"Who should rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Never much liked priests myself -- and Catholic upbringing means I met a few, although, unlike Voltaire I wasn't reared by Jesuits

(let that one sink in..)

Fitting at least that these charlatan mendicants only find their true standing in death. So who was Becket, our long lost new found after-Life of the Party?

Personally a maven of political theater, as a historical figure Becket serves primarily as a cipher for the tug of war between royal and ecclesiastical right. He donned a hair shirt (similar to ostentatiously going to rehab for sex and drug addiction in the modern day..but slightly more hypocritically contrite and way itchier) and high-handedly excommunicated anyone and everyone including the royal harlot (all edicts were downgraded by the Pope to stern "tsk, tsk's"). His other offenses were more insolent: confiscating/repatriating lands, sheltering secular criminals who had taken even minor vows, installing his own clerks in defiance of the King -- generally forsaking custom when it came to clerical deference to His Highness

You gotta give Tommy B credit for giving his liege lord a hard time..even if things did culminate with flight into pre-arranged exile in France wherein he lobbed even more excommunication sentences like symbolic parchment firebombs (about as effective as hurling used kleenexes across the Channel). Eventually the Pope brokered an uneasy and uncertain truce (the footing can be as treacherous as the schemers when it comes to these nasty power struggles)

Naturally the moral comes as an afterthought, once the King's (hench)men beat the Archbishop's brains out (literally, according to eyewitness account). And Becket was said to be his majesty's one-time best friend; even boarded and tutored Henry the Younger. The denouement arrives when Henry travels to Canterbury where he is whacked repeatedly by the Bishop's staff as penance (a figure of speech..I think. A certain Arouet might disagree). The killers meanwhile were ordered to join the Crusades.

In the end we learn that it is better to beg pardon than to beg leave..if you can get away with it.

The perfect social statement to act as the centerpiece for Chaucer's skewering of contemporary society 200 years later.

Meantime, in a BBC poll Becket was voted the worst Briton behind only Jack the Ripper -- and no one knows for sure that the latter is English.

If the first go-round was tragi-farce what does all of this bode for the present..and the future? First, we shouldn't expect bowed heads or bended knees from our fearless leaders unless one of them is about to be mounted by a Russian ladyboy (the best in world, says Putin without irony).

Second, and this part matters, History will scoff at their internecine battles and recoil with disgust at their insipid, repugnant existence.

Sandwiched between Becket and Chaucer is Dante who portentously tells us that the best way out is through.

Fuck 'em. 1170, 2017, doesn't matter. Fuck 'em one, fuck 'em all.

These events hardly rise to that level of drama. Or so I guess cause I'm not really getting your drift here.

We were shown our low-rent, shabby theater version of "won't someone rid me of this troublesome priest!", yesterday when Comey used this royal belly-ache to describe what Trump said about ending the investigation of Flynn. It was the high/low point of the whole fiasco; well, except for McCain's senile meandering and stumbling, slurred mumblings that even the Republican chairman gavelled into blessed silence (he moved on without comment on McCain's drooling senility - it was really something to behold).

A CBS reporter later said that Comey had "quoted Beckett" - I can only assume he meant Samuel Beckett, who had nothing to do with Thomas More's story of Henry and Thomas. American education will out!

We were shown our low-rent, shabby theater version of "won't someone rid me of this troublesome priest!", yesterday when Comey used this royal belly-ache to describe what Trump said about ending the investigation of Flynn. It was the high/low point of the whole fiasco; well, except for McCain's senile meandering and stumbling, slurred mumblings that even the Republican chairman gavelled into blessed silence (he moved on without comment on McCain's drooling senility - it was really something to behold).

A CBS reporter later said that Comey had "quoted Beckett" - I can only assume he meant Samuel Beckett, who had nothing to do with Thomas More's story of Henry and Thomas. American education will out!

Ah, I did not follow the play-by-play, did not expect anything to come of it. Oh boy, right again.

Dunno if we've seen such a hell broth of lie and bullshit, does anyone care to keep up appearances anymore?

Those who say that the ruling class is fine with Trump are wrong, a portion thereof for sure, but no plurality, much less consensus. He is the pimple on the head of the crisis of bourgeois democracy pustule. I'm not sure that any sort of consensus wants him deposed but they at least want him tamed. They accept some variation in the general orientation of imperialism, thus the flogging of 'our ally' Qatar as part of the Iran offensive. But 'the beatings will continue until the behavior improves'. That'll not work well with this ruling class bozo whose wealth has allowed him to cultivate his psychopathy to an artistic level. Trump is a prime example of why there is a political class, the owners cannot be trusted to manage government, particularly the executive branch where solipsism can really wreck consensus.

Personally I hope this freak show limps along for a while, bringing discredit and disgust upon the whole booj enterprise and it's the duty of ruthless critics of the bourgeois relentlessly point out that what ya see is what ya get.

Ah, I did not follow the play-by-play, did not expect anything to come of it. Oh boy, right again.

Dunno if we've seen such a hell broth of lie and bullshit, does anyone care to keep up appearances anymore?

Those who say that the ruling class is fine with Trump are wrong, a portion thereof for sure, but no plurality, much less consensus. He is the pimple on the head of the crisis of bourgeois democracy pustule. I'm not sure that any sort of consensus wants him deposed but they at least want him tamed. They accept some variation in the general orientation of imperialism, thus the flogging of 'our ally' Qatar as part of the Iran offensive. But 'the beatings will continue until the behavior improves'. That'll not work well with this ruling class bozo whose wealth has allowed him to cultivate his psychopathy to an artistic level. Trump is a prime example of why there is a political class, the owners cannot be trusted to manage government, particularly the executive branch where solipsism can really wreck consensus.

Personally I hope this freak show limps along for a while, bringing discredit and disgust upon the whole booj enterprise and it's the duty of ruthless critics of the bourgeois relentlessly point out that what ya see is what ya get.

Observers, especially historians, have been calling this one wrong right from the start. For them, it was Zach Taylor in 1848 redux. As though there wasn't actually a decent analogue out there even (Bryan/McKinley '96)..bizarre

A CBS reporter later said that Comey had "quoted Beckett" - I can only assume he meant Samuel Beckett, who had nothing to do with Thomas More's story of Henry and Thomas. American education will out!

Its ok. "Jesse's Girl" is by Bruce Springsteen, right?

Its ok. "Jesse's Girl" is by Bruce Springsteen, right?[/COLOR]

I can't tell the difference anyways. (had to look that up too, total pop culture illiterate)

The thing is, it doesn't matter, anything can be said. It will be forgotten or become a meme as the evolving narrative requires.

I can't tell the difference anyways. (had to look that up too, total pop culture illiterate)

The thing is, it doesn't matter, anything can be said. It will be forgotten or become a meme as the evolving narrative requires.

The ruling class really is making it up as they go along...

The ruling class really is making it up as they go along...

Yes, but part of our job is to connect things to the greater procession of society. We discard the husk -- mostly their drivel -- and reveal the kernel.