From Julius Caesar:

Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn’d to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Once a scandal fully surrounds some Democratic governor, the other side could smugly flaunt it every time one of them plays as foul.

It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

googleplex fridaysThis feature happens to share its name with the headquarters of Google Inc., located in Mountain View, California. I have no idea what goes on there on Fridays.

how come king james didn’t like macbethI don’t grant your premise, unless you are referring to the historical figure and not the Shakespeare play. In fact, you might say that the play was actually written specifically to appeal to the new king. Witches were a fascination for James, so he’d have been intrigued from the start. Also, James was a direct descendent of both the historical Malcolm and the historical Banquo. Notice that the witches make a prophecy that doesn’t actually come true in the play, which is an odd dramatic convention. They prophecy that Banquo will not be king, but will instead be the father to a line of kings. Later, Macbeth is shown a vision of eight kings along with the ghost of Banquo who points at them for his. The eighth king is meant to be King James, as he is the eighth king in the house of Stewart. The prophecy doesn’t come true in the play; it comes true in the audience.

presidents with the letter xSo far, it’s just Nixon, but the night is young.

shakespeare film 2010You do realize you’re skipping over a whole year, right? No interest in The Tempest with Helen Mirren as Prospero? Not anxiously awaiting the new Hamlet with Screech and the Chocolate Rain guy? Okay. From what I can tell, the Shakespeare film event of 2010 will be King Lear with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and Naomi Watts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Keira Knightley as his three extremely beautiful daughters. Also, Eddie Murphy – I kid you not – is planning to do a version of Romeo & Juliet. I imagine he will be playing both roles, but that’s pure speculation.

shakespeare king henry lambasts halI was amused to see this one because I used the phrase “lambasts Hal” in my first Shakespeare Lipogram, and I chose the verb because it only has the vowel “A” in it. But I wonder if you’re really looking for that scene from Henry IV, Part One, or if you’re actually looking for this scene from Henry IV, Part Two. It’s one of the great scenes from one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works and was even listed as #38 on my Top 50 scenes in all of Shakespeare.

Hal finds his deathly-ill father asleep, assumes he’s dead, and takes the crown off with him. When he returns, the King’s awake, and lambasts Hal. They reconcile, and Henry gives his son advice for how to be king. The language is… there’s no adjective I could use that you wouldn’t say “Well, yeah, it’s Shakespeare” but the language is particularly rich and evocative in this scene. I did an anagram of a quote from it a while back, but I’m surprised I still haven’t done the most timely quote of them all: “Be it thy course to busy giddy minds/ With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,/ May waste the memory of the former days.” It’s even got a “Q” in it. I’ll have to save that one for a rainy day.

is macbeth is worth readingMost definitely. I suggest gathering a group of friends together, dividing up the roles, and reading it out loud. Trust me on this one. That’s how to read Macbeth.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

why is shakespeare is one of the founding fatherswhat did the tudors bring back to England

was shakespeare a teacher?

slings and arrows on demand time warner

which president read macbeth before he die

how did shakespeare die on youtube

 

Via One Little Fish comes a very funny, very timely video:

More information about the project here. The video has received over 1 million hits, spreading awareness about an important issue, and making a powerful statement about activism in the information age.

My organization just held an event today that had 7th grade students giving persuasive PowerPoint presentations on current events issues ranging from gun control to the death penalty. I served as emcee, and had a lot of fun riling up the students about speaking out on issues and taking an active part in their democracy.

Perhaps for the next round we should consider using video. I’m already planning a project with students to create Public Service Announcements about environmental issues. Creating current events PSAs in social studies class seems like the logical next step. I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE: In the post, I said that the video has received over 1 million hits. Actually, the video topped 1 million views on its first day.

Well, it looks like Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) will keep his Senate seat after all:

Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss beat back a prolonged challenge from Democrat Jim Martin on Tuesday to win a second term in office after a bruising four-week runoff between the one-time University of Georgia fraternity brothers.

Chambliss’s double-digit victory dashed Democrats’ dreams of securing a filibuster-proof, 60-vote “super majority” in the Senate and buoyed a Republican Party battered by staggering losses in the Nov. 4 general election.

ElectoralVote.com (yep, still reading it) is a little more creative in their hope for Democratic hegemony:

The only way for the Democrats to get to 60 seats in the Senate now is for Franken to win and for Obama to appoint to his cabinet a Republican senator from a state with a Democratic governor, such as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). However, if Franken wins, the Democrats will have 59 seats, so every single Republican senator will be able to threaten Mitch McConnell with defecting on cloture votes unless McConnell does the senator’s bidding. If Coleman wins, McConnell will have a bit more breathing room. Nevertheless, cloture votes rarely go entirely along party lines and majority leader Harry Reid will be able to offer Republican senators various goodies to defect whereas McConnell has little to offer.

Still, with a 255-175 majority in the House, at least 58 Senators, and Obama in the White House, I think the Democrats will still have some sway over the direction the country takes over the next couple of years. If not, there’s always the so-called nuclear option, changing the rules of the Senate to prevent the filibuster. Republicans were throwing around the idea pretty freely when they were in charge. The difference is… we know how to pronounce it.

Barack Obama campaigned on some pretty progressive issues: health care as a right of citizenship, a measured withdrawal from Iraq, a tax increase for Americans making over $250,000/yr., fighting global warming, increased spending on education, and more. But he also campaigned on changing the tone and ushering in a new era of post-partisan cooperation.

It seems unlikely that he will be able to keep both promises. Republicans will resist the Obama agenda fiercely, but Obama will have the clout and the Congressional support to fight back if he chooses to. This week’s question asks whether or not he should, and I’m curious to know what you think.

Do you think Obama should strive for bipartisan compromise and national unity, or should he use all of the powers and support at his disposal to advance a progressive agenda regardless of the opposition?

Via Electoral-Vote.com, we find a website with pictures of some of the disputed ballots in the Minnesota Senate recount. You can also vote on whether each ballot should count, though it’s just for fun. If Franken wins the recount, the eyes of the nation will be on the December 2 runoff election in Georgia, to see if the Democrats will wind up with the 60 seats they need to block a Republican filibuster.

In the presidential election, Missouri has finally reached a decision. The state has been won by John McCain, bringing the final electoral college count (barring any faithless electors) to 365-173. And in Iowa County, Iowa, we find an exact tie between Obama and McCain, with 4,173 votes each.

You see? You should have voted.

We know who our next president is going to be, but political junkies are still keeping a close eye on the race for the Senate. If the Democrats can take 60 of the 100 seats, they will have a filibuster-proof majority. Right now, they have 57.

All signs point to Democrat Mark Begich defeating Republican Ted Stevens in Alaska, bringing the total to 58-40, with two seats still in play. Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin are competing in a runoff election for the Georgia seat, so we’re unlikely to have an answer there before December. In Minnesota, Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman are anxiously awaiting the results of a recount, which could also stretch out into December.

Stay tuned…

Is Obama president yet?

From Richard III:

Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill’d from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you depos’d, you quake like rebels?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Following an ugly primary, we see kooky freewheeling hubbub, mostly myth, about whether Obama may have just offered State to Hillary Clinton in Chicago on Thursday. To keep up the question, she is quoted:

“I’ll think about it.”

Via Electoral-Vote.com (which I’m still reading for some reason), we find another really cool map. This is an animated GIF showing the electoral results by county for every presidential election from 1960 – 2004. It’s called Purple America, and it was created by from Robert Vanderbei from Princeton University.

You can watch counties change from blue to red and back again. You can see where Ross Perot and George Wallace had the most support. Or you can squint your eyes and watch the entire country change its shade like a mood ring. Enjoy!