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From: Jasper
T1: [email protected]
Category 3: Category 1
Date: 28 Feb 1999
Time: 11:11:22
Remote Name: dyn1-tnt7-50.detroit.mi.ameritech.net
Bob,
Have you thought about a publisher for your book?
There were a couple of other things in your post I wanted to mention. First of all, The Emperor's New Clothes is a perfect analogy for what the media did in the Simpson case and I don't see how it could have happened without Ted Turner's blessings. However, there was no need for him or anyone associated with him to plan a hit on anyone. The key to power is media access and "spin control." As long as you control what people perceive as newsworthy and have first dibs on how it's interpreted, you can turn almost anything in "the news" to your advantage.
One more thing: So-called Shakespearean scholars have been screwing up Othello for as far back as I can find "expert" commentary on the subject. If The Bard had it to do all over again, he might have called his play Iago and made Othello a Florentine instead of a Moor because of how people keep tripping over stereotypes about his color in their analysis of his motives.
Othello did not kill out of jealousy. The idea that he might have had something to be jealous about didn't even occur to him until Iago planted the idea in his mind. Othello didn't even know what Iago was talking about at first and it took a hell of a lot for him to get the picture. He resisted it all the way because he trusted his wife and his chief lieutenant whom Iago said were carrying on an affair. But he trusted "honest Iago, too." That's what nearly drove him crazy until Iago came up with "a mountain of evidence" to prove his case.
The line Rowse quotes actually begins with, "Beware, oh my lord, of jealousy " It's the first time the word appears in the play but not the first time the subject comes up. At the very beginning of the play you hear Iago and Rodrigo, both of whom are beside themselves with jealousy for different reasons, letting their obsession be known. It wasn't the truth that had such power to deceive; it was a string of partial truths, OBVIOUS TRUTHS, packed into one big lie. That was Iago's secret of success-and Hitler's-and Hanoi Jane's-and Mark Fuhrman's.
The only way you can defeat the big lie is with the big truth. I think that you and I are after the same thing and as long as we are honest in our pursuit, we will eventually succeed. I hope that we're around to see it. Like my old war buddy Pat Crowe said, "I'm not going to hold my breath." But I'm not going to stop fighting, either. How about you?
Jasper