Things it’s good to hear are now lying in the dirt…

A leaflet listing the regulations for women under Islamist rule now lies in dirt here at the tribunal in Timbuktu. Rule No. 1: The veil should cover the entire body. Rule No. 4: The veil cannot be colored. And Rule No. 8: The woman should not perfume herself after putting on the all-enveloping fabric.

Any of those rules or other rules broken? 95 lashes.

Several days after French special forces parachuted in and liberated this storied city, there is a growing sense of freedom. Though in the houses immediately facing the Islamic tribunal, many of the 8- and 9-year-old girls are still wearing the head covering.

“It is out of fear of the Islamists that they still wear this, says Diahara Adjanga, the mother of one girl said Thursday.”They hit everyone — even children.”

That’s what they do – they hit everyone. Meaning of life, to them. Impose hateful life-denying rules on everyone and especially on women, and hit everyone who “disobeys” no matter how trivially. A strand of hair escapes? WHAM.

Fatouma Traore, 21, said that there was one commander who was especially brutal to the women in Timbuktu.

“We don’t want the army to catch him. It’s the women who want to arrest him so that we can kill him ourselves. …  Even if you’re talking to your own blood brother on the stoop of your house, they hit you. Even if you are wearing the veil, and it happens to slip off, they hit you. This man, Ahmed Moussa, he made life miserable for women. Even an old grandmother if she’s not covered up, he would hit her.”

She picks up her 1-year-old niece and hoists her on one hip, saying: “We even bought a veil for this baby.”

I hope she gets over the wanting to kill him part, but I can see where it comes from.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Daniel Kahneman explains that there is such a thing as the affect heuristic,

where judgments and decisions are guided directly by feelings of liking and disliking, with little deliberation or reasoning.

The example he had just given was the chief investment officer of a large financial firm, who told Kahneman he had just invested tens of millions of dollars in the stock of Ford Motor Company. Why? He’d gone to an automobile show and been impressed by Ford cars. “Wo, good cars!” Yes but that’s not the relevant question. The relevant question is whether the stock is currently underpriced.

The cio did an affect heuristic thing – which is pretty funny, really, given his job. But the thing is, Kahneman explains, the relevant question is more work to answer correctly than the irrelevant one.

When the question is difficult and a skilled solution is not available, intuition still has a shot: an answer may come to mind quickly – but it is not an answer to the original question. The question that the executive faced (should I invest in Ford stock?) was difficult, but the answer to an easier and related question (do I like Ford cars?) came readily to his mind and determined his choice. This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.

Thinking, Fast and Slow p 12

I love that final half-sentence. I’m going to set it off by itself so that we can admire it in all its glory.

when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Some grey bloke did a nice video last October. I may have already posted it but never mind, here it is again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-FSzy3Mbqo

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Coming up this week at the Tate Modern:

a major performance-art event conceived and curated by US artist Suzanne Lacy. Silver Action will see 400 women aged 60 and over – who have taken part in some of the last century’s major political protests, from the 1968 Ford sewing machinists’ strike to Greenham Common – converge on the gallery’s subterranean performance space, the Tanks, for a live, unscripted performance about ageing and activism.

Why? Well one reason is…

One evening a couple of years ago, 82-year-old Barbara Robson was crammed in a rush-hour London tube train. Politely, she asked a young man near her, smart in his suit and tie, if he might move along a little. “He turned to me,” she says, “and told me that, as an old woman, I was a total waste of space. I felt so wounded I could hardly speak.”

I suspect that young man was raised chiefly by the internet. There are a lot of things I like about the internet, but dapper young men who feel cheerfully free to tell old women they should be dead – they are not one of those things.

Lacy’s central aim is to challenge preconceptions about older women. “There’s a very large public conversation now about resources,” she says, “and what to do with an ageing population. Because women live longer, that will impact them more than men. I’m trying to shift the discourse away from one of isolation and increasing frailty: we should see older women as an amazing resource – not just talk about them taking resources.”

Robson, a mental health activist, is certainly excited about Silver Action’s potential to change the way she feels about growing older. Along with 13 other women who will be taking part, I meet her at a workshop at Tate Modern, arranged to stimulate the conversations volunteers will have on the day, and compile a timeline of significant events they’ve been involved in. “This feels like such an important thing to be a part of,” she tells me. “Every day I feel invisible – this is a way to feel less so.”

And you know, there are actually some good things about being ancient. Having a bigger personal frame of historical reference is one. Overall accumulation – mental accumulation, I mean – is another.

H/t Maureen Brian.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What a waste. What a horrible waste.

Less than two weeks ago, Hadiya Pendleton was leading her classmates in the King College Prep School Marching Band down Pennsylvania Avenue on the afternoon of President Obama’s second inauguration. It would be an opportunity of a lifetime for any 15 year old, but for Pendleton, it was her last. On Tuesday, she was gunned down in a park a few blocks from school on the South Side of Chicago, less than a mile from the first family’s home.

It’s always a horrible waste and it happens way too much. As I said at the time, the children at Newtown are no more (or less) of a waste because there was a larger than usual number of them for a single event. There are way too many Hadiya Pendletons in Chicago.

And there’s the school bus driver in Alabama who did his best to prevent a guy with a gun from causing harm to the children on the bus and was shot and killed.

Charles Albert Poland Jr., was driving a school bus for the Dale County Board of Education on Tuesday afternoon, a job he had done full-time since 2009.

At about 3:40 p.m. a gun-wielding man boarded the bus carrying 22 students near Destiny Church on Highway 231.

The suspect, identified to NBC News by a source close to the investigation as area resident Jimmy Lee Dykes, tried to take children off the bus — but the 66-year-old Poland was determined to not let that happen.

For his heroism, the driver was shot and killed.

Horrible.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Salman Rushdie’s in India and he talked to the BBC there. I transcribed most of it.

The bigger question India needs to ask itself is about gender relations, is about how men think about women, and actually to an extent how women think about women because again there’s a lot of oppression inside families by matriarchs of daughters-in-law.

And many women bring up these boys, you know? And don’t teach them proper ways to behave.

Rajini Vaidyanathan: What appals you the most about the way women are treated here?

Well just the brutality of it, the easy brutality of it, and the fact that mostly people get away with it.

It’s nothing to do with what clothes they wear, with whether they go out in the evening – it’s to do with the way men behave towards them.

He cited the disppointing reaction from politicians, gurus, the police.

Unless these attitudes change – and I think young people have to demand that they change -

Vaidyanathan: What would your recommendation be?

Well first you’ve got to start talking about it the right way. You’ve got to stop criminalizing women in this situation and shift the focus to how men think about women.

You’ve got to start changing the terms of the conversation.

He’s talking about culture, ideas, discourse – what confused people label “radical” feminism. It’s not radical. It’s core feminism.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

BBC World does a thing where it reads a proverb as a little filler item. Yesterday’s proverb – which is currently visible on its Africa page – is a charmer.

Today’s African Proverb

“He who never saw his mother while she was young thinks his father wasted the dowry”

A Maragoli proverb from Western Kenya sent by H Essendi, Southampton, UK

Good choice. Well done, BBC.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Lee Moore is hoping for a cease fire.

I think a cease fire could be possible, since I haven’t been firing except when attacked. That makes it easy to agree to a cease fire. Do I want to write about Reap Paden and Atheist Asshole all the time? Fuck no. Of course not. If they would leave me the hell alone I would be delighted to forget all about them.

But Lee wants more than just a cease fire.

I am going to do something about it.  In order to facilitate this I am calling for representatives from both camps in these blog wars to sit down with me in what may be the first of many live and public google hangouts to discuss grievances and come back to the world of civil discussion and cooperation.  I am also asking for an end to the attacks from both sides as a show of good faith (and not the faith of the religious, but the faith that all atheists share: faith in ourselves—in our humanity and our ability to work together to create a more rational, understanding society).

So I invite you—no, I implore you—to join us in our campaign for cooperation.

If you are interested in being a part of these talks please contact me at theatheistnews@gmail.com

Yeah no. Cease fire, hell yes: be my guest. To discuss grievances, hell no. What “grievance” does franc hoggle or any of the rest of them have against me? That I’m ugly and disgusting and should be made to shut up? Yeah I’m not discussing grievances like that.

But don’t let me be a party pooper. If you want to do a google hangout to discuss Reap Paden’s grievance that I eat cat food, knock yourselves out.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

How cute.

Yesterday a guy invited me to do a podcast on Women in Secularism and “problems with online discussion (cyber bullying).” I said sure. Later he told me that he has a couple of partners on the podcast, one of whom is…Reap Paden. Oh. Not doing that then.

So what do we have here? Why it’s a blog post by Reap Paden wondering why I could possibly not want to chat with him.

Ophelia Benson was offered a guest spot on the A-News podcast today. She accepted too.  Then when she learned  the details ( I am a co-host on the show) She pulled out (so to speak) Ophelia has done public speaking before right? So it isn’t that she is unable to speak in public. What is it with these people who gleefully libel and slander people left and right showing no ability to grasp the concept of responsible behavior in even its basic form? They can spout off constantly claiming they want the world to be a better place but can’t be bothered to actually talk about it with anyone who doesn’t already subscribe to their thinking. What is Ophelia Benson worried about? Does she think I am  going to come through her computer monitor and steal all her cat food from her or somethin?  Even if I was a ranting prick to her all she would have to do is hang up. She would then have a REAL example of someone behaving the way she has been claiming. That would also provide her with something else she yearns for. I think you could call it the “holy grail” of freethought blogs , credibility. No one there has it but they all long for it. Over and over again they have tried to claim they possess it but it always turns out to be made out of the same stuff you find in Mr Rodgers neighborhood, make-believe and sock puppets. I find it laughable that any of these ‘social justice warriors’  really think that by avoiding human interaction with anyone except those who smile and nod the world is going to give them any consideration. What a huge waste of time. I have a standing offer to anyone who wants to offer their side of things and have a real back and forth conversation. No one can claim I am unable to do anything but rant, all they need to do is take a look at the list of people who have been guests on my podcasts.

That’s not the end of the “paragraph,” it goes on even longer, but that’s a sample. Great, isn’t it? Why would I not want to go on his podcast and share a laugh about my passion for eating cat food? And hey, if I did go on it and he went on too long about cat food, I could just hang up! It’s golden! I don’t know why I passed up the chance!

Yes I do. There are many many podcasts. I can choose which ones to do. I don’t want to do one with Reap Paden, because I dislike the way he talks to and about people, including me. I prefer to do podcasts with thoughtful people.

I love the idea that doing his podcast would give me credibility. How would it do that, exactly? And then there’s his accusing freethought blogs of sockpuppetry. Project much?

Here’s the rest of that long “paragraph” (free advertising for Reap! I’m so generous):

 I have more than proven myself able to have an adult conversation there is no valid excuse to decline especially if you really believe in the words coming out of your mouth or popping out of your keyboard. I can’t imagine what it must be like to not be able to stand up for what you believe in because it is so fragile and weak. If you remove it from the protective wrapper of your warped perception it will be crushed under the weight of common sense, how good could it be really? I don’t even disagree with everything they find fault with but we will never find common ground as long as they refuse to exchange ideas and instead only attack or misrepresent. I they can’t even manage to find a way to get along with other skeptics and atheists how could they possibly think they can win a battle with religious people over all the things they are hoping to change? Not a chance[.]

There is no valid excuse to decline? I need an excuse? I’m obliged to do his podcast? That makes about as much sense as insisting that blocking people on Twiter is a crime against free speech.

In any case I have good reasons to decline his podcast: he talks a lot of vicious shit, and I want nothing to do with him. I don’t “refuse to exchange ideas”; I simply refuse to talk to him.

His control of language is another reason; I can’t keep up with him. Call me fragile and weak if you must.

Now I know PZ has been very supportive of me and I don’t mean to insult him but, to be honest, PZ is like a conceited,  bitter, vindictive, bully. He is far too busy to ever make sure his point is clear or to make a case for his side of an argument. He is to important to be bothered by silly details like being accurate and honest. It is much easier to shut down the critics by shutting off the comments and/or  banning them when (or sometimes before) they  post presenting a counter opinion. If we could harness the condescension  and  arrogance contained in PZ’s head it could power 3 states an still be enough to run the intense limelight he thinks constantly shines on him.

I wonder what he would say if he did mean to insult PZ.

But then at the end he has a change of heart and tries to reach out.

 No matter what you say PZ  Myers or how many times you ban me. No matter how great you think you are Stephanie Zvan. No matter how badly you wanna be famous, smart, and or cool Adam Lee. No  matter how many times Ophelia Benson claims the sky is falling. No matter how long Ed Brayton keeps his fat head buried in the sand so he can deny the damage he has not only allowed but encouraged. And the same for the rest of you…. I am not going to allow you to force your thinking on me or allow you to try and force it on others without saying something about it. I don’t know what happened that resulted all you loons getting hit on the head with a safe at once but you people remind me of a damn zombie invasion only you ate your own brains now you just wonder around bumping into each other.

Hmmm…maybe I should do that podcast after all.

Kidding! Totally kidding.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

One thing in that interview with Nick Turse…

On how the military trained U.S. troops to dehumanize the Vietnamese

“The idea was that the Vietnamese, they weren’t really people. They were subhuman, mere ‘gooks’ who could be killed or abused at will and, you know, veterans I talked to told me that from the moment they got into basic training they were told, ‘Never call them Vietnamese. Call them gooks or dinks, slopes, slants, rice-eaters.’ Anything to take away their humanity, to dehumanize them and make it easy to see any Vietnamese — all Vietnamese — as the enemy.”

Oh really? That’s very interesting.

I always knew that went on, of course, but I’m not sure I knew it was part of the training. I did know it was part of the training in World War I, and that dehumanization has always been part of military training – but I must not have known that in the Vietnam war recruits were actually told never to call them Vietnamese, because hearing it startled me.

So the words you call people matter, then? They make a difference? They’re important enough to include as part of basic training during a war? Certain kinds of words can take away the humanity of a set of people, and make it easy to see them as the enemy?

Well imagine that.

I thought that was all wrong. I thought that was a delusion of the crazy feminists. Well, maybe crazy feminists were in charge of military training during the Vietnam War. Yeah that must be it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There was an interview on Fresh Air yesterday with a guy who’s written a book about civilian massacres and other atrocities in the Vietnam War, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Apparently the received wisdom is that My Lai was an aberration. I actually didn’t know that – I thought My Lai was just the one that got a lot of publicity but that there were plenty of others. It’s the nature of that kind of war, and of that particular war. I even thought I remembered reporting on it from the time (yes I’m that ancient!), but the author, Nick Turse, says there wasn’t much in the US. (But there was in the foreign press, he says. Hmm. In that case surely at least lefty outlets picked up on it, in which case I probably would have seen some of it, in which case maybe I am remembering correctly. Ramparts, In These Times, Mother Jones – I remember them as paying attention.)

There was a huge archive, and Turse grabbed it, just in time.

When I first found these records I was a graduate student. I was working on another dissertation at the time, and I was about 200 pages in, so I contacted a couple Vietnam War historians that I knew and tried to get them to work on it. … And one of them told me that he thought I should do this, that he was burnt out on the war. He had moved on to another project. … But this was something that I should do … that I should get down there right away.

So I went to my dissertation adviser and I said, ‘Do you think that I can write a book and my dissertation at the same time?’ And he told me that he thought I was crazy, but he said, ‘You know, if it’s that important, then you should shift to this topic.’ And I said to him, ‘OK, but I’ll have to put together a grant proposal.’ … I was a grad student at the time; I didn’t have the funds for this project. He wrote me out a check on the spot and said to get down there right away before these records disappear.

So within 24 hours I was in my car, and I drove down to the National Archives. And I put every cent that he gave me into copying, and I would copy from the moment the Archives opened in the morning until they kicked me out at night. And because I put all the money into copying, I went and slept in my car in the Archives parking lot.

And I did this for a couple of nights, and by the end of it, I had the whole collection. And I thought my adviser was being a little paranoid, but it turned out to be excellent advice, because sometime after I published my first article on this, the records were pulled from the Archives’ shelves. And they haven’t been on the public shelves since.

Well done, good and faithful graduate student.

That’s on the must-read list.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ahahahahaha – I usually never do spam jokes but this one is too good to pass up.

Perfectly composed articles, thankyou for entropy.

Thank you for entropy! ♥♥

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Greta did a post the other day about someone who rethought something she wrote and then took it back. I hadn’t seen it until this morning.

This is how it’s done, people. She didn’t double down. She didn’t insist that she hadn’t done anything wrong; she didn’t equate “lots of people disagreeing with you” with tribalism, bullying, McCarthyism, or witch hunts. She kept it short and sweet, without a “making it worse” morass of defensive rationalizations/ making it all about her hurt feelings about people being mean to her. She heard the criticism, accepted that she screwed up, and apologized. This is how it’s done.

([cough] Michael Shermer [cough])

The result of course was that – starting in comment 2, already – some anonymous detective insisted for comment after comment that I misrepresented Shermer. No I didn’t. AD also insisted my article (which AD thought was a blog post) was about Shermer and that I had said Shermer is a sexist. No, and no.

A guy called Michael Heath has been insisting even more insistently on a couple of posts of Ed Brayton’s – Shermer and the Myth of Feminst Persecution and a later post that had nothing to do with me or Shermer - that I lied about Shermer, that I am a liar, that I defamed Shermer, that my article is demagoguery. That’s all false.

Greta addressed the detective – one “coelsblog” – in a long comment, which sums up a lot of things with beautiful clarity.

coelsblog: I’m going to say this once.

For the sake of argument, let’s concede all your major points. Let’s say that while Shermer’s statements were sexist, he didn’t intend any of the sexist intent that came across. And let’s say that Benson’s interpretation uncharitably took them out of context: what he said was sexist, but it wasn’t as sexist as she made it out to be. I don’t agree with this assessment: but for the sake of argument, let’s say that it’s true.

So what?

Does that in any way, shape or form justify Shermer’s reaction? Does it justify him calling criticism of him a McCarthy-like witch hunt, a purging, an inquisition, comparing it to the Nazi party? Does it make Benson responsible for what Shermer said? And does it make Benson’s actions more problematic than Shermer’s, and more worthy of extensive critique?

If you think Shermer’s ranting response was justified, or that Benson was somehow responsible for it … then I have nothing more to say to you. That is an indefensible position. And if you don’t… then why are you so fixated on Benson? Why are you micro-analyzing her comments in comment after comment after comment? Why do you think that her misinterpretation (in your eyes) is more worthy of more criticism than Shermer’s off-the-rails hissy-fit?

When you say something sexist, racist, homophobic, whatever, and someone calls you out on it… you apologize. Full stop. Even if the person calling you out got something slightly wrong… you let that pass. You say, “I’m so sorry. I did not intend to say anything sexist/ racist/ homophobic/ etc., but I can see why people are angry, and I can see why they saw it the way they did. I’ll speak more carefully in the future.”  You don’t make it all about you and how everyone’s being mean to you; you don’t make your hurt feelings over being misunderstood more important than sexism/ racism/ homophobia/ etc. Do you think that every atheist who called out Charlie Jane Anders got absolutely everything right, and said everything in the best way possible? I doubt it highly. She didn’t focus on that. She focused on the injury she had done, and the apology for it. That’s what makes her a class act.

And when you — speaking to you now, coelsblog, not to the generic “you” — acknowledge in passing that Shermer’s sexist remarks were not okay, and then spend comment after comment after comment micro-analyzing Benson’s criticism of it, and blaming her for his off-the-rails reaction… it’s a classic “yes, but” response to sexism. In fact, “Yes, but… the person writing about this incident didn’t behave absolutely perfectly in all respects. Why aren’t we talking about that?” is one of the “Yes, but…” examples listed in that piece. The expectation that critics of sexist behavior always get everything absolutely right — and if they don’t, they should expect the targets of their criticism to react horribly — is, itself, unbelievably sexist. Stop it. Right now. Just stop it.

The imperfection in what I wrote in the article was saying of the overall stereotype, “Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that…” when I would have closed that loophole by instead saying “Michael Shermer invoked exactly that stereotype…”

But that is really not a very big imperfection. Since I immediately go on to report exactly what Shermer really did say, it’s an absurd bit of pettifogging to pretend that I meant the “said exactly that” literally or that I intended it to mislead. For fuck’s sake, if I intended it to mislead why would I immediately quote exactly what he really did say? What I said is just a normal bit of commentary. People who know how to read know that. It’s obvious on the page which bit is in fact exactly what he said. Aesthetically, “invoked exactly that stereotype” is somewhat inferior to “said exactly that.” It’s a bit cluttered. In academic writing, of course, precision trumps aesthetics every time, but guess what, I’m not an academic and Free Inquiry is not an academic journal. There’s always a tension in this kind of writing, between pedantry and style. You make choices all the time. There are tradeoffs. You make them, generally, based on the background assumption that the reader is not an idiot. I never for one second thought that any reader would be idiot enough to read “said exactly that” and then ignore the next part where I spelled out what Shermer actually did say. Nor did I think any reader would be idiot enough to read “it’s a guy thing” in the following paragraph and think Shermer had said that, either, since I had just spelled out what he did say – “it’s more of a guy thing.”

You have to assume the reader is not an idiot, because if you don’t, you get horrible over-literal baby-step writing with no color or energy or wit. Lunatics are insisting that I wrote those four paragraphs (that address Shermer) the way I did as a dastardly attempt to frame him. The hell I did. I wrote it that way because writing that assumes the reader can’t read is terrible writing, and I refuse to do set out to do terrible writing. (Terrible writing I do by accident is another story.)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I tweeted a link about an upcoming debate at Cambridge between Dawkins and Rowan Williams a few hours ago. There are replies saying Richard will wipe the floor with him. I’m not so sure. Williams was an academic before he was the archbish, and now he’s not the archbish any more.

He almost certainly knows of better arguments than the kind of highflown archepiscopal bafflegab he gave to the House of Lords and so on while he actually was the archbish. And since he’s not the archbish any more, he may feel less of a duty to sound churchy and archepiscopal.

There’s no chance that he’s actually stupid. The fact that he used to say a lot of stuff that comes across as stupid to atheists doesn’t mean he is actually stupid. It’s more likely a déformation professionelle. I would think that when arguing with Dawkins he’s well able to come up with things to say that will prevent the latter from wiping the floor with him. Whether he will choose to or not is another question, but I’m thinking he probably will.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The BBC’s Andrew North tells us more about the Delhi rape victim.

Like the student’s family, at least two of the accused are from impoverished villages in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, and source for many of the thousands of migrants who come to Delhi every year hoping for a better life
- the same journey her father made nearly 30 years ago.

And the other men are from similar migrant backgrounds. Where they differ, though, was in what they did about it.

“We gave our all to our daughter,” her mother told us, still devastated with grief. She says she can barely leave her bed, complaining of frequent headaches and chest pains.

And their support was working: her daughter was studying at a college in Dehradun in northern India and was on course to qualify as a physiotherapist, while working overtime in a call centre.

“We never gave our sons better treatment,” said the mother. In that respect they were also different from many among India’s middle class.

Figures show they are just as likely as poorer groups to favour male children, even before they are born – and afterwards in care and medical treatment.

It means India is in a rare category – along with only China – of having higher rates of infant mortality among girls than boys.

The student’s mother also lashed out at India’s sexist attitudes, attacking the many politicians and other public figures who’ve suggested she brought the rape on herself.

One well-known spiritual guru even said she should have embraced her attackers as “brothers” to stop them assaulting her.

“Either they don’t have daughters,” her mother said, “or they are clearly backing these crimes.”

It’s heartbreaking.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There’s a BBC Four series from last summer, Uncovering Shakespeare; I saw the first two episodes last night, Macbeth first and The Comedies/Shakespeare’s Women second, which is the opposite of the order of broadcast.

I thought the Macbeth wasn’t very good. It was way too heavy on “interesting” but totally irrelevant visuals – lots of New York streets packed with cars, for instance; wut? – and way too light on the words. Not enough discussion of the words, not enough saying of them, not enough clips of actors saying them, pretty much no discussion at all of the way the words do the work. On the other hand there were some clips, and the discussion wasn’t actually boring, so I enjoyed watching it, but I wished it had been better.

But the next one was good. Joely Richardson was the presenter, and she knows her Shakespeare (and his words) a lot better than Ethan Hawke (who presented the Macbeth one) does.

And it was on a subject I’m very keen on, which is how astonishing it is that Shakespeare did so much with women characters when that wasn’t the norm at all (and still isn’t, not to the extent that he did it) and when he had only boys to play the parts. Yeah. They talked mostly about Twelfth Night and As You Like It. There was a lot of conversation with Vanessa Redgrave, sitting opposite Joely Richardson on a couch. JR’s voice is so like VR’s it’s almost funny.

Neither episode, though, can hold a candle to Playing Shakespeare, the nine part series directed by John Barton in which actors – Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart, Peggy Ashcroft, David Suchet, Harriet Walter, Alan Howard, and others – and Barton discuss the language in detail, and perform bits of scenes. It’s enthralling and illuminating (and regulars with acute memories will remember that I’ve talked about it before). It’s on DVD; the library has it. What’s taken me so long?!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)