FinermanWorks

At least there is no debate as to when Christopher Marlowe was born.  It was on this day in 1564.  The date, nature, and cause of his death, however, are questions inciting civil wars in college English departments. 

Did he really die in a duel in 1593?  Was he murdered by the Crown?  Did he fake his death and live on to become the ghostwriter for William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Winston Churchill?

According to the Oliver Stone school of literature, Christopher Marlowe was murdered because he was a double-agent. Apparently, Marlowe wasn’t busy enough being the Robert Mapplethorpe of Elizabethan theater. No, according to the conspiracy addicts, he also was a Catholic spy. Even if it were true, why would the Crown need to arrange his assassination. If Elizabeth, Burleigh and Walsingham could publicly execute a Queen, Dukes, and Jesuits, what is the difficulty in hanging and drawing a flamboyant playwright?

And, if you don’t mind a tangent, Uncle Eugene is very indignant over the accusations that Shakespeare couldn’t have written his works. The criticism is based solely on snobbery. Since Shakespeare wasn’t an aristocrat or a graduate of Cambridge, he evidently couldn’t have brains or talent. Of course, The New York Times subscribes to this cultural bigotry. I am awaiting for some Ivy Leech to question the authorship of “Huckleberry Finn.” We will learn that Henry James actually wrote it as a skit for the Hasty Pudding Club.

Mercy was the stock and trade of the Roman Empire.  True, an Empire of mad Caesars, blood-crazed mobs and well-fed lions would not seem very charitable or lenient.  (You could ask a Carthaginian if there were any left.)  However, in its original Latin, mercy had nothing to do with virtue.  It meant “trade.”  The Latin word “merx” proved remarkably versatile, the root for market, merchant, mercenary and even the name of a God.  Fleet-footed and sleight-of-hand, Mercury was the patron of traders…and thieves.  Merx also provided France a way to say “thank you.”  Finally, and unintentionally, merx became the English word for clemency.

Let’s begin this mercurial odyssey.  The Romans introduced “merx” to Gaul but it hardly made a good first impression.  After all, at Roman insistence, the Gaulish traded their liberty, land and livestock in exchange for the right to keep breathing.  For four centuries, merx meant supplying the local garrison with wine and pornographic pottery.  Beginning in the fifth century, however, the word was reinvented, “new and improved” by a software company called Christianity.

Its sales force understood the principles of marketing.  Prospective converts needed an incentive if they were to trade Jove for Jesus.  So, the missionaries offered their customers a mercedes.  No, it was not a deluxe, German chariot, but it was a miracle of marketing.  The word mercedes , in fact, was a variation of merx, but its meaning had been embellished and burnished.  A mercedes was more than a mere trade; it was a bargain, a reward, a blessing!

Those missionaries made a compelling sales pitch, guaranteeing morality and salvation.  All that paganism could promise was provocative theater. The Gaulish realized which religion was the mercedes.  In the fifth century, the conquering Franks came to the same conclusion and traded in Wotan.  Since mercedes was synonymous with reward or blessing, the French began saying it to express appreciation.  They did abridge it to two syllables-”merci”-but the French were never long on gratitude.

The English learned “mercy” from the Normans, and the lesson was in both Latin and French.  The Norman conquerors included bishops as well as barons.  The new prelates of England were bound by the tenets of Christianity, and the Church still promised “mercedes.” However, after six centuries in the Dark Ages, the Church really wasn’t feeling chipper.  In this bleak 11th century perspective, the world was sinful, and mankind was unworthy of God’s mercedes.  Such blessings were an undeserved favor.  Of course, the Norman clergy were eager to terrorize their conquered congregations, promising eternal damnation unless the English proved abjectly servile.  Even then, their hope of salvation was slim, dependent upon the generosity of Heaven.  Any fate other than Hell was an act of mercedes.

Living under the Normans, the English already had a familiarity with Hell.  The Normans were descended from Vikings who had overrun France.  Over a century, they had acquired a façade of French culture, although the Norman idea of Christian conduct was limited to shaving.  Now, the new masters of England, they made no attempt to endear themselves to their subjects.  On the contrary, the Normans routinely terrorized the English to teach them their place-with the livestock.  The battered and cowed English became accustomed to abuse and degradation. 

Then, the unexpected occurred in the 12th century.  It might have been during Lent or in the wake of the Chivalry craze.  An English servant had just finished his debasing drudgery (perhaps licking the stables) and now expected to receive a slap or a kick from the Norman lord or lady.  Instead, the Norman muttered “merci.”  The servant kept waiting for some affliction but nothing happened.  The Norman repeated “merci” and waved the Englishman away.  The amazed and relieved servant had never before heard the word “merci” but he could guess its meaning.  The Norman was saying, “I won’t hurt you.” 

By the 13th century, the distortion of mercedes and the misinterpretation of merci had converged into our meaning of mercy.  So, from Roman greed,  medieval gloom and Norman arrogance, we derived an expression of virtue.  Whether or nor mankind is inherently sinful, we are habitually ironic.

We know that the White House ignores all the evidence of evolution, global warning and gravity. When the truth is inconvenient, and the facts are incriminating, one can find great solace in ignorance. There are times and societies where stupidity is a dogma. For example, in 16th century Spain the Inquisition regarded the practice of reading on a Saturday as suspiciously Jewish. And you know how the Inquisition dealt with suspicions. People can be as flammable as books.

And in our time, General Pinochet had similar suspicions for similar reasons. During his tyranny, Chile’s colleges were discouraged from teaching the Theory of Relativity. Albert Einstein apparently was not a practicing Catholic. (However, Pinochet was quite enthusiastic about the economic ideas of Milton Friedman, but then those people are so good at usury.)

Now lest I be picketed by the Knights of Columbus, I must mention an example of willful ignorance by Protestant liberals. In 1582, the Catholic Church presented an updated and far more accurate version of the calendar. However, Protestant England refused to acknowledge the improvement, as if there were a Jesuit lurking behind every page of the calendar. Of course, naming the calendar for Pope Gregory was not exactly ecumenical either. Rather than give a Catholic credit for anything, England adhered to the old Julian calendar. (Apparently, an inaccurate pagan was preferable to an accurate Catholic.)

Finally, in 1752 Britain begrudgingly adopted the Gregorian Calendar. At least, the American Colonies did not revolt over that; but it was a confusing transistion. For example, George Washington had to adjust the celebration of his birthday. The twenty-year-old thought he had been born on February 11th. According to the new calendar, however, he should have been celebrating on February 22nd.

And most of us will honor him today. The White House may still think that it is February 11th.

They were an incongruous pair.  One was handsome, debonair and affable.  The other was homely, abrasive and overbearing; some regarded him as a genius but most thought him obnoxious.  I could be describing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.  However, I was thinking of Freddie Engels and Charlie Marx.

On this day in 1848, the boys published “The Communist Manifesto“.  The pamphlet was not the immediate hit that they had hoped.  It did not incite proletariat uprisings and Verdi did not option the script for an opera.  Marx and Engels had to keep their day jobs.  Engels’ was owning factories and Marx’s was borrowing money from Engels.   

Yes, Engels suffered from an embarrassment of riches, and Marx knew how to make the guilt pay off. The textile heir became communism’s first victim and possibly its only willing one. Engel’s fortune subsidized Marx’s ventures into the stock market.

No matter what he told Frau Marx, Karl wasn’t spending all his time at the British Museum. The founder of communism liked to hang around the London Stock Exchange. He was not trying to emancipate the clerks; nor was he simply the disinterested observer of bourgeois financial machinations. In reality, Marx loved to play the market. Unfortunately, he had a dismal investment record; it was bad enough to justify the invention of communism. Yet, Marx never lost a penny in his fiscal fiascoes. Engels did.

In the Marxist system of finance, Engels incurred all expenses and losses, while Marx got any profits. This arrangement, a prototype of today’s mutual funds, can be expressed as, “From leeched, according to his debility; to leech, according to his greed.”

A recent survey, conducted during the commercial breaks for American Idol, asked people to list the five greatest Presidents of the United States.  Of the 10 most popular choices, five were actually Presidents.  Here is the list:

Jesus

Martin Sheen

Abraham Lincoln

Walter Cronkite

Ronald Reagan

Rodgers N. Hammerstein 

John Kennedy

Napoleon 

Bill Clinton

Somebody Roosevelt

It is interesting that Reagan, Kennedy and Clinton made the list.  In America, glibness must be synonymous with greatness.  Washington, Jefferson and Jackson should fire their media consultants. 

It is February 19, 1915 and you are invited on an all expense paid cruise of the Mediterranean. Tour the charming shores of the Dardanelles on our way to Constantinople! (Itinerary subject to change.)

Quite a change! How should I describe Gallipoli? Imagine if Gettysburg had lasted 11 months and every day was a disaster. Of the 500,000 men in the Allied expedition, half of them were killed or wounded. The casualty rates among the Australians and New Zealanders was nearly one hundred percent; entire ANZAC battalions were wiped out in the campaign. To this day, Gallipoli–the heroism, the horrors and the futility– is seared in the history and consciousness of Australia and New Zealand. They remember Gallipoli, and the British incompetence that caused it.

Ironically, the strategy behind the campaign was brilliant. With its complete mastery of the sea, the British navy would force its way up the Dardanelle Straits, seize Constantinople, knock Turkey out of the war, open the Black Sea and supply the beleaguered Russians on the Eastern Front. Yes, the idea was brilliant, but reality was not accommodating.

When the combined British and French fleets first undertook their expedition, they found the channel had been mined and the Turkish batteries were more accurate than expected. Faced with unanticipated losses and unnerved by further uncertainties, the fleets retreated. In fact, they had already encountered the worst and would have had a comparatively mild cruise to Constantinople. The Allies did not know that, however, and the Turks did not bother to correct them.

The Allies had an alternative plan. They would land an expeditionary force on the coast along the Dardanelles, and brushing aside the surprised and sparse Turkish forces, march to Constantinople. Of course, the aborted naval expedition had made the Turks and their German advisers aware of the Allies’ intentions; and so they prepared for a second attack. The Dardanelles were no longer lightly defended.

Furthermore, there was an obvious place for the Allies to begin such an invasion: a peninsula jutting from the straits. It was called Gallipoli. Six weeks after the failed naval attack, the Allied troops began landing on Gallipoli.
But nothing seemed to go right. The troops were not transported to the right locations. Instead of disembarking on wide, gently sloping beaches, the soldiers found themselves trying to scale cliffs. As for the light, sparse Turkish resistance, there were six divisions and they fought ferociously.

The Allies did establish their beachheads but in eleven months, they never got much further than where they had originally landed. Their brilliant strategy had resulted in a irretrievable military disaster. The Allies had no hope of success and no choice but to evacuate.

It was a Turkish victory and one general, who had been distinguished for his leadership, would in a few years become the founder and first president of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal remains a hero of Turkey.

It was a British catastrophe and the Lord Admiral of the Navy, who had conceived the brilliant strategy, resigned in disgrace. He was given the rank of colonel on the Western Front and half-hoped to be killed in action. But he survived, a heavy-drinking eccentric, an entertaining but dismissed backbencher in Parliament.

He had skill as a writer and lecturer and was able to make a living with his theatrical talents. As he aged, he became increasingly outspoken and belligerent, an imperial anachronism in a drab, mundane era. But he thought of himself, not as a has-been or a relic, but as a thundering Jeremiah who foretold the gathering storm.

And he made himself heard with an eloquence that defined history. The scapegoat of 1915 would become the Prime Minister of 1940.

“A lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements.”

This is the description of Asperger’s Syndrome. It also is the college application for the University of Chicago.

Today we observe the birth of Dr. Hans Asperger who discovered a clinical reason for being obnoxious. We don’t know if the doctor himself had the syndrome. The birth certificate from 1906 does not indicate that the infant was unusually overbearing, belittling the aesthetics of his mother’s birth canal or the inferior education of the midwife. However, his high school yearbook did declare him “Man Most Likely To Be Wedgied.”

Fortunately, because of Dr. Asperger, we now have a better understanding of the chronically unbearable. When you find yourself confronted by an aggressively obnoxious individual–and you are not at a car dealership–you should respond by knocking out the buffoon. Then search his or her pockets to diagnose the nature of psychosis. If you find the unconscious has a Nobel Prize in Economics or a large collection of used dental floss, then the diagnosis is Asperger’s Syndrome. Try to be sympathetic. If, however, the unconscious has a copy of an Ayn Rand novel, a regimen of sympathy is not recommended or even possible. In fact, feel free to hit him again.

TEXAS LAWMAKER CLAIMS EVOLUTION IS A JEWISH CONSPIRACY

CITING EVIDENCE OF “RABBINIC WRITINGS OF THE PHARISEE RELIGION” AND “THE KABBALIST PHYSICIST ALBERT EINSTEIN”, STATE REPRESENTATIVE WARREN CHISUM PROPOSED A BAN ON THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION IN TEXAS.

I would have loved attending Charles Darwin’s Bar Mitzvah.  I understand that they rented out Westminster Abbey for the dinner and arranged to have Big Ben play ‘Hava Nagilah’.

The Heliocentric theory is another Jewish conspiracy.  The name Galileo may really be a Kabalistic anagram of Leo Yigal. 

And, of course, Columbus’ real purpose was to prove that the earth was shaped liked his grandmother’s matzo balls.  (Actually that might be true.)