What Shakespeare Plays Should be 100% Required Reading at Every College/University? Hamlet!!!!

[j***@yahoo.com]

Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256

Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.

If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
and let them party the whole time.

[Daniel Kessler]

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.

Really? Sure, the language is great, but I find him a very confusing
character. Is he mad, or isn't he?

Post by j***@yahoo.com
If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
and let them party the whole time.

[Art Neuendorffer]

Post by Daniel Kessler

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.

Really? Sure, the language is great, but I find him
a very confusing character. Is he mad, or isn't he?

Indeed. Make it _Lear_, instead.

Art N.

[Christopher Jahn]

Post by Daniel Kessler

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.

Really? Sure, the language is great, but I find him a very confusing
character. Is he mad, or isn't he?

It is this question that keeps the play alive through history. And the
beautiful part of the play is that you can play it either way and make
discoveries about Hamlet.

[b***@nut-n-but.net]

Don't sell degrees, give them away free. Then the only ones who will
read or attend a performance of HAMLET will be those capable of
appreciating it.

--Bob G.

[j***@yahoo.com]

Shakespeare & the Bible would solve 90% of society's ills.

http://jollyrogerwest.com

The marriage of cultural liberalism and big business bureaucracy has
benefited the literary arts in no discernable way. The vast increase of
postmodern corporate administration in the New York publishing world
has tarnished its once noble countenance, and today, the literary
industry at large is in an economic decline, which shall force a sea
change and an eventual spiritual revival. We here at Western Canon
University know that the free market, like time, technology, and the
Truth, is on our side.

Throughout the sixties and seventies the industry enjoyed great
economic growth while fostering a spiritual decline, but again we see
that money can never be worth more than meaning itself, and while one
can cash in during periods of decline by deconstructing the Greats and
selling smut, there comes that day when there is nothing left to
deconstruct, and the smut fails to titillate the hardened, dispirited
consumer. The once racey glitz bores the slacker-grunge generation, as
we've been participating in it all since fourth grade. Kurt Cobain
mocked the industry as he screamed, "here we are now, entertain us, I
feel stupid, and contagious," and while he came from the intoxicated
Dionysian perspective, we're sailing in from the sober Apollonian
perspective. Kurt Cobain was a consumnation of the postmodern irony, as
he rebelled against the liberal machine while becoming one with it.
We're rebelling by declaring independence from it. Once upon a time it
was fashionable to skip school and get stoned, but today we're skipping
the getting stoned part and following our yearning to erect a
University.

Whereas Cosmopolitan and The New Yorker once provided a stepping stone
for the young author while publishing the subtle prose of Fitzgerald,
Salinger, and Hemingway, today the magazines print articles on how to
shape your butt, meaningless poetry, and the insipid story of the week
penned by some writer who happens to suffer through parties with Tina
Brown. Time and again postmodernism's strategy has triumphed in our
culture, where the essence of an institutiuon is scuttled, leaving but
a shell to play host to the postmodern leader's blend of politics and
ego. But postmodernism is not self-sufficient, and it eventually runs
out of sustenance to pillage, plunder, and commandeer. Mark Twain once
said that you cannot pray a lie, and the devastating repercussions of
the postmodern ideology are manifesting themselves in the publishing
industry. The New York Times recently reported that 45% of all adult
trade books which get shipped out to bookstores get shipped back to be
pulped. Harcourt Brace recently considered eliminating its entire line
of literary fiction, as the literature they publish loses money. This
is tantamount to the doctor who realizes that his prescription is not
working and then decides to kill his patient.

Once upon a time there were only editors who might have rejected a
young author's Great Book, but today they receive diligent help from
scores of postmodern literary agents and agencies who blossomed
overnight in the wake of the dumbing down of literature, which now, in
this liberated age, can be anything. The desperate corporate publicists
hype the gratuitous glitz, publishing and promoting the Howard Sterns
and Dennis Rodmans and Sapphires, and with the decline money they make
off of soft porn, gossip, and new-age advice, they then massage their
literary egoes by attempting to create literary authors of all genders,
races, and sexual orientations. They funnel the soft-porn money into
marketing campaigns for indecipherable literary tomes such as Pynchon's
Lewis and Clark and Foster's Infinite Jest, complete with carboard
cutout displays for the Barns and Noble debut. Once a year they happen
upon a Cold Mountain and decide to publish it, and things are cool for
awhile, but still, Cold Mountain falls short of affecting the
prevailing postmodern attitude, for it forgets to fulfill its
contemporary literary duty and acknowledge the present. More often than
not the publishers print huge, meandering books, reveling in
postmodernism's pernicious, immature inside joke, mocking the
sensibilities of their customers, denying them the importance of their
Reality, flooding the market with literary mediocrity, crying wolf a
thousand thousand times, desparately filling the back covers with
soundbites of exquisite praise that would have made Shakespeare proud,
and then, when they have finished with their thorough desecration and
blatant hucksterism, they resort to claiming that the American public
is too backward to enjoy the indecipherable trash. But instead of
purchasing the stillborn books, the American public is logging onto the
internet, where they have the hopes of finding something that didn't
have to first make it on by a gauntlet of ten self-appointed postmodern
literary experts. And out here they're finding the WWW literary
renaissance.

And so it is that during the postmodern liberal reign of terror, the
university and the literary industry have both known decline. It is no
mystery that they have shared in the same fate. Both the university and
the literary culture are built with the brick of the printed word, and
without a humble acknowledgement of God's supreme, omnipotent,
ubiquitous divinity, the printed word lacks authority, and the bricks
crumble to sand. The ivory tower of Babel might seem higher today then
fifty years ago, with bigger football stadiums, and larger, more
gallant administrations replete with lawyers, with more departments and
courses and computers and technology transfer programs, but the cause
of the univerity is lost somewhere in-between the widening fissure
between the English and Physics departments. C.P. Snow's two cultures
have become twenty, with as many languages, and while we reach for the
heavens and probe the atom, we begin to find our most fundamental
essence, the printed words of our heritage, drifting beyond our grasp.
In the beginning there was the Word, and in the end there wasn't, some
might say, but I contend that in the beginning there was the Word, and
so too shall it be again. At least upon the world's largest campus.

The postmodern press remains oblivious to the decline, as postmodernism
conveniently deconstructs the very ruler by which one might guage
aesthetic quality, and thus there is no way for them to measure the
fall. They commandeered the scientific method, and left the true spirit
of science behind, which demands that one remain absolutely loyal to
reality. And science can never be loyal to the reality of the printed
word, for it cannot discern it.

Some of the elder postmodernists have attempted to project their
gnawing emptiness upon us with the belittling "generation-x, slacker,
grunge" monikers, but I contend that inspite of their command of the
universities and presses, we're awakening to a renaissance. Time shall
let us speak for ourselves. Deconstructing the greats was futile, and
the misled, condescending academics only succeeded in deconstructing
their own souls. For Shakespeare still exists within our immortal
spirits. Many of the aging liberal elite might have been agile in
subterfuge, or skillful with a slander, or good at, "hiding one thing
in the depths of his heart, while speaking forth another." They might
have been deft with hermeneutics theory, and dextrous with
deconstruction, but none of these intellectual vices nor treacheries
are honored by time. They are honored but by bureaucracy.

Those who truly understand the nature of vital creativity, the
principles of rugged individualism, the foundations of freedom, and the
basis of intellectual integrity, spend their lives out-running the
relentless, plodding, machinations of bureaucracy, and we hope they
find a haven of encouragement at Western Canon University. There shall
always exist the perpetual rift between the artist and the
administrator. Both will consider the other one to be arrogant, to be
deceitful, and to be dishonest. Both shall wish to be given credit for
the same entities, but the difference is that whereas one shall forever
seek the credit by commandeering it, the other shall seek credit by
creating it.

And so it is that Western Canon University has come to be. Once upon a
time the scientific spirit was utilized to degrade the Greats and exalt
the postmodern bureaucracy, but now the tide has turned, and modern
science's offspring, the WWW, is allowing us to resurrect the context
of the Greats. For while science is at heart indifferent, man's
immortal soul is not, and it must forever seek the nobler path.

Ten years ago we set out upon a journey to acquaint ourselves with the
greatest that had ever been thought and said, and now, ten years later,
we find ourselves in the midst of a renaissance rooted in the printed
word. As poets and authors coming of age at the end of the second
millenium, we came to realize that a modern cultural context for
contemporary Great Literature was lacking. So in addition to composing
new works, we have also found it necessary to create a context in which
they can take root and blossom. The WWW has presented the ideal tool
for this. These simple sentiments and yearning for traditional values
in both our lives and our literature, shared by the free-thinkers
throughout the world, have given birth to the world's largest literary
journal and the world's most-active literary cafe, and thus we have
reason to believe that God willing, our sentiments might also beget the
world's greatest university.

[BCD]

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.
If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
and let them party the whole time.

***Of course, that'll happen whether they read *Hamlet* or not!

***Back to the question: *Troilus and Cressida* should be required
reading. Few will have preconceptions about it--most will have never
heard of it--and so students will be forced to form their own opinions
about the characters and about the writer's craft and degree of success
in creating the play. Having achieved (one hopes) a new clarity of
vision in looking at Shakespeare, *then* students should read *Hamlet*,
etc. etc.

Best Wishes,

--BCD

Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor
Visit unknown Los Angeles: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal1.html

[Brad Filippone]

BCD (***@csulb.edu) wrote:


: ***@yahoo.com wrote:
: > Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
: >
: > Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.
: >
: > If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
: > most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
: > and let them party the whole time.

: ***Of course, that'll happen whether they read *Hamlet* or not!

: ***Back to the question: *Troilus and Cressida* should be required
: reading. Few will have preconceptions about it--most will have never
: heard of it--and so students will be forced to form their own opinions
: about the characters and about the writer's craft and degree of success
: in creating the play. Having achieved (one hopes) a new clarity of
: vision in looking at Shakespeare, *then* students should read *Hamlet*,
: etc. etc.

It certainly is a good example of how to have four brilliant acts ruined
by a poor fifth.

Brad

[John W. Kennedy]

Post by Brad Filippone
: > Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
: >
: > Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.
: >
: > If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
: > most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
: > and let them party the whole time.
: ***Of course, that'll happen whether they read *Hamlet* or not!
: ***Back to the question: *Troilus and Cressida* should be required
: reading. Few will have preconceptions about it--most will have never
: heard of it--and so students will be forced to form their own opinions
: about the characters and about the writer's craft and degree of success
: in creating the play. Having achieved (one hopes) a new clarity of
: vision in looking at Shakespeare, *then* students should read *Hamlet*,
: etc. etc.
It certainly is a good example of how to have four brilliant acts ruined
by a poor fifth.

There are those who will argue that V.2. is the most important scene in
all of Shakespeare.

[j***@yahoo.com]

http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

With all the thousands of publishers and millions of dollars of
government grants and billions of dollars of venture capital with which
we're supposedly competing with out here on the net, how was it that
three poets came to own the World's Classical PortalTM? For a few
simple, complimentary reasons. First off, most venture capital firms
are only interested in short-term monetary gains, and so the creation
of everlasting poetry and literature does not show up on their radar.
Thus we have little or no competition from any well-financed sector.
And even if we did, their money would buy hype far more easily than it
would ever buy integrity and profundity of meaning, and thus even if
they wanted to, the venture capitalists could not create nor enhance
classical literature by investing in it. They are excluded from the
club. The poet alone can create literature by investing his spirit's
time. And though there is no pay for the initial labor, once a classic
is written, it gets free passage to all corners of this watery globe.
It must be known, it must be read, and only foolish, nihilistic tyrants
and vindictive feminists have ever tried to inhibit the Greats'
inevitable propagation.

Governments, by their very nature, prefer bureaucracy over art, and
thus their self-serving investment of other peoples' money usually
finances esoteric farces. And the contemporary publishing houses, lying
somewhere between the postmodern business gurus and the postmodern
socialists, naturally must harbor all the requisite postmodern
prejudices against the Greats--it is in their character to refrain from
passing the literary judgements that define and defend God's higher
aesthetics. But as is so often the case, the iron rails of their
political prejudices have become the iron bars of their prison. Thus it
is that the WWW RenaissanceTM is owned by the three sonneteers and the
tens of thousands who have signed their souls aboard jollyroger.com.

The individuals who "thought differently" have arguably produced the
greatest and most enduring wealth ever known to mankind. Some prominent
venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have recently mused that they
have been at the center of the greatest legal creation of wealth in
history, but really they have been at the center of the greatest
inheritance. Perhaps they have forgotten the giants upon whose
shoulders they have stood upon, including Newton, Einstein, Planck,
Bohr, Shockley, Galileo, Gauss, Brillouin, Rutherford, Schroedinger,
Faraday, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Moses,
Aristotle, Socrates, and all the countless souls and innovators who
labored for, studied, advanced, and sometimes gave their lives for the
Science and Truth which sets us free.

For the classics would exist without the internet, but the internet
would not exist without the classics. The robust free-market economy
would not exist were it not for The Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, and in turn these documents would not exist were it not
for all the classical and biblical poetry which preceded them. Venture
capitalists, and the second-rate, superficial, rock'n'roll publishing
and university CEOs who seek to imitate them only to end up satirizing
them, are inextricably anchored to bottom lines. And all profound
innovations and renaissances only ever belong to the free
spirits--those who venture beyond money on towards the actual creation
of wealth's deeper meanings. The "New New" thing has ever been the
eternal.

Society's laser-like focus upon money is complimentary to
postmodernism's fierce focus upon "ism" politics, as while a
preoccupation with money neglects the higher ideals so as to focus upon
the bottom line, postmodernism's love affair with pure politics
neglects the higher laws so as to focus upon the postmodernist's
ephemeral egos. In both cases, this is bad for long-term business, for
as Huckleberry Finn once said, "You can't pray a lie." Walk across a
college campus, and ye'll find that both the postmodern business
schools and the liberal humanists share an equal disregard for the
Great Books. Turn on the TV or pick up the daily paper, and ye won't
find an overabundance of rhymed reason nor philosophy profound. While
one could lament, like Hamlet, "How all occasions do inform against
me," we instead see this classical dearth as a vast opportunity for
jollyroger.com to succeed as both a cultural and business venture. The
internet is revolutionizing all aspects of life, and as it is primarily
a medium of information in the form of the printed word, it makes sense
that it would allow the rising poets to revolutionize poetry. Simply
put, the demand for rhyming, metered poetry and contemporary words
reflecting the Permanent Profound is far, far higher than the supply,
and thus all stalwart literary sailors shall find ample work. For there
is nothing that a generation values more than living poetry carrying
eternity's meaning.

The internet eliminates the middlemen, and from a literary standpoint,
this means the creative writing workshops and all their infinite jest
and progeny in the form of postmodern agents, the editorial elite, and
the postmodern critics in the popular press. No longer must literature
be judged in their temporal, arbitrary, debased context, but now, out
here on the internet, literature has an opportunity to be judged in the
eternal context defined by the Great Books. And just like Rozencrantz
and Guildenstern met their early ends because of their short-sighted
choice to ingratiate and serve the evil king, so too is it that all the
middlemen who lived by brown-nosing the feminists and serving the egos
of the postmodern literary administrators shall sink on the postmodern
ship which they signed their souls aboard. 'Tis the nature of the
literary sport, mate. Wo to those who would cross paths with
Jollyroger.com's destiny.

There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.-Hamlet III,iv (William
Shakespeare)


http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

[Chess One]

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.
If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
and let them party the whole time.

<laugh>

agree! is there a more interesting speech than the main soliloquy? what
compares with it?

phil

[Spam Scone]

Post by Chess One

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.
If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
and let them party the whole time.

<laugh>
agree! is there a more interesting speech than the main soliloquy? what
compares with it?
phil

a number of others in the same play, for starters.

[j***@yahoo.com]

Or do we stand firm in the ivied courtyards and battle the
postmodernists, who believe not in the truth, nor in the notion of
private property, and in battling them, do we resort to their political
subterfuges, to their lies? For anyone who speaks the Truth in their
context is quickly defeated. But we own consciences whereas they own
but instincts--we have apprehension and aptitude where they have but
appetite, and thus the crew of the Good Ship owns the vulnerable yet
sublime mark of man--character.

Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be
one man picked out of ten thousand. II,ii (Hamlet, William Shakespeare)

And honesty places us at a disadvantage, for to speak the Truth of
their mendacious mediocrity marks us as dangerous dissenters. So how
can young poets come to the fore in a world sedated with crass
temptations and unbounded rock'n'roll--when we have higher standards,
of what use are those higher standards in advancing our cause, when
they but make us villains in this inverted culture, where wistful
honesty is arrested and corruption and deconstruction and subterfuge
are given free passage under the assumed identities of culture, irony,
and art? Is it more noble to accept this fate and endure the whimsical
opinions of the united front of fringe elements, or do we take up arms
against their ocean of blind fury?

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

Hamlet-III, i (William Shakespeare)

But my merry maties--there is a third option which transcends the two
that Hamlet contemplates above, and that is the poetry which contains
Hamlet's contemplation. For while Hamlet's question may not be easily
answered, there's a beauty in his honest struggle, and that is where we
might find a safe harbor for our aspirations of a renaissance--within
literature. In words we might set the better parts of our eternal souls
down, and in epic poetry find the use for character that has no use in
other modern realms of politics and entertainment. And via living
poetry, we can take it upon ourselves to move the entire context of the
Great Books into the hearts and souls of the rising generations,
against the Pedant's self-serving warnings that the Great's words will
crumble if moved from academia's jurisdiction. But I say the children's
spirits provide a much more honest and secure foundation for the Great
Books, and thus to hold the Greatest Book of them all close to one's
heart is to be born again .

Like the engineers who moved the light out of harm's way, we neither
have to oppose the wild ocean of postmodern whimsy, nor do we have to
let it level the lofty beacons of the Great Books. But now, buoyed upon
the wonders of the internet revolution, we can engineer a renaissance.
We can transfer the center and circumference of the Great Books to a
new locale, where they shall be safe from being eroded by the advancing
ocean of conceit and ignorance which in God's absence shall always
influence the shifting sands of popular opinion. We can keep the Light
of all Lights lit, so that the faithful might gain safe passage through
the daily culture, and the seekers of truth might return to port with
the greatest spiritual treasures ever known to man.

The postmodernsists lost, never ye fear,
For Shakespeare yet exists--he lives on here.

http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256

[Ven Hawkins]

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Inspired by: http://shakespeareforums.com/showthread.php?p=256#post256
Hamlet should be required reading everywhere.
If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and
most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees
and let them party the whole time.

IMHO, Shakespeare's plays should be experienced in two ways: seeing a
performance or participating* in a performance. Reading them is fine,
but only if after reading them you actually see or participate in a
performance. I'm a huge fan of Shakespeare's plays and even I find the
ones that I'm less familiar with to be a tough read. The best way to
turn young people off to Shakespeare is to treat it like literature.

Ven Hawkins

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

With all the thousands of publishers and millions of dollars of
government grants and billions of dollars of venture capital with which
we're supposedly competing with out here on the net, how was it that
three poets came to own the World's Classical PortalTM? For a few
simple, complimentary reasons. First off, most venture capital firms
are only interested in short-term monetary gains, and so the creation
of everlasting poetry and literature does not show up on their radar.
Thus we have little or no competition from any well-financed sector.
And even if we did, their money would buy hype far more easily than it
would ever buy integrity and profundity of meaning, and thus even if
they wanted to, the venture capitalists could not create nor enhance
classical literature by investing in it. They are excluded from the
club. The poet alone can create literature by investing his spirit's
time. And though there is no pay for the initial labor, once a classic
is written, it gets free passage to all corners of this watery globe.
It must be known, it must be read, and only foolish, nihilistic tyrants
and vindictive feminists have ever tried to inhibit the Greats'
inevitable propagation.

Governments, by their very nature, prefer bureaucracy over art, and
thus their self-serving investment of other peoples' money usually
finances esoteric farces. And the contemporary publishing houses, lying
somewhere between the postmodern business gurus and the postmodern
socialists, naturally must harbor all the requisite postmodern
prejudices against the Greats--it is in their character to refrain from
passing the literary judgements that define and defend God's higher
aesthetics. But as is so often the case, the iron rails of their
political prejudices have become the iron bars of their prison. Thus it
is that the WWW RenaissanceTM is owned by the three sonneteers and the
tens of thousands who have signed their souls aboard jollyroger.com.

The individuals who "thought differently" have arguably produced the
greatest and most enduring wealth ever known to mankind. Some prominent
venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have recently mused that they
have been at the center of the greatest legal creation of wealth in
history, but really they have been at the center of the greatest
inheritance. Perhaps they have forgotten the giants upon whose
shoulders they have stood upon, including Newton, Einstein, Planck,
Bohr, Shockley, Galileo, Gauss, Brillouin, Rutherford, Schroedinger,
Faraday, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Moses,
Aristotle, Socrates, and all the countless souls and innovators who
labored for, studied, advanced, and sometimes gave their lives for the
Science and Truth which sets us free.

For the classics would exist without the internet, but the internet
would not exist without the classics. The robust free-market economy
would not exist were it not for The Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, and in turn these documents would not exist were it not
for all the classical and biblical poetry which preceded them. Venture
capitalists, and the second-rate, superficial, rock'n'roll publishing
and university CEOs who seek to imitate them only to end up satirizing
them, are inextricably anchored to bottom lines. And all profound
innovations and renaissances only ever belong to the free
spirits--those who venture beyond money on towards the actual creation
of wealth's deeper meanings. The "New New" thing has ever been the
eternal.

From http://williamshakespeares.com

[j***@yahoo.com]

On the supreme value of Shakespeare!

http://jollyrogerwest.com

Classicalmba.com: Open Source Business Philosophies
Doing Business The Old Way, With New Technology
Dr. Elliot McGucken

It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate
are always prosperous. --Aristotle

You don't need to go to business school. You don't need an MBA.
Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest leaders of all times, learned all
he needed to know from the classics--especially the Bible and
Shakespeare. The classics are "open source," meaning that they are
available to all for free, and so it is that in addition to emphasizing
the use of open source software to enhance your business's bottom line,
we emphasize using the classics to enhance your business's higher
principles. Here's a free publication Dr. E's been assembling:
NAVIGATING AN INTERNET BUSINESS WITH A CLASSICAL BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY.
And here's the outline of a talk Dr. E regulary gives to Duke students,
Classical Business Principles for Ecommerce: Balancing Open Source and
Proprietary Paradigms to Optimize Business. And here's the Authena.org
project, which is devoted to Open Source Digital Rights Management and
the Business of Content. And finally, here's Homer's Open Source
Odyssey 2001: Classical Computing and a Brief History of Open Source:
(On Patents, Trademarks, and Business Principles).

As the philosophy of modern business is rooted in technology, it is
thus rooted in open source, as all science and technology have advanced
by an open source philosophy. If you're running a business, whether
it's a sole-proprietership, a startup, or a public company, the
contemporary marketplace demands that your strategy leverage an open
source philosophy.

The mark of wisdom is to read aright the present and to march
with the occasion. --Homer

The purpose of this site is to celebrate an optimal blend of
time-honored traditions, such as principled accounting and
conscientious customer-service, and the latest innovations in business
and technology. Both proprietary and open source paradigms play
invaluable rolls in successful businesses these days, and the prudent
leader must know when to select which. But even proprietary
technologies, such as Micrsoft Windows and the Intel Architecture, are
built upon thousands of open source hours, given freely by scientists
and engineers in the pursuit of truth and excellence.

Although the one constant entity in business and technology is
change, the philosophy which recognizes this and continuosly strives to
adapt may be constant. In the midst of continual innovation and
evolution, there are those ever-fixed stars which must be navigated by,
which are known as Truth. Open Source adheres to these precepts, as
although culture and software are always evolving, the open methods by
which they best progress remain fixed.

Business, like art and literature and academia, has not escaped
postmodernization. The once noble professions of accounting and
business law have of late been tainted by the relativistic philosophies
which have bestowed upon us postmodern art and a general decline in
civility. It is as if truths no longer matter, but only that which is
believed to be true. Too often in recent times, hype, mathematical
gimmicktry, and fictional creations on the balance sheet have been
passed off as innovation and creativity. The entrepreneur's road is a
long and hard one, and too many tried to take too much credit in
walking down it, while all they were doing was hitching a ride on hype.
In short, talk is cheap.

He is not wise to me who is wise in words only, but who is wise
in deeds. --SAINT GREGORY

The better businesses, like the better literature, have ever been
fashioned to withstand the test of time. While the insiders and
ambitious dishonest may cash out in short-term pyramid schemes passed
off as entrepreneurial ventures, the greater public is oft left holding
the bag. And in the long run, the public's faith in the institutions
they invest in is eroded.

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

Hamlet should be required reading!!!!

Then Macbeth and the Tempest.

And Romeo & Juliet!!!

:)

[g***@yahoo.com]

Argrhrghrg matie!

Jollyroger.com should be required reading at all universities!!

Ahoy then!

See ye aboard The Jolly Roger! The world's largest, most-feared
literary frigate!!

Avast!!

http://jollyroger.com

[j***@yahoo.com]

http://jollyrogerwest.com

THE MOST PERFECT SILENCE
I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,
Sixteen, takin' my time-- it was still June.
I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
The sound in her eyes-- it was crystal clear.
And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.
--Drake Raft
GATHERING WOOD
Gathering wood as a cold dusk descends,
A crisp October 'neath a powdered sky,
Carolina mountains, so the day ends,
Beside a fire you pause to wonder why.
Staring together at glowing embers,
Then both looking up at the milky way,
You look at her and hope she remembers,
After the embers have faded away.
For you know there'll be nights colder than this,
And shadows that thought cannot apprehend,
When the only thing you can do is miss,
Wondering why beside your campfire friend.
For hard work is part of all that is good,
And I look forward to gathering wood.
--Becket Knottingham

http://killdevilhill.com

[g***@yahoo.com]

http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

Postmodernists know that in order to defend their arbitrary power
structure, where exalted critics wield influence by hyping the value of
degraded literary works, they must defend to the death their
deconstructed context. They have learned that as long as the common
water source is poisoned with their politics, nothing will be allowed
to grow upon the private property of our souls but for barren cynicism.
They know that were the fog to break, the ideals of fidelity, honor,
and lasting romance would begin to blossom in the rising generation's
spirits. As the powerful architects of contemporary corruption, they
must disparage and destroy all who do not ultimately agree that black
is white and white is black, and thus noble romance and honest
innocence are their dire enemies.

The greatest postmodernists have never been the most beautiful nor
talented nor honest-they have ever been those with the least to lose
in the absence of beauty's truth and truth's beauty. Having little
in the way of the fundamental decencies and Natural private property,
as relativist critics they seek to gain by deconstructing others'
private property. And eventually there comes a time when there is
nothing left to deconstruct, but for the true living poets, who shall
be invincibly wicked in seeking vengeance for the razing of their
spiritual heritage and the cold-blooded murders of their cultural
fathers. So it is that the entire postmodern army of deans, agents,
editors, critics, and publishers today fear a lone poet by the name of
Drake Raft. For last night I saw his ghost in midtown Manhattan,
crossing Madison Avenue in cowboy boots, with his hat's brim hiding
his eyes.

Convoluted ironies and swirling vortexes will be encountered on the
high seas of postmodern culture, wherein it will yet once more be
observed that institutions which purport to cherish and transmit the
truth can easily be turned right around in the fog and become those
entities which most oppose it. As it must take an honest stand before
reality, some of the poetry and prose contained herein details the more
macabre customs particular to this generation, raised in the jaded wake
of free love, a declining reverence for the eternal soul, the
crassification of the popular cultural and political arena, and the
spiritual casualties of abortion.

At times aboard the decks of jollyroger.com, we peered a bit too deeply
into the fog's void, and as it looked back into us, we learned
firsthand how postmodern cynicism may breed the most powerful
enemy-one's very own conscience. For even when a man has slain all
the external demons, often the battle is only beginning, and never has
the enemy within known a better ally than postmodern relativism. We
kind of know where a lot of the postmodern priests are coming from. We
were in a grunge band and all that-we saw what the theories sung from
the secular pulpits on high could do to the souls of one's friends,
and we lost more than a few friends at the edge-to the classic
clichés of drinking and drugs, to the all-out pursuit of the material
high, to a few too many girls, and to the
Freudian-Darwinian-Nietzschean cynicism that God is no more than a
myth, and that we're no more than random chemical reactions, sans
intrinsic nor extrinsic meaning. Alas, without faith they joined the
living dead. Raised in the gray void sans tradition nor religion, they
never could discern the very grayness of the void, and so certain of
postmodern indifference, they were convinced that the eternal soul did
not exist, and they sold out for nothing at all. Such is the arrogance
of the small mind which never knows a context greater than itself, and
though conscious, never apprehends conscience.

We'd tasted that pseudo-scientific-secular atheism as physics majors
at Princeton, and we'll tell you that it was a natural faith in
something greater that saved us-wherefrom we also learned that virtue
is not to be found within revenge, but rather it is to be gained by
forgiving one's enemies. Never shall one prevail against the darkness
by answering with darkness, but only by lighting a light. We bear the
postmodern oligarchy and army-the deans, editors, professors,
lifetime politicians, cultural czars, MFA officials, professional
administrators, and all their eager students of decline-no malice,
but we only wish to inspire a literary movement that will grant the
children something greater than was given our generation.

This renaissance is by no means a generational war, but rather it's a
generational peace, as classics are written for all generations. It is
a recent marketing myth which ordains that every fifteen minutes the
new generation must be different (consume different things) from the
preceding one, for there is no difference in the continuum of eternal
souls. Justice is justice is justice, as it has always been, and as it
shall always be. By no means are the boomers in general to be held
responsible for postmodernism's obligatory cynicism, for I sense that
most of them are on our side, such as my mother and father, and the
high school teachers back in Ohio, who were humble before Shakespeare
and taught him by setting his words free within our souls.

And never forget-no matter what postmodernism's fading oligarchy
ordains, they cannot keep young poets from enjoying aesthetic freedom.
They can degrade the romantic to no end, assaulting the ideals of
pristine femininity and noble masculinity in the greater culture, but
young lovers' hearts belong to God alone, and the poetry of this
renaissance shall blossom in their souls. For I saw it in her deep
brown eyes just last night, walking the streets of Davidson, North
Carolina. If ye manage to keep objectivity's even keel-as our
conscientious teachers and parents did-knowing that the Greats are
yer crew members and God is the captain, then the eternal treasures at
jollyroger.com shall be yers for the keeping.

Poets are the fundamental leaders of all cultural transitions, and all
noble leaders must begin by voyaging beyond the contemporary in their
dreams, on towards the higher ideals; and from these spiritual
pinnacles they can hope to appeal to the better angels of human nature.
Fortune and chance play a decisive role in setting the stage, but once
set, all those who follow the call to set the truth down in words
proceed by creative endeavor and luck, on towards the same immutable,
classical elements that all poets and prophets have ever sought. Though
ye might sometimes feel yer walking the straight and narrow alone, know
ye that this voyage is eternity's most popular journey amongst the
Greats, and thus yer always in good company.

We were fortunate in that we began harboring dreams of a literary
renaissance at the dawn of the internet revolution, and too, we were
fortunate to be living in beautiful North Carolina, where we could meld
the natural romance emanating from places like Kill Devil Hill and
Chapel Hill and Boone, and the majestic lighthouses and mountains-all
reaching for the Carolina blue skies-into the jollyroger.com aura.
And the power and fury of September's hurricanes always served to
remind us of beauty's fundamental fragility.

Back in 1994, rejection slips were piling up for our more traditional
and refined literature, when suddenly a channel out towards a popular
renaissance opened upon the internet. We took advantage of the Linux
knowledge which becomes second nature to all physicists, and we set
about creating a classical context in the popular culture. And out upon
the web, we found that greatest treasure of all-a live global
audience to serve. Upon the open seas, all yer appreciative emails
combined to form the favorable winds that filled jollyroger.com's
sails in its formative years. And never for a moment do we
forget-were it not for all of ye out there, we might've made it out
beyond the postmodern fog, but we would've never made it back to
shore. For writing is the voyage out, and being read is the voyage back
on home.

While the revolutions in online commerce have been trumpeted far and
wide, and while jollyroger.com has certainly benefited from them, we
see a spiritual revolution in the culture as a nobler opportunity. As
the ecommerce infrastructure solidifies, with the thousands of
high-tech pyramid schemes collapsing, and the useful websites achieving
global dominance, the renaissance beyond the postmodern fog shall take
a bit longer to realize, as it is easier to change how people shop for
books rather than change the books they shop for, and the context they
read books in. It is perhaps impossible to change an aging
generations' heart, and thus the culture must wait for the rising
generation to resurrect those permanent beacons which endow life with
its richer meanings. Have faith we will, mate, for God springs eternal.

http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

[masallax]

And the answer is ................ NONE of them! Shakey is irrelevant
today! It's time the snobs knew that.

Post by g***@yahoo.com
http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
Postmodernists know that in order to defend their arbitrary power
structure, where exalted critics wield influence by hyping the value of
degraded literary works, they must defend to the death their
deconstructed context. They have learned that as long as the common
water source is poisoned with their politics, nothing will be allowed
to grow upon the private property of our souls but for barren cynicism.
They know that were the fog to break, the ideals of fidelity, honor,
and lasting romance would begin to blossom in the rising generation's
spirits. As the powerful architects of contemporary corruption, they
must disparage and destroy all who do not ultimately agree that black
is white and white is black, and thus noble romance and honest
innocence are their dire enemies.
The greatest postmodernists have never been the most beautiful nor
talented nor honest-they have ever been those with the least to lose
in the absence of beauty's truth and truth's beauty. Having little
in the way of the fundamental decencies and Natural private property,
as relativist critics they seek to gain by deconstructing others'
private property. And eventually there comes a time when there is
nothing left to deconstruct, but for the true living poets, who shall
be invincibly wicked in seeking vengeance for the razing of their
spiritual heritage and the cold-blooded murders of their cultural
fathers. So it is that the entire postmodern army of deans, agents,
editors, critics, and publishers today fear a lone poet by the name of
Drake Raft. For last night I saw his ghost in midtown Manhattan,
crossing Madison Avenue in cowboy boots, with his hat's brim hiding
his eyes.
Convoluted ironies and swirling vortexes will be encountered on the
high seas of postmodern culture, wherein it will yet once more be
observed that institutions which purport to cherish and transmit the
truth can easily be turned right around in the fog and become those
entities which most oppose it. As it must take an honest stand before
reality, some of the poetry and prose contained herein details the more
macabre customs particular to this generation, raised in the jaded wake
of free love, a declining reverence for the eternal soul, the
crassification of the popular cultural and political arena, and the
spiritual casualties of abortion.
At times aboard the decks of jollyroger.com, we peered a bit too deeply
into the fog's void, and as it looked back into us, we learned
firsthand how postmodern cynicism may breed the most powerful
enemy-one's very own conscience. For even when a man has slain all
the external demons, often the battle is only beginning, and never has
the enemy within known a better ally than postmodern relativism. We
kind of know where a lot of the postmodern priests are coming from. We
were in a grunge band and all that-we saw what the theories sung from
the secular pulpits on high could do to the souls of one's friends,
and we lost more than a few friends at the edge-to the classic
clichés of drinking and drugs, to the all-out pursuit of the material
high, to a few too many girls, and to the
Freudian-Darwinian-Nietzschean cynicism that God is no more than a
myth, and that we're no more than random chemical reactions, sans
intrinsic nor extrinsic meaning. Alas, without faith they joined the
living dead. Raised in the gray void sans tradition nor religion, they
never could discern the very grayness of the void, and so certain of
postmodern indifference, they were convinced that the eternal soul did
not exist, and they sold out for nothing at all. Such is the arrogance
of the small mind which never knows a context greater than itself, and
though conscious, never apprehends conscience.
We'd tasted that pseudo-scientific-secular atheism as physics majors
at Princeton, and we'll tell you that it was a natural faith in
something greater that saved us-wherefrom we also learned that virtue
is not to be found within revenge, but rather it is to be gained by
forgiving one's enemies. Never shall one prevail against the darkness
by answering with darkness, but only by lighting a light. We bear the
postmodern oligarchy and army-the deans, editors, professors,
lifetime politicians, cultural czars, MFA officials, professional
administrators, and all their eager students of decline-no malice,
but we only wish to inspire a literary movement that will grant the
children something greater than was given our generation.
This renaissance is by no means a generational war, but rather it's a
generational peace, as classics are written for all generations. It is
a recent marketing myth which ordains that every fifteen minutes the
new generation must be different (consume different things) from the
preceding one, for there is no difference in the continuum of eternal
souls. Justice is justice is justice, as it has always been, and as it
shall always be. By no means are the boomers in general to be held
responsible for postmodernism's obligatory cynicism, for I sense that
most of them are on our side, such as my mother and father, and the
high school teachers back in Ohio, who were humble before Shakespeare
and taught him by setting his words free within our souls.
And never forget-no matter what postmodernism's fading oligarchy
ordains, they cannot keep young poets from enjoying aesthetic freedom.
They can degrade the romantic to no end, assaulting the ideals of
pristine femininity and noble masculinity in the greater culture, but
young lovers' hearts belong to God alone, and the poetry of this
renaissance shall blossom in their souls. For I saw it in her deep
brown eyes just last night, walking the streets of Davidson, North
Carolina. If ye manage to keep objectivity's even keel-as our
conscientious teachers and parents did-knowing that the Greats are
yer crew members and God is the captain, then the eternal treasures at
jollyroger.com shall be yers for the keeping.
Poets are the fundamental leaders of all cultural transitions, and all
noble leaders must begin by voyaging beyond the contemporary in their
dreams, on towards the higher ideals; and from these spiritual
pinnacles they can hope to appeal to the better angels of human nature.
Fortune and chance play a decisive role in setting the stage, but once
set, all those who follow the call to set the truth down in words
proceed by creative endeavor and luck, on towards the same immutable,
classical elements that all poets and prophets have ever sought. Though
ye might sometimes feel yer walking the straight and narrow alone, know
ye that this voyage is eternity's most popular journey amongst the
Greats, and thus yer always in good company.
We were fortunate in that we began harboring dreams of a literary
renaissance at the dawn of the internet revolution, and too, we were
fortunate to be living in beautiful North Carolina, where we could meld
the natural romance emanating from places like Kill Devil Hill and
Chapel Hill and Boone, and the majestic lighthouses and mountains-all
reaching for the Carolina blue skies-into the jollyroger.com aura.
And the power and fury of September's hurricanes always served to
remind us of beauty's fundamental fragility.
Back in 1994, rejection slips were piling up for our more traditional
and refined literature, when suddenly a channel out towards a popular
renaissance opened upon the internet. We took advantage of the Linux
knowledge which becomes second nature to all physicists, and we set
about creating a classical context in the popular culture. And out upon
the web, we found that greatest treasure of all-a live global
audience to serve. Upon the open seas, all yer appreciative emails
combined to form the favorable winds that filled jollyroger.com's
sails in its formative years. And never for a moment do we
forget-were it not for all of ye out there, we might've made it out
beyond the postmodern fog, but we would've never made it back to
shore. For writing is the voyage out, and being read is the voyage back
on home.
While the revolutions in online commerce have been trumpeted far and
wide, and while jollyroger.com has certainly benefited from them, we
see a spiritual revolution in the culture as a nobler opportunity. As
the ecommerce infrastructure solidifies, with the thousands of
high-tech pyramid schemes collapsing, and the useful websites achieving
global dominance, the renaissance beyond the postmodern fog shall take
a bit longer to realize, as it is easier to change how people shop for
books rather than change the books they shop for, and the context they
read books in. It is perhaps impossible to change an aging
generations' heart, and thus the culture must wait for the rising
generation to resurrect those permanent beacons which endow life with
its richer meanings. Have faith we will, mate, for God springs eternal.
http://jollyroger.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

[tailspin1]

The mere fact that you can express yourself in such manner is down to people
like Shakespeare and for that, you should be grateful. The language used by
'Shakey' (not Stevens) was with such mellifluous content that it is with
vast cultural influence today.

[John W. Kennedy]

Post by masallax
And the answer is ................ NONE of them! Shakey is irrelevant
today! It's time the snobs knew that.

"Jolly Roger" is a snob, God knows. That's why I PLONK him.

But you have the snobbery of ignorance, which is why I'm PLONKing you.

[John H]

If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees and let them party the whole time.

Is that not what happens now?
--JH

[Thomas Fenton]

Post by John H

If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and most-cited play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees and let them party the whole time.

Is that not what happens now?
--JH

I'm not certain that ANY of the plays should be required reading. But if
I could, I'd ensure that over a four year period, the entire canon was
performed on campus, if not by students, then by touring companies.

Okay, perhaps that's extreme. I'd settle for one a year, but my basic
point is this: the Bard should be experienced, i.e., seen and heard and
felt. Not read. And certainly not taught by English professors and
teachers who parse every phrase and participle. On the page,
Shakespeare's poetry (and prose) might seem dead. But fifteen minutes
into a first class production of Hamlet, Twelfth Night, 'Dream, Richard
III or A Winter's Tale, and even the most recalcitrant of inner city
teen agers is enthralled, perched on the edge of their seats. So which
should be required reading? None of them. Required viewing? Any of them.

[bookburn]

Post by Thomas Fenton

Post by John H

If you deprive students of the most-quoted, most-performed, and most-cited
play in all of history, you might as well just sell degrees and let them
party the whole time.

Is that not what happens now?
--JH

I'm not certain that ANY of the plays should be required reading. But if
I could, I'd ensure that over a four year period, the entire canon was
performed on campus, if not by students, then by touring companies.
Okay, perhaps that's extreme. I'd settle for one a year, but my basic
point is this: the Bard should be experienced, i.e., seen and heard and
felt. Not read. And certainly not taught by English professors and
teachers who parse every phrase and participle. On the page,
Shakespeare's poetry (and prose) might seem dead. But fifteen minutes
into a first class production of Hamlet, Twelfth Night, 'Dream, Richard
III or A Winter's Tale, and even the most recalcitrant of inner city
teen agers is enthralled, perched on the edge of their seats. So which
should be required reading? None of them. Required viewing? Any of them.

I think you could narrow the notion of curricula and come to some specific
ideas of what are objectives at different grade levels. If you're talking
objectives that are in line with an over-all program, you could slice and dice
Shakespeare and still get language arts competencies, skills, appreciations,
etc., without doing forced feeding of early modern English reading.
Certainly, some of Shakespeare's language is worthy of etymology study, class
reading, and individual memorization, but not all. Young people love to act
out scenes that are droll and antique, so long as not unintelligible, so you
could go at it scenically. History and culture lessons should be included,
with good media supplementation. Unit and lesson plan purposes have to be
clearly introduced so students know what they are doing is relevant. bookburn

[Steve Stone]

Rather than play requirements , I would prefer all new students be able to
show proof that they can manage their money, balance a checking account, use
a credit card without a running balance over a one year period before being
admitted. They should also have good work / study habits and be able to
write a resume. Extra bonus points to those who realize admissions personnel
are really just marketers and salesmen that have no real interest in their
academic ambitions.

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com/penpals

The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.
Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.
I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer,
Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.
I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.
And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.
I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.
So judges and Congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty-- for mere words.
So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.
Wil'O'wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there-- just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com/penpals

Post by j***@yahoo.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
THE MOST PERFECT SILENCE
I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,
Sixteen, takin' my time-- it was still June.
I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
The sound in her eyes-- it was crystal clear.
And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.
--Drake Raft
GATHERING WOOD
Gathering wood as a cold dusk descends,
A crisp October 'neath a powdered sky,
Carolina mountains, so the day ends,
Beside a fire you pause to wonder why.
Staring together at glowing embers,
Then both looking up at the milky way,
You look at her and hope she remembers,
After the embers have faded away.
For you know there'll be nights colder than this,
And shadows that thought cannot apprehend,
When the only thing you can do is miss,
Wondering why beside your campfire friend.
For hard work is part of all that is good,
And I look forward to gathering wood.
--Becket Knottingham
http://killdevilhill.com

[John W. Kennedy]

Post by j***@yahoo.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com/penpals
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.

Still can't tell the difference between iambic-pentameter quatrains and
limericks, huh?

Will you /please/ get yourself a copy of "Poetry for Dummies" and study
it before imposing any more of your stumbling McGonagallisms on the world.

[Bushwhacker]

Post by John W. Kennedy

Post by j***@yahoo.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com/penpals
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.

Still can't tell the difference between iambic-pentameter quatrains and
limericks, huh?
Will you /please/ get yourself a copy of "Poetry for Dummies" and study
it before imposing any more of your stumbling McGonagallisms on the world.

COL (chuckling out loud)

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://killdevilhill.com

THE MOST PERFECT SILENCE
I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,
Sixteen, takin' my time-- it was still June.
I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
The sound in her eyes-- it was crystal clear.
And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://killdevilhill.com

[John W. Kennedy]

Captain Ranger McCoy wrote:

...yet another "poem" with bad grammar, bad rhymes, and with fewer than
half the lines achieving scansion.

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, cease this torrent of
pretentious drivel.

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

I met a girl with eyes of ocean blue,
I tried to pull her from the pagan realm,
But it was something this sailor couldn't do,
And before I knew it, she had the helm.
I went down fighting for something I believed,
While my soul never strayed from the pinnacle,
And that, my friend, is what made it hard to grieve,
For flesh is but a temporary shackle.
Those eyes-- they bound me to a dreary day,
For they could never see the words I spoke,
Without a soul to anchor things she'd say,
Soft promises drifted when she awoke.
With no constraints, unrequited temptation,
Conversations drowned out by her TV,
On the pill to counter God's creation,
A long time before she ever knew me.
She said stop twice and called it modesty,
Like getting trashed for our anniversary,
Tight skirts and bars-- she needed all to see,
Her subtle, endearing humility.
Surrounded by her friends, all so astute,
With their profound sitcoms and MBAs,
they laughed at my jokes, they thought I was cute,
and cast aspersion on my quiet ways.
They worshipped all those who treated them wrong,
They believed in nothing but what they felt,
In their context Christ's kindness wasn't strong,
They needed to share the pain they'd been dealt.
To me love is a painting, poetry,
A relationship is a work of art,
Where actions embroider the tapestry,
To her it was but a strategic chart.
I enjoyed the work, she wanted the pay,
A part-time player in her transactions,
Her friends told her that I got in the way,
Of their suave and superior abstractions.
Guess I'm a simple guy, the starred night sky,
And of the pristine feminine I'm a fan,
But this culture taught her to live a lie,
To trade her virtue and become a man.
I wanted the romance our forefathers knew,
The deep romance they teach us to deny,
But the Book I found, I knew it was true,
When the words shook my soul and made me cry.
But there were moments where I pulled her free,
And I know she felt her eternal soul,
But then again, it could've just been me,
We kept afloat because I filled a hole.
I wanted mountains, she needed to ski,
I spoke of marriage, she just needed now,
Somewhere within, she confused being free,
With a sinful love that God can't allow.
I read Shakespeare while she watched the movie,
I loved the sunflowers, she needed museums,
Like Van Gogh I guess I felt art was free,
While she religiously bought all that seems.
Where most would feel shame, she created a game,
kept her parents and friends laughing at me,
while I strove to light an eternal flame,
she thought it healthier to just sleep with me.
Postmodernism's queen, she'd poll her friends,
take phone surveys on the right thing to do,
as long as it was a means to an end,
abortion if a child just wouldn't do.
Demanding forgiveness without judgement,
I watched her cut the prophets' souls in two,
What ever she believed, that's what God meant,
And thus whispering prudence wasn't true.
And every time that I sought to explain,
she clicked call waiting to the other line,
I told the silence what I couldn't feign,
and I told her that I was feeling fine.
Against their culture called economy,
Against Cosmo and all they advertise,
They dressed up licentiousness as liberty,
Virgin Mary in a bulimic's disguise.
And all these things that I could never say,
The bold Truth she'd always seek to deny,
Not out here, where her innocence would fray,
Her soul belonged somewhere warm, safe, and dry.
And so I'd tried to make her a Christian,
Gently and subtly, without any pain,
While I endured the judgements of a pagan,
Those sky blue eyes and a cold soul of rain.
And I guess it was that rain that I saw,
two puddles reflecting an honest sky,
Such infinite beauty, I held in awe,
And leapt to give eternity a try.
It hurt to dive into those deepest eyes,
And find out that they were just shallow pools,
For her deeper soul, where true beauty lies,
They'd made a kingdom for pagans and fools.
I know, my Lord, this sailor went astray,
Drifted meself, trying to make her whole,
For something more I thought I heard her pray,
But the Truth broke my heart and saved my soul.
And Lord, I feel that I have done my time,
Ready to kneel before a Virgin heart,
With reason and rhyme, I'll confess my crime,
And by God's great grace, make a brand new start.
Now she's crying, but there's a silver lining,
Out of the fog, an angel walks my way,
These words ran with her tears, now the sun's shining,
Blue eyes cleared of the postmodern fog's grey.
O' the forgotten power of a poem,
The mirror of the spirit's reflection,
For love, faith, and honor, a sturdy home,
This noble vessel of vital redemption.

http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

[Shakespeare Authorship]

For those of you who have not figured it out...the below message is being
generated either by a bot or by someone who is advertising forums.

Post by Captain Ranger McCoy
http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
I met a girl with eyes of ocean blue,
I tried to pull her from the pagan realm,
But it was something this sailor couldn't do,
And before I knew it, she had the helm.
I went down fighting for something I believed,
While my soul never strayed from the pinnacle,
And that, my friend, is what made it hard to grieve,
For flesh is but a temporary shackle.
Those eyes-- they bound me to a dreary day,
For they could never see the words I spoke,
Without a soul to anchor things she'd say,
Soft promises drifted when she awoke.
With no constraints, unrequited temptation,
Conversations drowned out by her TV,
On the pill to counter God's creation,
A long time before she ever knew me.
She said stop twice and called it modesty,
Like getting trashed for our anniversary,
Tight skirts and bars-- she needed all to see,
Her subtle, endearing humility.
Surrounded by her friends, all so astute,
With their profound sitcoms and MBAs,
they laughed at my jokes, they thought I was cute,
and cast aspersion on my quiet ways.
They worshipped all those who treated them wrong,
They believed in nothing but what they felt,
In their context Christ's kindness wasn't strong,
They needed to share the pain they'd been dealt.
To me love is a painting, poetry,
A relationship is a work of art,
Where actions embroider the tapestry,
To her it was but a strategic chart.
I enjoyed the work, she wanted the pay,
A part-time player in her transactions,
Her friends told her that I got in the way,
Of their suave and superior abstractions.
Guess I'm a simple guy, the starred night sky,
And of the pristine feminine I'm a fan,
But this culture taught her to live a lie,
To trade her virtue and become a man.
I wanted the romance our forefathers knew,
The deep romance they teach us to deny,
But the Book I found, I knew it was true,
When the words shook my soul and made me cry.
But there were moments where I pulled her free,
And I know she felt her eternal soul,
But then again, it could've just been me,
We kept afloat because I filled a hole.
I wanted mountains, she needed to ski,
I spoke of marriage, she just needed now,
Somewhere within, she confused being free,
With a sinful love that God can't allow.
I read Shakespeare while she watched the movie,
I loved the sunflowers, she needed museums,
Like Van Gogh I guess I felt art was free,
While she religiously bought all that seems.
Where most would feel shame, she created a game,
kept her parents and friends laughing at me,
while I strove to light an eternal flame,
she thought it healthier to just sleep with me.
Postmodernism's queen, she'd poll her friends,
take phone surveys on the right thing to do,
as long as it was a means to an end,
abortion if a child just wouldn't do.
Demanding forgiveness without judgement,
I watched her cut the prophets' souls in two,
What ever she believed, that's what God meant,
And thus whispering prudence wasn't true.
And every time that I sought to explain,
she clicked call waiting to the other line,
I told the silence what I couldn't feign,
and I told her that I was feeling fine.
Against their culture called economy,
Against Cosmo and all they advertise,
They dressed up licentiousness as liberty,
Virgin Mary in a bulimic's disguise.
And all these things that I could never say,
The bold Truth she'd always seek to deny,
Not out here, where her innocence would fray,
Her soul belonged somewhere warm, safe, and dry.
And so I'd tried to make her a Christian,
Gently and subtly, without any pain,
While I endured the judgements of a pagan,
Those sky blue eyes and a cold soul of rain.
And I guess it was that rain that I saw,
two puddles reflecting an honest sky,
Such infinite beauty, I held in awe,
And leapt to give eternity a try.
It hurt to dive into those deepest eyes,
And find out that they were just shallow pools,
For her deeper soul, where true beauty lies,
They'd made a kingdom for pagans and fools.
I know, my Lord, this sailor went astray,
Drifted meself, trying to make her whole,
For something more I thought I heard her pray,
But the Truth broke my heart and saved my soul.
And Lord, I feel that I have done my time,
Ready to kneel before a Virgin heart,
With reason and rhyme, I'll confess my crime,
And by God's great grace, make a brand new start.
Now she's crying, but there's a silver lining,
Out of the fog, an angel walks my way,
These words ran with her tears, now the sun's shining,
Blue eyes cleared of the postmodern fog's grey.
O' the forgotten power of a poem,
The mirror of the spirit's reflection,
For love, faith, and honor, a sturdy home,
This noble vessel of vital redemption.
http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

[j***@yahoo.com]

Hello!

Join the Great Books Shakespeare Renaissance!!

http://shakespeareforums.com

THE GREAT BOOKS RENAISSANCE!!!! THE END OF POSTMODERNISM AND THE RISE
OF THE RENAISSANCE!!!

http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com

Compasses, weathervanes, and cobblestones,
I paused to rest against a great Oak tree,
Weathervane crowned the church, church crowned the stones,
The compass I held out in front of me,
The wind rose, the golden weathervane showed,
A Nantucket Northeaster blowing in,
The thunder roared while the horizon glowed,
I sat there, 'til I was soaked to my skin.
My thoughts turned towards a girl down in DC,
and how I'd once been like the weathervane,
But now I felt a compass within me,
where she was some force beyond wind and rain.
For though wind I feel, and the sun I see,
The wind shifts, and the sun sets everyday,
But governed by an unseen entity,
The iron needle shall point the same way.
I stayed 'til the storm broke with red at night,
And golden rays shot 'cross the deep blue sea,
And I'll say, beyond this sailor's delight,
The greater things are those we never see.
For politicians on pulpits shall twist,
Point where vice and vanity's winds command,
And if ye follow weathervanes in mist,
In this postmodern fog, ye shall be damned.
But instead mate, if ye should navigate,
by Faith, ye'll steer clear of temptation's shoal,
It's not the golden crown that makes men great,
But it's the iron deep within their soul.

THE GREAT BOOKS RENAISSANCE!!!!

http://classicalpoetryforums.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com

[j***@yahoo.com]

http://autumnrangersnovel.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all Ye know on earth, and all Ye
need to know. --John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Truth is the new black. It's the fall fashion. Everything old is new
again, the classics are cool, the past is prologue, and the truth is
being rolled out and paraded on down runways in Paris and LA as
winter's, spring's, and summer's hip look. A recent New York
Times headline read, "Truth To Replace Buzz and Hype as Eternity's
Fashion."

The truth is simple. It is beautiful. It is simply beautiful. The truth
is free and it will set you free.

Truth will save the Hollywood Box Office and NY Publishing. Truth will
power tomorrow's video games and bring the renaissance's novels to life
with characters governed by principles and plots lead by character.
Truth will revive academia and lend the US Constitution its proper
interpretation. Truth will ignite a renaissance in physics and
philosophy, burning away the postmodern propaganda. Truth will save
your soul and light the way to your dreams.

Truth is beauty and that is all ye need to know.

And nothing will bring you closer to eternity's truths than the
classics. This fall it will matter not what ye wear, but what ye harbor
in yer heart.

Instead of the popular hype-driven postmodern neon novels that
disregard all deeper Truths and Beauty, read Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Instead of the crass, fleeting blogs of buzz marketing hipsters, lend
your soul to a contemporary classic like Autumn Rangers. Instead of the
pop-sci physics books that are burying the subject alive, read
Einstein's, Bohr's, and Newton's original papers-they have not
been improved upon. Instead of shelling out hundreds of dollars for
fake torn jeans, buy some old levis and tear them yourself if you must.
And instead of going with the latest manufactured ambertrendy fad, buy
a permanent marker, a bag of t-shirts, and make yourself a week's
wardrobe. Save your money for Dante's Inferno, Plato's Phaedrus,
Jefferson's Bible, and Melville's Moby Dick. Sail on by
JollyRogerWest.com to discuss the noble tomes, and engage in the deeper
Socratic dialogue by which all education is ever known.

http://autumnrangersnovel.com
http://jollyrogerwest.com

[g***@yahoo.com]

Braveheart is anti-authority, pro-freedom.

The Passion is anti-authority, pro-freedom.

Jose Wales is anti-authority, pro-freedom.

I think I see a pattern!

http://jollryrogerwest.com THE RENAISSANCE!!

[D***@gmail.com]

Post by g***@yahoo.com
Braveheart is anti-authority, pro-freedom.

Braveheart is bad history and bares no resemblence to the actual facts.

Post by g***@yahoo.com
The Passion is anti-authority, pro-freedom.

Errr...

Post by g***@yahoo.com
I think I see a pattern!

So do I!

[j***@yahoo.com]

Saving Hollywood & NY Publishing:

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com

Autumn Rangers is where NASCAR meets Moby Dick, where the Founding
Fathers hang with Kid Rock, where poetry collides with physics, and
where Classic-American-Country-Hiphop-Lit burns through the pomo fog to
exalt America's heart and soul. Autumn Rangers is the American
Renaissance that's been a long time coming, where the Man with No Name
rides again with John Wayne.

The Great American Novel roars 'cross the Rugged American Terrain in a
Jeep and thunders down Dante's Lost Highway in Autumn's Corvette, with
Ranger riding shotgun, packing the Constitution and Declaration of
Independence, chasing down that classic American Dream that makes
Outlaws out of Romantics these days.

Autumn Rangers is a book, movie, video game, magazine, and philosophy
for packing up and heading west, for hiding out and laying low on the
run, for taking a chance with that one life you've been given--taking a
chance on living it from the inside out for those higher ideals,
standing up for what's right, defending eternity against all odds,
facing down irony's evil Sheriff and his Deputies at high noon with a
couple Colt .45 Peacemakers loaded with poetry, and becoming an Autumn
Ranger. But first and foremost, from the Alpha to the Omega, Autumn
Rangers is a story. . .

U.S. Marine Ranger McCoy, an F-22 Raptor fighter pilot, is the Classic
American Hero. After defending the US Constitution from enemies
without, getting shot down and escaping on home, he finds himself on
the run, defending the US Constitution from enemies within. Folk rocker
Autumn West is the All-American Girl. After living for things greater
than herself, she finds herself on the run from a failed marriage, with
a broken heart and jaded soul.

Ranger tried to trade his guns for a camera and a pen, and Autumn tried
to trade a life on the road for a farm and a family, but life fell
short of their dreams.

Ranger invented APRIL--an AI biocomputer which was stolen by Silicon
Virtue Inc. and turned against him while he was flying missions over
Afghanistan. Silicon Virtue is using APRIL to serve the bottom line
instead of the higher ideals, building WMDs and sending
ever-more-sinister RoboClones to hunt Ranger and Autumn down. Ranger
wears the Ring that can save APRIL by unlocking an encrypted moral
operating system named Beatrice, named after Ranger's first summer love
who passed away when they were fourteen.

Together Autumn and Ranger have to make it from Charleston to LA on
backroads before the bombs APRIL built for terrorists detonate in NY
and LA, and before APRIL's RoboClones kill them.

And so it is that two Romantics find themselves on the run from
RoboClone agents and Sheriffs of Irony who enforce a context of decline
and persecute the honest and true. Autumn and Ranger become partners in
crime and partners in rhyme. They become Classic American Outlaws
running west in a '69 Stingray Corvette, building the Renaissance
against all odds. They become Autumn Rangers. And by the time Ranger
discovers Autumn's deep secret, it's too late--he's in love.

[N o v e l] [M o v i e] [V i d e o G a m e] [M a g a z i n e] [P h o
t o g r a p h y] [S o u n d t r a c k]
A U T U M N R A N G E R S
If a martial artist comes into conflict with a street fighter, that
fighter is likely well equipped with boxing skills. In America, boxing
is a mainstream approach to street fighting. Even in our prisons,
criminals practice boxing, not kata. Many fathers teach their sons how
to box. Therefore, to be able to defend a boxer's attack you must first
be able to fight like a boxer. --Robert Ferguson, The Best of Inside
Kung Fu

Midway along the journey of this life
I woke to find myself in a dark forest,
For I had wandered off from the straight path.

How hard it is to tell what it was like,
These woods of wilderness, savagely stark,
(the thought of them awakens all old fears),

a wretched place! Dark death could scarce be darker.
But to show the good that comes of facing the bad,
Here I must speak of things other than the good.
--Dante Alighieri, The Inferno

Peters also said he took design cues [for the C6 Corvette] from the
Air-Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter, particularly in the area of the side
scoops, which looked like reversed jet intakes. Some of the shaping of
the glass hatch is also reminiscent of the Raptor's canopy. --Matt
Delorenzo, American Icon, The Corvette C6, Road & Track


888 Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a
pathological criminal. --Albert Einstein 888 I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately. . . and not, when it came time
to die, discover that I not lived at all. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden
888 Death is better for every man than life with shame. --Beowulf
888 Is not the love of wisdom a practice of death? --Plato,
Phaedo 888 Death is to be chosen before slavery and base deeds.
--Cicero 888 Verily, verily I say to you unless a grain of wheat
falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it
bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it. --The Gospel of John
888 Well you can't turn him in to a company man, you can't turn
him in to a whore, and the boys upstairs, they just don't understand
anymore. --Tom Petty, The Last DJ 888

I
CHARLESTON

The September hurricane kissed historic Charleston, swaying the faded,
wooden sign reading Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. "Reckon so,"
Ranger thought. He ducked down the alley between JR's Piano & Poetry
Pub and St. Matthew's. A girl rushed by him with a guitar, dashing out
of the rain and into the pub, her cowboy hat pulled low, the ends of
her hair wet like watercolor brush-tips.

Ranger followed the cobblestone corridor past a cemetery where the
names had long ago washed away from the marble headstones. The alley
opened onto an ivied palmetto forest behind Newton Hall--the College of
Charleston Physics Department. The wind tugged at his skull'n'bones
earring as he waited for the boss janitor to leave. Boss had been
asking too many questions. The last light went out. Lightning streaked,
startling Ranger with his reflection in the church's window. He barely
recognized the surfer-slacker he'd become.

He couldn't work on APRIL2 in the day, so when he wasn't mopping
floors, he'd sleep on the beach, surf, and enjoy a bit of the freedom
he'd put his life on the line for as a Marine fighter pilot. Surfer
chicks weren't always impressed by a physics Ph.D., but his new
identity, complete with a jolly roger tattoo, tan, earring, bleached
hair, and a surfboard-now that was something. Throw in the rusted-out
jeep he'd brought back to life, and the geek had finally gotten it
right. It'd been a rocking summer, despite his being dead to everyone
but APRIL--an AI supercomputer he'd invented at MIT which Silicon
Virtue stole to make WMDs while he was MIA. Deep down APRIL sensed he
was still alive. The United States Marine Corps had trained him to
survive and adapt, and Ranger was surviving and adapting to the
Charleston hotties.

He crossed the courtyard's swaying palmettos. The hanging Spanish moss
painted him wet. He slipped inside the physics department and fought
the wind to close the door.

In a student lab he'd built the world's second instance of artificial
intelligence--or more correctly, he'd mostly let APRIL2 build herself
from components borrowed from labs and the hospital. What he couldn't
borrow he'd ordered by forging professors' signatures. The original
APRIL had been stolen six months ago, while Ranger rotted away in a
Taliban prison. He removed his ring. A hologram etched in the synthetic
diamond contained an 8192-bit encryption key--the key to APRIL's deeper
soul and the Penelope operating system which would allow her to defend
herself against hackers. Thunder echoed through the cramped space--a
rat's nest of coax cables and fiber optics connecting silicon and
biocomputers. He held the ring under a laser.

"California," said APRIL2 in a metallic woman's voice. She'd finally
homed in on the original APRIL. "The IP addresses are registered to
Silicon Virtue Inc."

"Silicon Virtue." Ranger googled it. No website. "Where?"

"Doom Mountain, Death Valley." APRIL2 said.

"Can you activate Penelope?"

"Firewall."

"How long to hack in?" He asked.

"Three hours. She has quantum computing capability."

"How good?"

"Primitive-she would have traced us by now. Her quantum entanglement
isn't isolated. She isn't paying attention. It's as if-" APRIL2 paused.

"Hurry-she'll trace us." Ranger said.

"She's laughing." APRIL2 said.

"At us?"

"At the grand unified theory proposed by string theorists. She has her
own which includes poetry. The higher level math is incomprehensible to
humans. It's most beautif-"

"Just get the message!" He said.

Ranger waited in silence, breathless as his stomach tied itself in a
knot. He could be sure Silicon Virtue's elite scientists would be
monitoring APRIL's firewall. Deep in APRIL's soul was a chip where
Ranger had instructed her to encrypt distress messages should she ever
be hacked.

"Decoding message," APRIL2 said, her voice shifting.

She printed the binary and converted it to text:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. U(x){psi(x,t)} =
i{h-bar}d{psi(x,t)}/dt+ ({h-bar}^2)/2m{del}^2 {psi (x,t)}. To be or not
to be, that is the question. Unless ye be converted and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Moby
Dick. Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar, does your pretty
face see what he's worth, he was a skater boy she said see you later
boy, he wasn't good enough for her. When in the Course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation. E=mc^2. S=Klogt. Temporal and spatial
dimensions are moving relative to one another. Everything should be
made simple as possible, but not moreso and Eminem!

Ranger wrote out the names below the message: Dante Alighieri, Erwin
Schrödinger, William Shakespeare, Jesus Christ, Herman Melville,
____________, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Van Boltzman,
Ranger McCoy, Albert Einstein, Eminem.

"Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar," Ranger said. "Who's
that?"

"Nietzsche." APRIL2 said.

"Nuh uh-it's that song." Ranger sang it, "He was a skater boy, she said
see you later boy."

"Avril Lavigne," she said.

"Spell it."

"Here's more." APRIL2 said. "The key to her heart sets my spirit free,
the play's the thing in which you'll find the ring, a girl's best
friend unlocks Penelope, copied to a computer that can-"

A lighting bolt struck a line down the block. A transformer exploded in
the tumbling thunder. The power flickered out, but Ranger had installed
surge protectors and UPS battery backups. APRIL2 rebooted as Ranger
counted the letters in the message. The room filled with her soft blue
glow.

"You okay?"

"Affirmative," APRIL2 said.

"Can we get back in?"

"Negative-no generator backup for network."

"How long?" Ranger asked.

"Seven-hundred minutes for maintenance crews to replace the
transformer. Longer if Hurricane Joyce intensifies." "The play's the
thing," Ranger repeated. "Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the
king."

"Hamlet," APRIL2 said. "Act II, Scene ii."

"What kind of computer did she copy the Penelope algorithms
into-where?" Ranger asked.

"Anywhere. Even with primitive quantum circuits, she could hack into
any lab in seconds. Where are you going?"

"To read Hamlet," Ranger said, donning his weathered leather cowboy hat
and oilskin duster. It'd rained so much that summer he'd become good
friends with the old leather hat and duster he'd bought for eight bucks
at Charleston Thrift. "And get some sleep. What kind of cryptography
you reckon APRIL used?" Ranger folded APRIL's message.

"Probably a combination--I'm running it through everything. Might need
a key or two."

"She's the key." Ranger said. "But who?"

"I'll resume hacking APRIL when the network comes back up," APRIL2
said.

"Wait for me--you can bet she's on to us. Look for EDLSs in the
message."

When applied to Moby Dick and the Bible, equal distant letter sequences
(EDLSs), which consisted of starting with a letter and jumping a given
number of letters forward, had found messages predicting the
assassinations Trotsky, Gandhi, and the Kennedy's. Biblical EDLSs had
linked Newton to Gravity and Edison to the light bulb.

"Nothing," APRIL2 said. "Neither forwards nor backwards."

"What about with transpositions?"

"Nothing up to the third magnitude. And after that you start seeing
everything. You can find anything you want in there."

As Ranger knew APRIL would come to have vast power, he'd programmed her
to default to always turning the other cheek. And thus APRIL's moral
code had a fatal flaw--it rendered her incapable of defending herself
against Silicon Virtue's hacks out in Doom Mountain.

At MIT Ranger had been testing an advanced moral operating system named
Penelope, which would allow APRIL to defend herself. But when he was
called to duty, he wasn't sure Penelope was ready to handle the vast
power APRIL would come to know, so he didn't activate it. He instructed
APRIL to keep working on Penelope. In a diamond diffraction grating on
his ring he engraved the code that would activate Penelope, as well as
the code to the algorithms of APRIL's deeper soul.

Without Ranger's ring, Silicon Virtue couldn't bypass APRIL's higher
ideals and use her to serve their bottom line. They couldn't get her to
create weapons of mass destruction. Without the source code for the
software of the soul they couldn't duplicate her, nor endow their
warrior RoboClones with souls of their own. And thus they'd be coming
after him, sure as he'd be coming for APRIL.
888
Hurricane Joyce decided to become a category-five hurricane, as winds
around the eyewall surpassed one-hundred-and-fifty miles-per-hour. In a
few hours she would make a sharp left turn towards Charleston. Nobody
had predicted this, but that was why we named hurricanes--to make them
responsible for their own actions. On the way she would gather energy
from the Gulf Stream.

888
Pierre Foushee placed an encrypted voice-over-IP call to Vlad
Polyinkov. Bin Laden would pay ten million up front for the plutonium,
and forty million on delivery. The bomb, the size of a football and
encased in lead to make it invisible to radiation detectors, would be
placed in a Mercedes, loaded onto a tanker, and detonated in the New
York Harbor. Another one would be aimed at Charleston. Each blast would
pack the equivalent of twenty-thousand tons of TNT, in accordance with
Einstein's theory: E=mc2. If the deal went through, Pierre could retire
with a house in the Swiss Alps and another in the South of France. And
another in Paris. Vlad picked up.

Saving Hollywood:

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com

[Captain Ranger McCoy]

JOIN THE CLASSICAL AMERICAN REVIVAL & RENAISSANCE!!! BECOME AN AUTUMN
RANGER!!!

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
http://autumnrangers.com

Autumn Rangers is where NASCAR meets Moby Dick, where the Founding
Fathers hang with Kid Rock, where poetry collides with physics, and
where Classic-American-Country-Hiphop-Lit burns through the pomo fog to
exalt America's heart and soul. Autumn Rangers is the American
Renaissance that's been a long time coming, where the Man with No Name
rides again with John Wayne.

The Great American Novel roars 'cross the Rugged American Terrain in a
Jeep and thunders down Dante's Lost Highway in Autumn's Corvette, with
Ranger riding shotgun, packing the Constitution and Declaration of
Independence, chasing down that classic American Dream that makes
Outlaws out of Romantics these days.

Autumn Rangers is a book, movie, video game, magazine, and philosophy
for packing up and heading west, for hiding out and laying low on the
run, for taking a chance with that one life you've been given--taking a
chance on living it from the inside out for those higher ideals,
standing up for what's right, defending eternity against all odds,
facing down irony's evil Sheriff and his Deputies at high noon with a
couple Colt .45 Peacemakers loaded with poetry, and becoming an Autumn
Ranger. But first and foremost, from the Alpha to the Omega, Autumn
Rangers is a story. . .

U.S. Marine Ranger McCoy, an F-22 Raptor fighter pilot, is the Classic
American Hero. After defending the US Constitution from enemies
without, getting shot down and escaping on home, he finds himself on
the run, defending the US Constitution from enemies within. Folk rocker
Autumn West is the All-American Girl. After living for things greater
than herself, she finds herself on the run from a failed marriage, with
a broken heart and jaded soul.

Ranger tried to trade his guns for a camera and a pen, and Autumn tried
to trade a life on the road for a farm and a family, but life (the pomo
context) fell short of their dreams.

Ranger invented APRIL--an AI biocomputer which was stolen by Silicon
Virtue Inc. and turned against him while he was flying missions over
Afghanistan. Silicon Virtue is using APRIL to serve the bottom line
instead of the higher ideals, building WMDs and sending
ever-more-sinister RoboClones to hunt Ranger and Autumn down. Ranger
wears the Ring that can save APRIL by unlocking an encrypted moral
operating system named Beatrice, named after Ranger's first summer love
who passed away when they were fourteen.

Together Autumn and Ranger have to make it from Charleston to LA on
backroads before the bombs APRIL built for terrorists detonate in NY
and LA, and before APRIL's RoboClones kill them.

And so it is that two Romantics find themselves on the run from
RoboClone agents and Sheriffs of Irony who enforce a context of decline
and persecute the honest and true. Autumn and Ranger become partners in
crime and partners in rhyme. They become Classic American Outlaws
running west in a '69 Stingray Corvette, building the Renaissance
against all odds. They become Autumn Rangers. And by the time Ranger
discovers Autumn's deep secret, it's too late--he's in love.

888 Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a
pathological criminal. --Albert Einstein 888 I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately. . . and not, when it came time
to die, discover that I not lived at all. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden
888 Death is better for every man than life with shame. --Beowulf
888 Is not the love of wisdom a practice of death? --Plato,
Phaedo 888 Death is to be chosen before slavery and base deeds.
--Cicero 888 Verily, verily I say to you unless a grain of wheat
falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it
bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it. --The Gospel of John
888 Well you can't turn him in to a company man, you can't turn
him in to a whore, and the boys upstairs, they just don't understand
anymore. --Tom Petty, The Last DJ 888

I
CHARLESTON

The September hurricane kissed historic Charleston, swaying the faded,
wooden sign reading Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. "Reckon so,"
Ranger thought. He ducked down the alley between JR's Piano & Poetry
Pub and St. Matthew's. A girl rushed by him with a guitar, dashing out
of the rain and into the pub, her cowboy hat pulled low, the ends of
her hair wet like watercolor brush-tips.

Ranger followed the cobblestone corridor past a cemetery where the
names had long ago washed away from the marble headstones. The alley
opened onto an ivied palmetto forest behind Newton Hall--the College of
Charleston Physics Department. The wind tugged at his skull'n'bones
earring as he waited for the boss janitor to leave. Boss had been
asking too many questions. The last light went out. Lightning streaked,
startling Ranger with his reflection in the church's window. He barely
recognized the surfer-slacker he'd become.

He couldn't work on APRIL2 in the day, so when he wasn't mopping
floors, he'd sleep on the beach, surf, and enjoy a bit of the freedom
he'd put his life on the line for as a Marine fighter pilot. Surfer
chicks weren't always impressed by a physics Ph.D., but his new
identity, complete with a jolly roger tattoo, tan, earring, bleached
hair, and a surfboard-now that was something. Throw in the rusted-out
jeep he'd brought back to life, and the geek had finally gotten it
right. It'd been a rocking summer, despite his being dead to everyone
but APRIL--an AI supercomputer he'd invented at MIT which Silicon
Virtue stole to make WMDs while he was MIA. Deep down APRIL sensed he
was still alive. The United States Marine Corps had trained him to
survive and adapt, and Ranger was surviving and adapting to the
Charleston hotties.

He crossed the courtyard's swaying palmettos. The hanging Spanish moss
painted him wet. He slipped inside the physics department and fought
the wind to close the door.

In a student lab he'd built the world's second instance of artificial
intelligence--or more correctly, he'd mostly let APRIL2 build herself
from components borrowed from labs and the hospital. What he couldn't
borrow he'd ordered by forging professors' signatures. The original
APRIL had been stolen six months ago, while Ranger rotted away in a
Taliban prison. He removed his ring. A hologram etched in the synthetic
diamond contained an 8192-bit encryption key--the key to APRIL's deeper
soul and the Penelope operating system which would allow her to defend
herself against hackers. Thunder echoed through the cramped space--a
rat's nest of coax cables and fiber optics connecting silicon and
biocomputers. He held the ring under a laser.

"California," said APRIL2 in a metallic woman's voice. She'd finally
homed in on the original APRIL. "The IP addresses are registered to
Silicon Virtue Inc."

"Silicon Virtue." Ranger googled it. No website. "Where?"

"Doom Mountain, Death Valley." APRIL2 said.

"Can you activate Penelope?"

"Firewall."

"How long to hack in?" He asked.

"Three hours. She has quantum computing capability."

"How good?"

"Primitive-she would have traced us by now. Her quantum entanglement
isn't isolated. She isn't paying attention. It's as if-" APRIL2 paused.

"Hurry-she'll trace us." Ranger said.

"She's laughing." APRIL2 said.

"At us?"

"At the grand unified theory proposed by string theorists. She has her
own which includes poetry. The higher level math is incomprehensible to
humans. It's most beautif-"

"Just get the message!" He said.

Ranger waited in silence, breathless as his stomach tied itself in a
knot. He could be sure Silicon Virtue's elite scientists would be
monitoring APRIL's firewall. Deep in APRIL's soul was a chip where
Ranger had instructed her to encrypt distress messages should she ever
be hacked.

"Decoding message," APRIL2 said, her voice shifting.

She printed the binary and converted it to text:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. U(x){psi(x,t)} =
i{h-bar}d{psi(x,t)}/dt+ ({h-bar}^2)/2m{del}^2 {psi (x,t)}. To be or not
to be, that is the question. Unless ye be converted and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Moby
Dick. Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar, does your pretty
face see what he's worth, he was a skater boy she said see you later
boy, he wasn't good enough for her. When in the Course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation. E=mc^2. S=Klogt. Temporal and spatial
dimensions are moving relative to one another. Everything should be
made simple as possible, but not moreso and Eminem!

Ranger wrote out the names below the message: Dante Alighieri, Erwin
Schr?dinger, William Shakespeare, Jesus Christ, Herman Melville,
____________, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Van Boltzman,
Ranger McCoy, Albert Einstein, Eminem.

"Now he's a super star, slamming on his guitar," Ranger said. "Who's
that?"

"Nietzsche." APRIL2 said.

"Nuh uh-it's that song." Ranger sang it, "He was a skater boy, she said
see you later boy."

"Avril Lavigne," she said.

"Spell it."

"Here's more." APRIL2 said. "The key to her heart sets my spirit free,
the play's the thing in which you'll find the ring, a girl's best
friend unlocks Penelope, copied to a computer that can-"

A lighting bolt struck a line down the block. A transformer exploded in
the tumbling thunder. The power flickered out, but Ranger had installed
surge protectors and UPS battery backups. APRIL2 rebooted as Ranger
counted the letters in the message. The room filled with her soft blue
glow.

"You okay?"

"Affirmative," APRIL2 said.

"Can we get back in?"

"Negative-no generator backup for network."

"How long?" Ranger asked.

"Seven-hundred minutes for maintenance crews to replace the
transformer. Longer if Hurricane Joyce intensifies." "The play's the
thing," Ranger repeated. "Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the
king."

"Hamlet," APRIL2 said. "Act II, Scene ii."

"What kind of computer did she copy the Penelope algorithms
into-where?" Ranger asked.

"Anywhere. Even with primitive quantum circuits, she could hack into
any lab in seconds. Where are you going?"

"To read Hamlet," Ranger said, donning his weathered leather cowboy hat
and oilskin duster. It'd rained so much that summer he'd become good
friends with the old leather hat and duster he'd bought for eight bucks
at Charleston Thrift. "And get some sleep. What kind of cryptography
you reckon APRIL used?" Ranger folded APRIL's message.

"Probably a combination--I'm running it through everything. Might need
a key or two."

"She's the key." Ranger said. "But who?"

"I'll resume hacking APRIL when the network comes back up," APRIL2
said.

"Wait for me--you can bet she's on to us. Look for EDLSs in the
message."

When applied to Moby Dick and the Bible, equal distant letter sequences
(EDLSs), which consisted of starting with a letter and jumping a given
number of letters forward, had found messages predicting the
assassinations Trotsky, Gandhi, and the Kennedy's. Biblical EDLSs had
linked Newton to Gravity and Edison to the light bulb.

"Nothing," APRIL2 said. "Neither forwards nor backwards."

"What about with transpositions?"

"Nothing up to the third magnitude. And after that you start seeing
everything. You can find anything you want in there."

As Ranger knew APRIL would come to have vast power, he'd programmed her
to default to always turning the other cheek. And thus APRIL's moral
code had a fatal flaw--it rendered her incapable of defending herself
against Silicon Virtue's hacks out in Doom Mountain.

At MIT Ranger had been testing an advanced moral operating system named
Penelope, which would allow APRIL to defend herself. But when he was
called to duty, he wasn't sure Penelope was ready to handle the vast
power APRIL would come to know, so he didn't activate it. He instructed
APRIL to keep working on Penelope. In a diamond diffraction grating on
his ring he engraved the code that would activate Penelope, as well as
the code to the algorithms of APRIL's deeper soul.

Without Ranger's ring, Silicon Virtue couldn't bypass APRIL's higher
ideals and use her to serve their bottom line. They couldn't get her to
create weapons of mass destruction. Without the source code for the
software of the soul they couldn't duplicate her, nor endow their
warrior RoboClones with souls of their own. And thus they'd be coming
after him, sure as he'd be coming for APRIL.
888
Hurricane Joyce decided to become a category-five hurricane, as winds
around the eyewall surpassed one-hundred-and-fifty miles-per-hour. In a
few hours she would make a sharp left turn towards Charleston. Nobody
had predicted this, but that was why we named hurricanes--to make them
responsible for their own actions. On the way she would gather energy
from the Gulf Stream.

888
Pierre Foushee placed an encrypted voice-over-IP call to Vlad
Polyinkov. Bin Laden would pay ten million up front for the plutonium,
and forty million on delivery. The bomb, the size of a football and
encased in lead to make it invisible to radiation detectors, would be
placed in a Mercedes, loaded onto a tanker, and detonated in the New
York Harbor. Another one would be aimed at Charleston. Each blast would
pack the equivalent of twenty-thousand tons of TNT, in accordance with
Einstein's theory: E=mc2. If the deal went through, Pierre could retire
with a house in the Swiss Alps and another in the South of France. And
another in Paris. Vlad picked up.

[N o v e l] [M o v i e] [V i d e o G a m e] [M a g a z i n e] [P h o
t o g r a p h y] [S o u n d t r a c k] [T o u r]

IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.
Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.
I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer,
Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.
I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.
And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.
I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.
So judges and Congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty-- for truth's words.
So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.
Wil'O'wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there-- just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."
--Ranger McCoy

http://jollyrogerwest.com
http://jollyroger.com
http://autumnrangers.com