Articles of Interest – Page 6

The Shakespeare Authorship Question

Abridged from “The Shakespeare Canon of Statutory Construction”
UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW (v.140: no. 4, April 1992)
by Justice John Paul Stevens @ www.shakespearefellowship.org

The Oxfordian position on the Shakespeare authorship question is that Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare. This abridged essay focuses on examples of Shakespeare’s handwriting, whether the author was noble, and, in the context of authorship, does it matter? Edward de Vere’s relationship with Elizabeth I, Lord Burghley and the character of Polonius, the education of Edward de Vere and legal reasoning in the plays are all considered here.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was quoted as saying in 1987: “‘I have lingering concerns…. You can’t help but have these gnawing doubts that this great author may perhaps have been someone else…. I would tend to draw the inference that the author of these plays was a nobleman”. Stevens was conditional in his view of the matter, saying, “And I would say, also–perhaps departing from my colleagues–that I am persuaded that, if the author was not the man from Stratford, then there is a high probability that it was Edward de Vere.”

The plays and poems of William Shakespeare, sometimes collectively described as the “Shakespeare Canon,” are perhaps the most stimulating and exciting works in the English language. Canons of statutory construction, in contrast, are probably the dullest materials that law students have to study. For these reasons, this essay includes a mixture of comment on two apparently unrelated subjects: first, the unorthodox view that Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, is the true author of the Shakespeare Canon and, second, the utility of certain canons of statutory construction in the search for truth and justice..

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Closure

Closure is a popular term borrowed from Psychology. It refers to a conclusion, a resolution of a traumatic event or experience in a person’s life, such as a relationship breakup, the loss of a job or home, or the death of a loved one. Frequently, those recovering from a failed love affair yearn for closure. We’ve all heard about “closure”, that sense that you’ve put a nagging conflict or loss behind you. It’s a relief if it happens because it means you can move on with your life.

The term became popular in the 1990’s due to use in the popular media. It describes something that is highly desirable but also quite vague. Those in emotional pain are said to need it, and many more hope to achieve it if they can figure out what it is and how to get it. The ‘need for closure’ is a phrase used by psychologists to describe an individual’s desire for a firm solution as opposed to enduring ambiguity, the possibility of interpreting an experience in two or more distinct ways. Closure describes the way scattered and troubling feelings can resolve themselves in coherent and stable mental patterns.

How do you recover and put the sadness, guilt, regret and overall bad feelings to bed? Especially when negative emotions can so easily haunt you?

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The Used Book Trade

Having bought and sold books on a casual basis for a couple of decades or so, I thought I would deviate from my usual subjects to give my personal insights into the business, what constitutes ‘success’ and where the future may lead.

The reality is, used book selling is not what it was. I suppose the current economic climate has a part to play, but across the country, the small, independent specialist bookshops are disappearing in like fashion to the corner-shops’ demise under the competition of the supermarkets. My first conclusion is ‘use them or lose them’. The other factor must be the number of charity shops with a couple of shelves crammed with a mixed range of books, and www.oxfam.org.uk for one, now opening used bookshops of their own.

In itself, this is no bad thing, at least they represent a source of books. However, they naturally expect donations of books, as opposed to the independent book sellers who were usually pleased enough to give a few pounds for what you brought in. Far more importantly though, was the knowledge they had of the business. Many shops I have traded with in the past were happy to track down a book for you. This brings us to the brave new era of the Internet, and especially www.amazon.co.uk. Now of course, anyone can quickly locate a copy of a book, even ones that in the past would have taken a lot of time and effort to track down. Accepting the advantages this has brought in sourcing, purchasing, and selling books, it is appropriate here to mention a few disadvantages.

These may not be the observations of everyone in the book business, but it seems to me that Internet selling has created a broader base of what is available, but in so doing, has driven down the price percentage available to the seller, taking into account postage fees, and site selling fees. It is pretty obvious that on Amazon as an example, it is simply not worth competing against the rest on what may once have been viewed as ‘bread and butter’ products. Some of the fun has gone too, twenty years ago, I used to travel once or twice a year between Wales and Scotland. I used to buy Scottish books in Wales and sell in Scotland, and vice versa. There’s just no point anymore..

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Turkmenistan and Freedom of Conscience

Guest Blog By Jeremy Reynalds, Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

Visit their web site at: www.assistnews.net

Turkmenistan has jailed two more prisoners of conscience. Protestant Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev has been given a four-year prison term on charges of swindling. The sentence was handed down on Oct. 21.

Turkmenistan is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west.

A story by Felix Corley for Forum 18 News Service reported that the pastor’s wife and church members insist the charges have been fabricated to punish him for his religious activity. Judge Agajan Akjaev of Mary Town Court in south-eastern Turkmenistan ruled that Nurliev will serve his sentence in the general regime labor camp in Seydi.This was confirmed by his wife and lawyer from the south-eastern town of Mary.

“The court also ruled that Ilmurad is a drug addict and ordered forced treatment for this in prison,” Maya Nurlieva told Forum 18 News Service. “This is unjust and a slander.”

In reality, Forum 18 said, Nurliev is being treated for diabetes, and his wife has been denied the opportunity to see him or give him his medication since his Aug. arrest.

In mid-September Ahmet Hudaybergenov, a Jehovah’s Witness who conscientiously objects to compulsory military service, was sentenced to 18 months.

Both Nurliev and Hudaybergenov are likely to be sent to Seydi labor camp, where Baptist and Jehovah’s Witness prisoners of conscience have previously been held. There have been indications that some of these prisoners were tortured in the camp with psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs.. Continue reading Turkmenistan and Freedom of Conscience

Top Twelve Health Myths

http://www.mercola.com/ is my natural health website of choice. It contains a lot of relevant information for concerned British readers. This guest Post summarizes many of my concerns. I will try to address them personally in greater detail in the future..

Dr. Mercola is the founder of the world’s most visited natural health web site,www.Mercola.com. You can learn the hazardous side effects of ‘over the counter’ remedies by getting a FREE copy of his latest special report The Dangers of Over the Counter Remedies by going to his Report Page.

1: Vaccines are Safe, Effective and Prevent Disease

I completely understand that for many this issue is not debatable as they believe that vaccines are one of the greatest gifts to public health in the history of civilization.

If you believe that, then let me encourage you to open your mind and explore other views held by many well respected physicians, scientists, clinicians and pro-vaccine safety educators.

You might want to review the article Read This Before Vaccinating for Anything, to help you start your exploration process.

When it comes to vaccines, there are three primary questions that need to be considered.

First, is the vaccine in question safe?

Secondly, does it effectively prevent disease?

And third, which vaccines can safely and effectively be given together or in close succession?

Unfortunately, these issues have not been sufficiently studied for most vaccines, and those vaccines that have been studied frequently show that they are either unsafe or ineffective, or both!

Pro-vaccine-safety educators have long been saying that vaccines can over-stimulate your child’s immune system, sometimes causing the very disease it’s designed to protect against, or worse. And, when several vaccines are administered together, or in close succession, their interaction may completely overwhelm your child’s developing immune system.

This is one of the primary problems with vaccines in general – their detrimental impact on your body’s primary, natural defense against ALL disease..

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Copyright(s) & Wrongs

The issue of copyright is a minefield for the average person. Copyright has to strike a delicate balance between protecting the creators of music, words or photographs and the presentation of such material to a wider public.

On the one hand, it is only fair that the creators get paid for what they create. On the other, if copyright protection is too tight, then distribution of material becomes too restricted.

If Shakespeare was still in copyright less of his work would be seen. The same principle may help explain the appeal of the ‘classics’ in all artistic fields with producers. Could this weigh against new artists?

The concept of intellectual property was based around the distinction between mechanical invention, and literary or cultural creation.

That idea is now less appropriate to the ways in which creativity is carried out – software development, biotechnology and gene science all blur the boundaries between the mechanical and the intellectual. The advent of the internet has changed the way copyright works.

Going into a shop and stealing a CD is theft, and yet using new technology, down-loading tracks from the internet seems quite different.

Proposals to disconnect so-called peer to peer file-sharers have caused concern among internet campaigners. This is when people who know nothing of each other beyond a username, share music or films even though only one of them has bought the original. One thing is clear, and that is that a short-term fix on these copyright issues is not helpful or appropriate.

This attitude, that if it is available to download from the web then it is free, is even more pronounced with photographic images. When pictures were printed on paper it was easy to control, but new technology makes those old laws out-dated or at least difficult to enforce.

Stuart Franklin took the famous picture of the protester standing in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square – an image that has appeared on countless T-shirts around the world.

“We licensed my photographs to go on posters and T-shirts through business associates, the photograph itself is almost in the public domain, but if people want to use it to make a profit, such as a magazine or newspaper, then they have to pay, we have no problem at all with dissemination and actively encourage students and young people to engage with the photography. What we don’t encourage is pilfering for profit of our work,” he said..

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Medication Compliance- Trouble taking Tablets?

Healthcare professionals are understandably concerned that people, especially people with serious health problems, take medication appropriately, as prescribed by their doctor. The reasons they often do not are explored here, and may differ from some commonly held ideas. The causes of non-compliance are seldom immediately clear, and individual reasons for stopping medication can appear arbitrary, “I couldn’t get to the chemist”.. If I focus here on individuals with mental health problems, it is because compliance with medication is a comparatively larger problem in this group, but certainly not exclusively so.

Many writers have highlighted the importance of terminology in healthcare, and suggest that the use of words like “compliance” infer that patients should be passive recipients, and should obey professionals. It has recently been proposed that “concordance” should replace the words “compliance” and “adherence”.

Concordance emphasizes patient rights, and the importance of two-way decision making. More controversially, it also reminds us patients have the right to make choices such as stopping medication, even if doctors do not approve of the decision.

How a person thinks an illness will affect him is determined by his previous knowledge or experience, as well as fear of the outcome.

The law imposes a duty of care on those that administer medication to others, for example, on a hospital ward. Administration of medication is not without its complications. Minor prescribing errors, allergies, adverse drug reactions, interactions with food, or herbal products, overdoses, and even possible irreversible health problems or death, must all be considered. No one should take medication that is normally only available on a doctor’s prescription without this essential professional help.

There is however, still widespread concern in the UK over the administration of non-prescribed medicine and the practice of covert administration in the non-compliant.

The law is clear that covert administration is only justifiable in cases of incapacity. Incapacity occurs where the patient is unable to comprehend and retain information material to the decision, or the patient is unable to weigh up the information as part of the process of an informed decision..

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