting insight into the way Shakespeare worked.

Dr Smith explained: ‘Where we know Shakespeare worked with other playwrights, it tended to be in a master-apprentice relationship, with Shakespeare as the apprentice in the early years and as the senior writer in his later years.

‘But if, as we suspect, All’s Well and Timon Of Athens were written in 1606-7 while Shakespeare was in the middle of his career and working with a dynamic, up-and-coming playwright like Middleton, the relationship seems not unlike an established musician working with the current big thing and is about more than just professional training.’

Research leader Professor Laurie Maguire said many plays of the time were written in partnership, but it was thought Shakespeare always penned pieces by himself.

He was thought to not want to share the glory with contempories due to his inconic status.

Prof Maguire said: ‘The picture that’s emerging is of much more collaboration. We need to think of it more as a film studio with teams of writers.

‘We are confident there is a second hand in the authorship of the play and that hand belongs to Thomas Middleton.’

Author: We live in “Ritual America” where the average citizen is an unconscious Masonic initiate

Images: Freemasonry Watch

huffingtonpost.com | Apr 10, 2012

by Adam Parfey (co-author of “Ritual America”)

Just about every single village, town and city in the United States has at least several buildings used as secret society lodges, hidden in plain sight: various forms of Freemasonry, Odd Fellows, Shriners, Woodmen of the World, Improved Order of the Red Men, Jesters, Druids, subordinate orders meant for women or children of these groups–Rebekah, Order of the Eastern Star, Job’s Daughters, DeMolay or one of six hundred different orders that ran strong in this country.

It might come as a surprise that the banal business and patriot groups, like the Lion’s, Optimists, Elks, Eagles, and the Rotary Club are also secret societies who are joined by initiates who swear secret oaths.

At the turn of the twentieth century, several well-regarded insider books on fraternal orders claimed that as many as one-third the population of the country belonged to among six hundred different secret orders. Now that’s a mother lode of secrecy.

A dozen major factories in the country made costumes and uniforms, strange lodge ephemera, banners, books, and strange hazing pranks for a huge and not-too-secret fraternal marketplace.

What’s the attraction of belonging to such groups?

It seems that a small percentage were attracted to learning esoteric wisdom. Others were drawn to having a place where they could meet with friends and drink away from the wife and kids. A surprising number of fraternal orders outside the Ku Klux Klan–which based its structure on Freemasonry–froze out the participation of other races and religious beliefs. A good number of secret orders provided life insurance and care for families at a time when social security, Medicare and life insurance did not exist. Some original secret orders have since dropped the rituals and esoteric pretense to morph into full-time insurance companies.

With the distractions of television, video games, the Internet, fast food, microwave meals and full-time employment for mothers of the family, membership in secret orders has dropped precipitously since the late ’60s. Bruce Webb, a friend from Waxahachie, Texas, runs an art gallery that nearly exclusively features purchases he made from newly defunct Lodges.

A member of the Scottish Rite temple bemoaned to me the dissolution of fraternal orders, and suggested that I read the book Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam to glean a better idea why the communitarian aspect of American culture has collapsed, and why lodge membership seems like a faint throwback to a weird and ancient era.

Today, Orders like the Scottish Rite Temple are trying to find ways to attract new members who don’t have enough interest or drive to spend months memorizing complex ideas to climb the 32 degrees of the Order’s hierarchy. Many Scottish Rite lodges today offer the 32 degree climb within a day or two… Less work equals more “raised” members.

In opposition to the decline today of secret society membership is the continued strength of fraternal membership among the police and military, or the so-called Brotherhood of the Gun.

Accompanying this article are patches of Masonic police brotherhoods. Coincidentally, the Middle East has been a fraternal obsession since the turn of the twentieth century. Masonic publishing companies have published novels and non-fiction books about Baghdad and The Temple of Solomon. An online Shriners magazine called The Scimitar discusses military lodge work in Baghdad. A New York Times article from 1912 discusses a “scheme” of Freemasons to purchase and rebuild The Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

The co-author of Ritual America [Feral House, $29.95] and I believe that although membership of esoteric orders are declining by the day, the esoteric groundwork of modern America has already been established. Although traditional structures–with notable exceptions in police and military ranks–are in decline, other forums for fraternal fun have emerged, from sports bars (somewhat akin to early Masonic meetings in colonial taverns) to megachurches and their venues of entertainment. At the same time, modern America has been permeated by many of the gnostic concepts of the secret societies, making formal affiliations a bit moot. We might say that modern America has truly become Ritual America at a deeper level, and the average citizen is an unconscious initiate, a dweller in the long historical shadows of secret societies.

Bonding Through Brotherhood: the story of Freemasons in India

Bonding Through Brotherhood: 50 Years of Grand Lodge in India, 2011. Published by the Grand Lodge of India.

ibnlive.in.com | Mar 19, 2012

Other than a bitter dispute that has killed thousands in the Middle-East, what’s common between Yasser Arafat, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yitzak Rabin? Or Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Winston Churchill? What united the Rothschilds and the Rockefeller family in the US, despite their enormous wealth? They were all Freemasons – a fraternal and yet mysterious society with its origins in early modern Europe and which now commands a global membership of almost six million people including some of the world’s most powerful and the rich.

The coffee-table book, ‘Bonding Through Brotherhood: 50 Years of Grand Lodge in India’ published on the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Grand Lodge, is an attempt at not only chronicling the history of the almost 400-year old organisation that has intrigued as well as inspired a host of people across generations and geographies, but also at educating the Indian readers on the movement’s ‘glocal‘ character – its global organisation and principles as well as its local history and spread across India. The book also details the activities of the society which includes social work, philanthropy, educational and health initiatives.

So who are the Freemasons? The members insist it is not a religion and instead emphasises secularism by teaching respect for and tolerance towards all religions. It is also not a political party or organisation. It is not a social club either. It nevertheless provides the means of socialising among its members. Freemasons however insist that it is not a secret society. “There is nothing secret or secretive about Freemasonry. Freemasonry does not conceal the time and place of its meeting nor does a member hide the fact of his membership,” says the charter on its India website. It further says: “Like many other societies it regards some of its internal affairs as private matters of concern only for its members.”

The India story of the Freemasons began as early as in 1728-29 under the British. Some of the most well-known early Freemasons were Swami Vivekananda, Motilal Nehru (father of Jawaharlal Nehru), C Rajagopalachary (former Governor General of India), Maharaja of Patiala and former President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. The movement however suffered with the exit of the British and was only revived in 1961 with the constitution of the Grand Lodge of India at New Delhi’s Ashoka Hotel. Today, the book tells us, India has over 370 Lodges and nearly 400 other Masonic bodies located in 150 cities and towns across the country with a total membership of almost 20,000 Freemasons.

The book has been published in memory of Col Anil Shorey who had originally conceived the idea of the history of Freemasons in India. A Freemason himself, Shorey was the brainchild behind the book, which was later compiled and finished by his fellow Freemasons. ‘Bonding Through Brotherhood’ is a valuable resource for those interested in knowing about this fascinating and mysterious society, the accounts of which are not easily available otherwise.

In the future, I’m right: Letter from Aldous Huxley to George Orwell over 1984 novel sheds light on their different ideas

“The lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”

Daily Mail | Mar 7, 2012

By Rob King

The novel 1984 predicted a different world to that envisaged by Aldous Huxley

They were both critically acclaimed writers who were ahead of their time, creating imaginative visions of the future in their novels.

But an enlightening letter sent by Aldous Huxley to his fellow author George Orwell more than 60 years ago reveals that the two men had very different ideas of how the world would change.

Huxley’s 1949 letter – the latest addition to a website that collects fascinating missives from the past – praises Orwell for the novel 1984, which offers a terrifying portrayal of a future totalitarian society.

But the late California-based author – who had coincidentally taught Orwell more than three decades earlier – went on to focus on the differences between Orwell’s vision and that revealed in his own masterpiece.

His novel Brave New World, published 17 years before Orwell’s, had foreseen a society characterised by medicated contentment, a widely accepted, eugenics-supported caste system, and a government-enforced obsession with consumerism.

But Orwell’s novel presented a nightmarish vision and gave birth to the phrases ‘Big Brother’, ‘thought crime’ and ‘double think’, all now commonly used to describe increasing state control.

The book was later made into a film starring John Hurt, Richard Burton and Suzanna Hamilton.

In the letter Huxley began by echoing the positive reviews for 1984, telling Orwell ‘how fine and how profoundly important the book is’.

Going on to focus on the differences between their predictions, however, Huxley wrote: ‘The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.

‘Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful.

‘My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World.’

The letter was written at Huxley’s California home in October 1949, a few months after the release of Orwell’s book.

It has been added to the website Letters of Note, which gathers and posts fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos.

The relationship between the two authors began in 1917, while Huxley was a tutor at Eton and Orwell was a pupil. Huxley taught French.

Huxley’s other students at Eton included the writer and scholar, Harold Acton.

ALDOUS HUXLEY’S LETTER IN FULL…

Wrightwood. California.
21 October, 1949

Dear Mr. Orwell,

It was very kind of you to tell your publishers to send me a copy of your book.

It arrived as I was in the midst of a piece of work that required much reading and consulting of references; and since poor sight makes it necessary for me to ration my reading, I had to wait a long time before being able to embark on Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Agreeing with all that the critics have written of it, I need not tell you, yet once more, how fine and how profoundly important the book is.

May I speak instead of the thing with which the book deals — the ultimate revolution?

The first hints of a philosophy of the ultimate revolution — the revolution which lies beyond politics and economics, and which aims at total subversion of the individual’s psychology and physiology — are to be found in the Marquis de Sade, who regarded himself as the continuator, the consummator, of Robespierre and Babeuf.

The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.

Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful.

My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World.

I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred and fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest.

Partly because of the prevailing materialism and partly because of prevailing respectability, nineteenth-century philosophers and men of science were not willing to investigate the odder facts of psychology for practical men, such as politicians, soldiers and policemen, to apply in the field of government.

Thanks to the voluntary ignorance of our fathers, the advent of the ultimate revolution was delayed for five or six generations.

Another lucky accident was Freud’s inability to hypnotize successfully and his consequent disparagement of hypnotism.

This delayed the general application of hypnotism to psychiatry for at least forty years.

But now psycho-analysis is being combined with hypnosis; and hypnosis has been made easy and indefinitely extensible through the use of barbiturates, which induce a hypnoid and suggestible state in even the most recalcitrant subjects.

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.

In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World.

The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency.

Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.

Thank you once again for the book.

Yours sincerely,

Aldous Huxley

Obama’s betrayal to China

Bowing To Beijing:

How Barack Obama Is Hastening America’s Decline And Ushering A Century Of Chinese Domination

By Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II

Regnery, $27.95, 231 pages

Reviewed by Jeffrey T. Kuhner

Washington Times | Nov 11, 2011

President Obama is creating a post-American world – one that is ushering in the dominance of China. Mr. Obama is fostering U.S. economic and military decline while simultaneously empowering Beijing’s rise to superpower status. China’s communists are on the march. Unless Americans wake up to the growing threat, both internal and external, our victory in the Cold War will have been useless.

This is the disturbing theme of “Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening America’s Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination,” by Brett M. Decker, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, and William C. Triplett II, a best-selling author and renowned China analyst. Lucid, concise and comprehensively researched, the book is a fire bell in the night. It is a dire warning that China has become what America once was to Great Britain: the ambitious upstart determined to eclipse the global colossus. The result will be not only the end of the American moment, but the triumph of a belligerent authoritarian communism hostile to democracy and the West.

“China’s leaders are engaged in a war against America. They view us as a threat to their regime and way of life. Hence, they have embarked on a systematic, long-term program to surpass us militarily, economically and politically,” Mr. Decker said in an interview. “They are willing to do anything – purchase our national debt, steal our intellectual property, spend obscene amounts to buy influence in Washington, engage in extensive espionage in our government and large corporations, and sell sensitive missile and nuclear technology to our mortal enemies – to defeat us. And the Obama administration is turning a blind eye.”

The authors reveal that Beijing believes it is in a life-and-death struggle against America. For years, China’s ruthless communist regime has been committing hostile, aggressive acts – stealing valuable military technology, blatantly violating patent and intellectual property laws, manipulating its currency to artificially boost exports to the United States, lying about the nature and extent of its massive military buildup, sending spies into the highest echelons of our government and private sector, hacking into our computer networks, waging cyberwarfare, purchasing stakes in major banks, and cultivating our economic dependence on Chinese business.

In response, Mr. Obama has embraced the Chinese dragon. In January 2011, he acceded to Chinese demands and gave a state dinner honoring President Hu Jintao. Mr. Obama praised Mr. Hu as a statesman and welcomed China’s prominent role in world affairs. It was a craven surrender. The authors point out that while he was communist party chief in Tibet, Mr. Hu oversaw the slaughter of hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monks. Moreover, he has ruled China with an iron fist. Thousands of dissidents have been murdered or rot in jail. The media is heavily censored. Free speech is nonexistent. Basic human rights are abrogated routinely. The country’s Christians, Falun Gong and Muslims face state-sanctioned persecution. Tens of millions are in gulags, being used as slave labor to drive China’s booming economy. Mr. Hu staunchly supports Beijing’s genocidal one-child policy, which has led to millions of forced abortions and has coerced countless women to be sterilized against their will. He is not a progressive visionary; rather, he is a butcher. This is the man Mr. Obama toasts – and to whom he bows.

At a major nuclear summit in 2010, Mr. Obama bent over and bowed fully to Mr. Hu. The Chinese leader did not reciprocate. In fact, his face and body language conveyed the opposite: contempt. The protocol breech is nuts, and frequent. As president, Mr. Obama is constantly abnegating himself to foreign leaders. The emperor of Japan, the king of Saudi Arabia, the queen of England – there is almost no one to whom he will not bow. Domestically, he has bowed to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and even to the Democratic mayor of Tampa Bay. It is odd. The authors say Mr. Obama even has bowed repeatedly to midlevel Chinese functionaries.

His submissive behavior does more than demean and degrade the presidency. For the authors, it rightly signifies Washington’s growing subservience to Beijing. Under Mr. Obama, America’s national debt has soared to nearly $15 trillion. Obamacare, the massive stimulus, crippling regulations and the reckless borrowing and public spending have brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. The private sector has been shackled. Economic sclerosis has set in. Our military lacks the dynamic economy necessary to sustain our global standing. Mr. Obama has significantly weakened American power. China is filling the vacuum. Beijing now owns more than $1.3 trillion of U.S. debt. It annually runs huge trade surpluses, flooding our market with everything from toys to computers to manufacturing products. America’s industrial base is being wiped out. As we become the world’s greatest debtor nation, China is amassing more than $3 trillion in hard-currency reserves. Its economy is exploding, fueling annual growth rates averaging 10 percent for nearly two decades.

The authors show, however, that the red dragon’s rise is anything but peaceful. Beijing is embarking on a huge, almost unprecedented military buildup. It possesses the largest armed force on the planet. It has 2.3 million men in uniform, compared to 1.4 million in the United States. If one includes reservists and paramilitary forces, the total number is close to 5 million. China is expanding its nuclear arsenal. It is constructing a world-class navy to dominate the western Pacific. It menaces its democratic neighbors, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Along with its client state of North Korea, China has sold missiles and vital nuclear technology to Iran, Syria and Venezuela – aiding and abetting our archadversaries. It is spearheading a global anti-American axis.

When confronted with the overwhelming evidence of Chinese expansionism and nefarious duplicity, the Obama administration has refused to take action. The reason is simple: America is turning into an economic vassal of China. We can no longer afford to upset – never mind challenge – our new imperial master. Instead, we must bow. This is Mr. Obama’s real, enduring and shameful legacy. We didn’t win the Cold War. Communist China did.

‘Few doubts’ William Shakespeare was a crypto-Catholic, Vatican claims

William Shakespeare died in 1616 Photo: AP

The Vatican’s official newspaper has claimed there are “few doubts” that William Shakespeare was a Catholic.

Telegaph | Nov 18, 2011

By Nick Squires, Rome

L’Osservatore Romano, a week after proclaiming Tintin a Catholic hero, said the Bard’s plays “teem with open references to the Catholic religion.”

The newspaper reopened a debate which has raged ever since an Anglican archdeacon said of Shakespeare a few decades after his death: “He died a Papist.”

In a lengthy article which appeared alongside a review of the new Shakespeare film, ‘Anonymous’, L’Osservatore Romano (The Roman Observer) said the references to purgatory in Hamlet and other plays betrayed distinctly Catholic beliefs and marked Shakespeare out as a crypto-Catholic.

The newly released film, which explores the theory that Shakespeare’s plays were in fact written by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, stars Rhys Ifans as the aristocrat and Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson as the older and younger Queen Elizabeth I.

“Shakespeare or not Shakespeare, this is (or seems to be) the problem,” wrote L’Osservatore Romano, which has the backing of the Vatican. “His identity may be open to discussion but not his faith.” It quoted Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who during a discussion at the Hay Festival in May said he thought Shakespeare was “probably” a Catholic.

The broadsheet, the Holy See’s paper of record, said England was “violently anti-Catholic” during Shakespeare’s lifetime and that Elizabeth was “the proud and ruthless defender” of Protestantism, responsible for “bloody persecutions” of Catholics.

A line in the famous ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, when Hamlet refers to “the oppressor’s wrong” and the “insolence of office”, was an oblique reference to the banning of Catholicism, the paper argued.

The argument that Shakespeare was a Catholic is based in part on documents found in the rafters of a house in Stratford-upon-Avon in the 18th century which suggested that his father adhered to the old faith, the implication being that young Will was covertly brought up a Catholic.

Some scholars have claimed that Shakespeare used a sort of secret code in his writings, in which he described Catholic characters as “high”, “light” and “fair” but referred to Anglican characters as “low” or “dark”.

Proponents of the idea also point to a will, from a Catholic household in Lancashire, which included a bequest to a ‘William Shakeshaft’ – the Elizabethan spelling of names being notoriously changeable.

L’Osservatore Romano may be convinced that Shakespeare was a Catholic, but many scholars are not.

“His father was born before the Reformation, so it’s no surprise that he was a Catholic, but there is no evidence that William was a crypto-Catholic,” said Professor Stanley Wells, the chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon.

“William was baptised, married and buried by the Anglican Church. There are references to purgatory in his plays but also many references to Anglican theology as well.

“But the possibility always exists. Shakespeare is notoriously elusive and it’s very difficult to pin him down on his opinions, religious or otherwise.” Earlier this month the Vatican paper hailed Tintin as a “Catholic hero”, criticising a decision in Britain to consign one of his adventures, Tintin in the Congo, to the top shelves of book shops on the grounds that it was racist as “politically correct lunacy”.

Publishing house owned by the Catholic Church quietly sells pornography, books on Satanism and the occult

Mr Müller said that in 2008, a group of concerned Catholics had sent bishops a 70-page document containing irrefutable evidence that Weltbild published books that promoted pornography, Satanism and magic.

Germany’s bishops promise to stop the company’s distribution of erotic novels

independent.co.uk | Nov 5, 2011

by Tony Paterson

Berlin – Germany’s biggest Catholic-owned publishing house has been rocked by disclosures that it has been selling thousands of pornographic novels with titles such as Sluts Boarding School and Lawyer’s Whore with the full assent of the country’s leading bishops.

The revelations made in the publishing-industry newsletter Buchreport concern Weltbild, a company with an annual €1.7bn (£1.5bn) turnover and 6,400 employees. It is Germany’s largest bookseller after Amazon and wholly owned by the Catholic Church.

Buchreport revealed that Weltbild’s massive assortment of titles available to customers online includes some 2,500 “erotic” books with unmistakably lewd titles including Call Me Slut!, Take Me Here, Take Me Now! and Lawyer’s Whore, to name a few. The publisher’s website also pictures the titles’ lascivious dust jackets that feature colour photographs of scantily clad women in high heels and erotic underwear.

Yesterday, Carel Haff, Weltbild’s managing director, was quoted as saying that the revelations had provoked “a very intense and critical dialogue” within the company. He said discussions were under way about possibly limiting the assortment of titles that would be available in future.

Catholic bishops responded with a statement claiming that “a filtering system failure” at the publishing house had allowed the books to stray on to the market. “We will put a stop to the distribution of possibly pornographic content in future,” they said.

But Bernhard Müller, editor of the Catholic magazine PUR, dismissed the clerics’ reaction as grossly hypocritical. He alleged that the pornography scandal at Weltbild had been going on for at least a decade with the Church’s full knowledge. Mr Müller said that in 2008, a group of concerned Catholics had sent bishops a 70-page document containing irrefutable evidence that Weltbild published books that promoted pornography, Satanism and magic. They demanded that the publisher withdraw the titles.

But their protests appear to have been completely ignored. Writing in the Die Welt newspaper, Mr Müller said most of the bishops refused to respond to the charges. “The sudden proclaimed astonishment of many church leaders that pornographic material is being distributed by their publishing house, is play acting – bad play acting,” Mr Müller said. “Believers have been complaining to their bishops about this for years.”

The Catholic Church bought Weltbild more than 30 years ago. The publisher has gradually transformed itself into one of Germany’s largest media companies with the help of some €182mof Catholic Church tax levied on believers. To increase its profits, in 1998 the company merged with five other publishing houses that market pornographic titles. One of them is Droemer Knaur, which is 50 per cent church-owned. Another is Blue Panther Books, which was excluded from the list of participating publishers at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair allegedly because of the pornographic content of is titles.

It emerged yesterday that in an attempt to clear itself of potential embarrassment over the sale of porn, the Catholic Church tried to sell Weltbild in 2009. But the bishops apparently abandoned the idea after they failed to get the price they were asking.

Was Shakespeare really ‘Anonymous?’

Joely Richardson portrays a young Queen Elizabeth in the new film “Anonymous.”

Daily Advance | Oct 29, 2011

By Shirrel Rhoades

I had this debate with my college English lit professor: Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays?

One of the oldest questions concerning William Shakespeare is whether he wrote his works or not. The first mention that he might not have written the works attributed to him was made by the Rev. James Wilmot in 1785. Wilmot suspected that Francis Bacon was the real author.

But there are others to consider.

More than 70 candidates have been proposed. The most popular include Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford; Christopher Marlowe; Bacon; and even Queen Elizabeth I. Each has a group of followers who support that particular person as the real author of Shakespeare. De Vere’s are called Oxfordians, Bacon’s Baconians, and Marlowe’s Marlovians. Queen Elizabeth’s followers have pretty much faded away. Those who believe Shakespeare to be the true author are known as Stratfordians.

Related

Sir Francis Bacon AKA William Shakespeare

Fact is, there’s little evidence that Shakespeare wrote his works. As it happens, we have a lot more evidence indicating he didn’t write the works attributed to him.

The arguments include:

William Shaksper (sic) lacked the background and education to write such masterful plays and sonnets. His parents were probably illiterate and so were his daughters. So it’s unlikely he possessed the high degree of literacy exhibited in his plays.

It’s argued that the plays were written a highly educated man. But there’s no evidence that poor-as-a-church-mouse Will ever attended a university.

Furthermore, no portraits were painted of him during his lifetime as was typical of noted authors. And his entry in the parish death registry merely lists him as a “gent,” rather than as a playwright or actor.

Edward de Vere is generally regarded as the most likely of the bunch to be the famed author. In 1920 J. Thomas Looney was the first to propose de Vere as the writer of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. In “Shakespeare Identified” he pointed out analogies between Oxford’s poetic techniques and the Bard’s writing.

Not convinced? A friend of de Vere once referred to him as a “man whose countenance shakes spears.” And one of the Earl’s coats of arms depicts a lion shaking a broken spear. Plus, as a ward of Queen Elizabeth I, he was well educated, a patron of the theatrical arts, and held a lease on the first Blackfriars Theatre.

“Anonymous” is a new movie that takes on the question of authorship of Shakespeare’s works. As proposed by director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day,” “2012”), de Vere is the true penman. Shakespeare was just a front man. And Ben Jonson was miffed at being passed over for this honor.

This is presented as history’s greatest literary scam. “We’ve been played,” posits the film’s trailers.

In this telling, aristocratic Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans) is both son and lover of Queen Elizabeth (Vanessa Redgrave). Believing that theaters are the work of the devil, a relative named Robert Cecil (Edward Hogg) blackmails de Vere into removing his name from all his plays, attributing them to a handy surrogate named Shakespeare (Rafe Spall), an “illiterate drunkard, notorious fool, and bit-player.” Fellow playwright Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) is privy to this subterfuge. Thus we have a conflict that sets the stage for murder, court intrigue, and the high drama of the Essex Rebellion.

Roland Emmerich admits that he never enjoyed reading Shakespeare in school, saying he picked up what he knows of Shakespeare from watching movies. So consider this his contribution to English literature.

In pressing the Oxfordian theory, Emmerich reckons “everybody in the Stratfordian side is so pissed off because we’ve called them on their lies.”

Truth is, few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it likely that another person wrote Shakespeare’s plays. One problem with the de Vere theory is that he died in 1604, before 10 of Shakespeare’s plays were written. But the 17th Earl of Oxford makes good fantasy for a movie.

Wonder if my old college prof would agree?

Anonymous (2011) International Trailer

Warning as children shun books in favour of Facebook

Children who fail to read at a young age risk turning into illiterate adults, said the National Literacy Trust. Photo: GETTY

One in six children are failing to read books as they spend an increasing amount of time texting friends, sending emails and searching Facebook and Twitter, research suggests.

Children who fail to read at a young age risk turning into illiterate adults, said the National Literacy Trust.

Telegraph | Aug 22, 2011

By Graeme Paton

Schoolchildren are more likely to be exposed to mobile phones and computers than novels outside school, it was revealed.

Researchers also found that reading frequency declined sharply with age, with 14- to 16-year-olds being more than 10 times as likely to shun books altogether as those in primary education.

The findings, in a study by the National Literacy Trust, follows the publication of a major international league table last year that showed reading standards among children in Britain had slipped from 17th to 25th in the world.

Jonathan Douglas, the trust’s director, warned that people who failed to read books at a young age often suffered serious literacy problems in adulthood.

“We are worried that they will grow up to be the one-in-six adults who struggle with literacy to the extent that they read to the level expected of an 11-year-old or below,” he said. “Getting these children reading and helping them to love reading is the way to turn their lives around and give them new opportunities and aspirations.”

The trust surveyed more than 18,000 children aged eight to 17 across the UK.

It found that 13 per cent of children failed to read a single book in the last month.

The study said that “technology-based materials dominate as reading choices”, with text messages being named as the most popular form of reading material for children of all ages, followed by emails and social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Bebo.

Researchers said “reading frequency declines with age”, particularly when children leave primary school at 11.

In the last few years of primary education, children are almost six times more likely to be classed as prolific readers – finishing 10 books – than those in secondary schools, it was revealed.

Older pupils were also “considerably more likely to say that they have not read any book in the last month compared with their younger counterparts”.

The study said: “While this rather large discrepancy can at least partly be explained by [secondary] pupils choosing to read texts other than fiction/non-fiction books, the books they read are also more likely to be longer, to be more complex.”

The findings came after Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, called on all pupils to read 50 books a year as part of a national drive to improve literacy standards,

He said children should complete the equivalent of about a novel a week and that the academic demands placed on English schoolchildren had been “too low for too long”.

Ministers have already outlined plans to introduce a reading test for children in England at the age of six to identify those struggling to read at the start of primary school.

*The vast majority of parents are opposed to the use of lotteries to award school places, according to the British Social Attitudes survey.

Only eight per cent believe random ballots should be used as a tiebreaker during the admissions process, it emerged.

The findings – presented as part of the survey, which tracks the opinions of around 2,000 adults – comes despite continued Government support for lottery systems.

Ministers have banned “area-wide” lotteries in which places at all schools in a certain town or city are distributed using the process, but they have refused to stop the system being used by individual schools.

‘Hollywood producer was an Israeli nuclear agent’

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Arnon Milchan at event of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Photo by Lester Cohen – © WireImage.com – Image courtesy WireImage.com

According to a new biography, Arnon Milchan, close friend of Israeli prime ministers and Hollywood stars, was recruited by Shimon Peres to purchase equipment for Israel’s alleged nuclear program.

haaretz.com | Jul 18, 2011

By Yossi Melman Tags

Israeli businessman and Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan was a longtime weapons dealer and Israeli intelligence agent who purchased equipment for Israel’s alleged nuclear program, a new biography claims.

The book, “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” written by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, recounts Milchan’s life story, from his days as a boy in Rehovot through his friendships with Israeli prime ministers, U.S. presidents and Hollywood stars.

Milchan’s services to the Israeli security industry have been made public before, but he has always denied or refused to acknowledge them. This is the first time Milchan confirms these claims, albeit indirectly.

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This Famous Hollywood Producer Was Also An Israeli Arms Dealer

Even though the authors claim to have written an unofficial biography, Milchan agreed to meet with them, answer their questions and correct their mistakes. One of the major sources for the book was Israeli President Shimon Peres, a close friend of Milchan.

“I am the one who recruited him,” Peres is quoted as saying.

This occurred in the 1960′s, when Peres was Deputy Minister of Defense. The relationship continued in the 1970′s, when Peres became Minister of Defense. He recruited Milchan as an agent for Lakam, an acronym for ‘Science Liaison Bureau.’ Lakam is the name of a secret unit in the defense ministry that was tasked with purchasing equipment, namely technological parts and materials for Israel’s alleged nuclear program.

Since its founding in the mid-1950′s, the agency was headed by Benjamin Blumberg. Blumberg was fired in 1978 by Defense Minister Ezer Weizman following the Likud’s party rise to power. Weizman claimed that Lakam was involved in illegal money transfers to different bodies, including the Labor Party.

Blumberg was Milchan’s friend, and used him (as well as other Israeli businessmen) to set up straw companies around the world, and to open secret bank accounts for financing the nuclear plant in Dimona and other Israeli security industries.

The basis for Milchan’s secret actions was the family firm Milchan Brothers, which represented foreign chemical companies in Israel since before independence.

Lakam was in effect an intelligence unit dealing with technological and scientific espionage, and served as a kind of “theft contractor” for the Israeli security industry. Besides using businessmen, Lakam also appointed scientific attaches in Israeli embassies around the world. After he was fired, Blumberg was replaced by Rafi Eytan, who continued to use his services.

For years, Milchan operated in secret, yet in the mid-1980′s U.S. customs uncovered an attempt to smuggle “switches” – equipment that can be used both for medical purposes and for nuclear weapons manufacture – by the California-based Milco company, owned by Milchan. The company’s CEO, Richard Kelly Smyth, was arrested and released on bail. He fled the country soon after.

Smyth was declared a fugitive, and according to some reports found refuge in Israel. In 2001 he was captured in Spain and was brought back to the U.S., where he stood trial and was incarcerated. The FBI began an investigation into Milchan’s affairs, yet he has never been charged.

According to the book, right after the “switches” fiasco Milchan called his friend Peres, then prime minister, and asked for his help in dealing with the Ronald Reagan administration. Milchan is quoted in the book as saying he never received money for his services, and that everything he did was for the state of Israel.