Rams Clip Porky's Wings

I learned a new word today. 

The word is adynata, the plural of adynation, From the sound of it you can probably guess it comes from the Greek language. It's not a common word in English, even my spell check doesn't recognize it.

But it's a very useful word as it means a figure of speech used to describe a highly unlikely or impossible occurrence.

Perhaps a more common English term for adynata would be "idioms of improbability".

Here are some good examples:

When hell freezes over.

The Twelfth of Never.

When pigs fly.

As I'm on a bit of a Shakespeare kick right now, here's a good one from the Bard:

Will all Neptune's great ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?

From Macbeth, referring to the character's inability to escape his guilt represented by the literal blood on his hands.

Last September I learned a contemporary term that in some circumstances could be related to adynata. Here's what I wrote about the term "hot take":

A hot take is a statement, opinion or prediction that is edgy, outrageous or simply uninformed. A good example of a hot take would be a sports commentator confidently predicting that this year's Chicago Bears are headed for the Super Bowl.

Now in my defense, that post was published on September 14, the day the Bears were crushed by their division rivals the Detroit Lions, 52-21. The week before in the first game of the regular season, they lost to another division rival the Minnesota Vikings 27-24.

Personnel wise, with some key exceptions, the team was essentially the same as it was the year before when they finished the season with a record of 5-12.

The Bears also hired a new head coach, Ben Johnson, previously the offensive coordinator of the Lions, who promised to bring a new winning culture to the Bears. But after the shellacking by his former team, the new culture at 0-2 bore a remarkable resemblance to the old one.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

A week later, after the Bears solidly beat the Dallas Cowboys, I still thought the idea of the Bears making it to the Super Bowl this season was preposterous and had no intention of re-writing that line. Same for the following week when they beat the Raiders, in that case sneaking by a weak team by just one point. 

The following game would be their first real test I thought, the Washington Commanders who last season beat the Bears on a game ending come-from-behind "Hail Mary" pass by their quarterback Jayden Daniels.

This season it was the Bears who had the game ending come-from-behind score, although not nearly as dramatic, a 38-yard field goal by their replacement kicker.

For the first time this season it dawned on me that this was a game the Bears would have easily lost last  year, or the year before, or the year before that, or in fact the past several years. I would have that same feeling many times this season. After that win in DC, the Bears would remain above .500 (having won more games than they lost), for the rest of the season.

I think that for any Bears fan at the start of this year, the idea of the team finishing over .500, even by just one game would be considered a step in the right direction.

The fans looking for more than that started to make a little noise, but their team still hadn't beaten anybody with a winning record up to that point. Two weeks later they lost to the 1-5 Baltimore Ravens by two touchdowns. That loss brought everyone back down to earth.

Then the Bears started to make a little noise of their own, winning the next five games including the Black Friday game, beating the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles in Philadelphia.

It was at that point I remembered my cynical comment about the Bears' chances this year and resolved to write a post to address that statement. But a friend told me not to as it might jinx the team. As I'm very superstitious when it comes to sports, I heeded his advice and am glad I did.

You're welcome, Bears fans.

The following week the Bears lost to their most bitter rival, the Green Bay Packers. It's always tough to lose to that team. I know, we've done a lot of that in the past oh 30 years or so. But this time, like they famously had done so often this year, the Bears came back from what seemed to be an insurmountable deficit and had it not been for a drive killing Packer interception in the end zone, Chicago could have walked away winners of that game.

In previous years, the Bears would not have come close to being in that situation.

There's another adynation that came to my attention this year. It goes something like this:

Chicago will have a Pope before they have a 4,000 yard passer.

We came so close to getting both this season.

We all know about the Pope who is presumably a Bears fan. The second part of that statement has to do with the fact that the Bears have never been known for their great quarterbacks. Well at least not in my lifetime.  

The last bona-fide superstar Bears Hall of Fame quarterback was Sid Luckman who retired in 1950. What so many pundits love to point out is that between 1992 and 2022, the Packers had two starting quarterbacks, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, one in the Hall of Fame, the other still employed as a player as of this writing and certainly destined for it. In that same thirty-year period, the Bears had 216 starting quarterbacks. 

OK that may be a slight exaggeration. 

This year marked the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Bears winning Super Bowl XX. That was definitely a team for the ages, despite the fact that they only won the NFL Championship once. 

I haven't heard anyone compare this Bears team to that one. 

But in my humble opinion, there are two pieces of this team that stand head and shoulders above their counterparts from forty years ago. First there's the aforementioned head coach Ben Johnson who has proven his mettle in his first year by turning a 5-12 team into a division champion. Mike Ditka certainly deserves a lot of credit for leading the 1985 Bears to the Super Bowl Championship but the reality is that team was dominated by its defense, which was led by Coach Buddy Ryan.

The other part of the 2025 Bears I'd take over the 1985 model is their quarterback Caleb Williams. This isn't to diminish Jim McMahon "the punky QB" and clown prince of the game, who had a phenomenal season in 1985. He may have had a phenomenal '86 season as well had he not been molested by Green Bay Defensive End Charles Martin in the cheapest shot I've ever seen in a football game.

This is only Caleb Williams' sophomore season in the NFL but he is fast becoming noticed as being among the best quarterbacks in the game, largely for his knack of turning the impossible into the possible, in many cases the probable, and in some cases the inevitable.

It has been pointed out ad infinitum that this year's Bears won seven games (six regular season and one post season), while trailing late in the fourth quarter. What is usually not mentioned is that in at least four of their losses, they also mounted a late game comeback including that game in Green Bay, where they came up just short. If  they had done that in two or three games, it could be considered luck or circumstance. But eleven games, no.

And much of the credit for that has to go to Caleb Williams. He's called "The Iceman", not because he belongs to the president's goon squad of rogue storm troopers who create mayhem in our cities, killing people who get in their way, but because of the ice water that seems to run through his veins during high pressure moments when the game is on the line. 

Much like a baseball closing pitcher, he seems to thrive on that extra pressure. Check out this Caleb Williams highlight reel from just the month of December.  If you're not interested in watching nearly 20 minutes of poetry in motion on a football filed, go directly to the 10:03 point in the video to view what in my opinion is one of the greatest sequences of plays in Chicago Bears history, at least up to that moment. 

It came during the second meeting of the Bears and the Packers this season at Soldier Field in Chicago. The winner of that game would end up division champion. 

This is what you don't see in the video: Having trailed all game and down by ten points with 1:59 left in the fourth quarter, Bear's kicker Cairo Santos kicked a 43 yard field goal to cut the lead to a touchdown. The next play was an onside kick, a short kickoff where the kicking team tries desperately to recover the ball. On side kicks almost never work. But indicative of the way things had been going for the Bears this year, they recovered the ball. 

Now to the video. The final play of the drive found the Bears with 26 seconds left in regulation time and fourth and four on the Packer six yard line, meaning the Bears had to get the ball at least to the two-yard line on that play or the game would be over. 

Did the Bears convert that fourth down? Of course they did, on a brilliantly designed play (with the help of some Packer miscues) leaving the receiver, Jahdae Walker so open in the end zone for the touchdown, I probably could have hit him.

Game tied.

The next play in the video could very well have been the greatest single play in Bears history.

Up to that moment.

It needs no explanation, just watch the video. And listen to Tom Brady, no slouch of a quarterback himself, lose his mind over the throw by Williams and catch by D.J. Moore to win that game in overtime and the NFC North Championship.

It turned out the Bears would win only one more game in this magical season, but what a game it was, the first game of the playoffs against who else, the Green Bay Packers. 

This time the Bears were down 21-3 at the beginning of the second half, meaning Caleb Williams time. If you understand football, you know that trailing by three scores, the offense led by the quarterback can't do it all on their own, they need the defense to stop the other team from scoring, something the Bears defense hadn't done all first half. At halftime I walked into the kitchen where the radio was still on and the pundits and fans were aghast, blasting the Bears' "D" saying the first thing the team needs to do in the offseason (which they assumed would start at the end of the game) is trade Montez Sweat and the rest of the Bears' high priced defensive players because they weren't doing anything. 

Well they did something in the second half. The Packers got the ball to start the third quarter and Mr. Sweat and Company forced Green Bay to punt on their next four possessions, two of which were three-and-outs. 

Nevertheless, the Bears were still trailing 21-6 at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Caleb Williams must not have gotten the call, let's try again, Caleb you there? Good. 

In the fourth quarter it was the Bears' turn to be unstoppable; in their four possessions of the quarter, they put up a field goal and three touchdowns. 

But after their final touchdown, ahead for the first time in the game, there was still over a minute left on the clock, plenty of time for the Pack to march down the field and score their second touchdown of the quarter for the win. The defense would have to step up one more time. 

As I said, this was not the 1985-86 Chicago Bears defense which took no prisoners. If you watch highlight reels from that year, at least half of the plays you'll see feature the defense either sacking the quarterback, forcing fumbles, or making interceptions, many of those plays resulting in a Bears touchdown. Of the sixteen regular season games that year, the Bears defense allowed ten or fewer points in eleven of them, and two of those were shutouts. Even more impressive, in the post season the Bears shut out both of their opponents in the two games leading up to the Super Bowl, where they only gave up ten points. 

By comparison, the 2025 Bears held only one team, the lowly Cleveland Browns to under ten points. 

Bend but not break has been the mantra of the Bears defense for quite some time now. That means they may give up a lot of yards and even field goals, but not a lot of touchdowns, the first half of this game being the exception. The bottom line is the Bears' D this year played well enough to keep the team in the game in all but one, maybe two games this year, which is very respectable. 

So it wasn't unexpected that with over a minute on the clock, Packer QB Jordan Love would lead his team down the field to be in a position to score the winning touchdown. With seven seconds on the clock from the Bears 32 yard line, Love would have his chance. Unfortunately for him he dropped the snap but as the Bears were only playing three men on the line, he had what seemed to be an eternity to find a receiver in the end zone He found one, but he turned out to be wearing the wrong uniform.

Like most of the year, the Bears' Defense wasn't overpowering, but it got the job done.  

The next game was the biggest test of all, playing hands down the best team the Bears faced all season, the LA Rams. Winning that regular season game against the Packers meant that the Bears would have home field advantage in that game. All the better, the temperature was predicted to be just barely in the double digits. 

Bear weather. 

Which warmed the hearts of old Bears fans like me who remember 1986 NFC Championship game like it was yesterday. Same opponent, same stadium, same weather.

Would history repeat itself?

Well not exactly as this Bear team wouldn't think of blowing out their opponents 24-0. That would be much too boring.

Again, trailing, seven points behind, do or die, fourth and long, 27 seconds to go in the fourth quarter, then this happens. 

The single greatest play in Bears history. 

Up until now.

That play tied the game, forcing overtime. All that was left was get into field goal position, kick the field goal, then on to Seattle. The Rams even obliged, not scoring on their first drive of overtime meaning any score wins the game.

It was inevitable, the Bears have been there and done that all year in the games that really mattered.

But not this time.

Caleb Williams did something he doesn't do very often, he threw an interception.

Some blame it on D.J. Moore who didn't run his route correctly. Some say he was dogging it. Others point out that he did spend some time in the blue tent earlier in the game being evaluated for a concussion.

Maybe he shouldn't have been playing.

Or maybe the coach shouldn't have left all those points on the field by "going for it" unsuccessfully on fourth downs when they could have kicked easily makeable field goals.

Or maybe the defense's aggressive blitzing after the turnover left too many receivers open for their quarterback Matthew Stafford to find.

Or maybe the football gods were displeased that the refs didn't call pass interference on Cole Kmet for pushing off the defender before he caught that unbelievable pass to tie the game.

It really doesn't matter, we all knew it had to end sometime.

One thing is certain. The Bears would never have gotten where they did without Caleb, DJ, Coach Johnson, the Defense, and all the other pieces of the team I didn't have space to mention.

Caleb Williams - AP Photo by Jeff Robertson

In this most wonderful, unlikely of football seasons that brought this city together like hardly anything else could, pigs almost flew. 

Thank you Bears.

The Winter of Our Discontent

Posthumous portrait of Richard III
Unknown artist - oil on panel, late 16th century
National Portrait Gallery, London

We watched a wonderful film on the evening of New Years Day. It's called The Lost King and it is based on the true story of Philippa Langly, the British historian, writer, and producer who is most famous for her role as the person who inspired and led the successful search for the remains of King Richard III of England in 2012.

While the search for the dead king is central to the story, much of the plot revolves around the people Langly needed to execute the project, namely the historians, scientists and bureaucrats at the University of Leicester, and their dismissive attitude toward her as they believed she lacked the formal credentials to lead such an unlikely and ambitious project. In other words, she was an amateur. 

The real joy in the movie is the passion and dedication Philippa Langly devotes to the task at hand.

Langley's journey in the film begins with her attending a production of Shakespeare's Richard III. From the word go, the Bard casts Richard as a grotesque villain, whose evil deeds are his retribution for his severe physical limitations, especially when it came to the ladies. The play opens with one of Shakespeare's most famous lines which inspired the title of this post. 

In the soliloquy that follows, Richard announces to us:

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determinèd to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Philippa, at the close of the play rejects Shakespeare's depiction of the king as a monstrous hunchback, child-murdering usurper of the crown. We're given a taste of her struggle to come as that opinion is strongly refuted by a fellow parent who basically tells her "Hey, who are you to question Shakespeare?" 

As portrayed in the film, this experience inspires Philippa to go full steam ahead into researching the king's story, clear his name to anyone willing to listen, and ultimately lead the search to discover his earthly remains. Essential to all this is hooking up with the local chapter of the Richard III Society, a worldwide organization dedicated in their words: 

to promote, in every possible way, research into the life and times of Richard III, and to secure a reassessment of the material relating to this period, and raise awareness of the role in history of this monarch.

I won't go into further detail to describe the film other than to say it's a great tale of the triumph of the human spirit featuring a magnificent performance by Sally Hawkins as Philippa. Needless to say, I highly recommend it.

Beyond that, what draws me to the film and what inspired this post is a subject that has interested me for quite some time. That is, our viewing of history as a closed book.

I've written about that subject numerous times, you can find examples:

Here,

Here,

Here,

Here,

Here ,

and perhaps most relevant to the story at hand, dealing with history unjustly tarnishing the legacy of an individual, Here and Here.

The story of King Richard III challenges the idea of history being one and done, as it is indeed the poster child for the old adage that history is written by the victors.

Richard's story came to be that way on August 22, 1485 on Bosworth Field in central England, where he led an army of up to 12,000 men in a losing battle against the forces led by Henry Tudor. 

The Battle of Bosworth Field and the defeat of Richard, brought to an end to the thirty year civil war, later dubbed The Wars of the Roses, which pitted the House of York, of which Richard was a member, and the House of Lancaster, with both sides claiming they were true heirs to the crown.  

Richard's defeat also marked the end of the Plantagenet Dynasty, and the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty as Henry was coronated King of England on Bosworth Field shortly after the battle, becoming King Henry VII.

Richard who by all accounts fought gallantly, made a daring but in the end fatal charge at Henry, when the forces of Lord Stanley, who up to that point remained neutral in the battle, surrounded Richard and killed him. His body, desecrated, stripped naked, and strewn atop of a horse, was taken to the city of Leicester where still naked, it was put on display for all to see as proof of his demise. Two days later, the body was put in a simple wooden coffin and buried in the choir of the church of the Franciscan Friary known as Greyfriars in an unmarked grave. 

In 1538, during the Protestant Reformation, the friary was dissolved, the church demolished, and along with it, all traces of Richard's remains. There was a legend, debunked only after his remains were unearthed under a Leicester parking lot, that at some point, Richard's bones were unceremoniously thrown into the River Soar nearby.

After his death, control of Richard's history was ceded to the Tudors, who not surprisingly had little reason to say anything good about the king they killed.

The lion's share of Richard's story that was passed on to our day through Shakespeare's play, comes to us courtesy of Sir Thomas More, the author, lawyer, judge, statesman, philosopher, theologian and ultimately British Lord Chancellor under the most famous Tudor of them all, King Henry VIII.

More's work The History of King Richard III was originally published in 1513.

He introduces us to Richard by describing in detail the king's physical deformities:

Little of stature, ill featured of limbs, crooked-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favored in appearance, and such as is in the case of lords called warlike, in other men called otherwise. 

Richard the third son, of whom we now entreat, was in wit and courage equal
with either of them, in body and prowess far under them both, little of stature, ill
featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left should much higher than his right, hard
favoured of visage, and such as is in states called warly, in other men otherwise, he
was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth, ever froward. It is for truth
reported, that the Duchess his mother had so much ado in her travail, that she could
not be delivered of him uncut: and that he came into the world with the feet forward,
as men be born outward, and (as the fame runneth) also not untoothed, whither men of
hatred report above the truth, or else that nature changed her course in his beginning,
which in the course of his life many things unnaturally committed. None evil captain
was he in the war, as to which his disposition was more meetly than for peace. Sundry
victories had he, and sometime overthrows, but never in default as for his own person,
either of hardiness or politic order, free was he called of dispense, and somewhat
above his power liberal, with large gifts he got him unsteadfast friendship, for which
he was fain to pill and spoil in other places, and get him steadfast hatred. He was close
and secret, a deep dissimuler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly
companionable where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill:
dispitous and cruel, not for evil will always, but after for ambition, and either for the
surety or increase of his estate. Friend and foe was much what indifferent, where his
advantage grew, he spared no man death, whose life withstood his purpose. He slew
with his own hands King Henry the sixth, being prisoner in the Tower, as men
constantly say, and that without commandment or knowledge of the King, which
would undoubtedly if he had intended that thing, have appointed that butcherly office,
to some other than his own born brother.
Some wise men also ween, that his drift covertly conveyed, lacked not in
helping forth his brother of Clarence to his death: which he resisted openly, howbeit
somewhat (as men deemed) more faintly than he that were heartily minded to his
wealth. And they that thus deem, think that he long time in King Edward's life,
forethought to be King in case that that King his brother (whose life he looked that
evil diet should shorten) should happen to decease (as in deed he did) while his
children were young. And they deem, that for this intent he was glad of his brother's
death that Duke of Clarence, whose life must needs have hindered him so intending,
whither the same Duke of Clarence had he kept him true to his nephew the young
King, or enterprised to be King himself. But of all this Pointe, is there no certainty,
and whoso divineth upon conjectures, may as well shoot to far as to short. Howbeit
this have I by credible information learned, that the self night in which King Edward
died, one Mistlebrooke long ere morning, came in great haste to the house of one
Pottier dwelling in Redcross Street without Cripplegate: and when he was with hasty
rapping quickly let in, he showed unto Pottier that King Edward was departed. By my
truth man quod Pottier then will my master the Duke of Gloucester be King. What
cause he had so to think hard it is to say, whether he being toward him, any thing
knew that he such thing purposed, or otherwise had any inkling thereof: for he was
not likely to speak it of nought.
But now to return to the course of this history, were it that the Duke of
Gloucester had of old foreminded this conclusion, or was now at erst thereunto
moved, and put in hope by the occasion of the tender age of the young Princes, his

Richard the third son, of whom we now entreat, was in wit and courage equal
with either of them, in body and prowess far under them both, little of stature, ill
featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left should much higher than his right, hard
favoured of visage, and such as is in states called warly, in other men otherwise, he
was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth, ever froward. It is for truth
reported, that the Duchess his mother had so much ado in her travail, that she could
not be delivered of him uncut: and that he came into the world with the feet forward,
as men be born outward, and (as the fame runneth) also not untoothed, whither men of
hatred report above the truth, or else that nature changed her course in his beginning,
which in the course of his life many things unnaturally committed. None evil captain
was he in the war, as to which his disposition was more meetly than for peace. Sundry
victories had he, and sometime overthrows, but never in default as for his own person,
either of hardiness or politic order, free was he called of dispense, and somewhat
above his power liberal, with large gifts he got him unsteadfast friendship, for which
he was fain to pill and spoil in other places, and get him steadfast hatred. He was close
and secret, a deep dissimuler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly
companionable where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill:
dispitous and cruel, not for evil will always, but after for ambition, and either for the
surety or increase of his estate. Friend and foe was much what indifferent, where his
advantage grew, he spared no man death, whose life withstood his purpose. He slew
with his own hands King Henry the sixth, being prisoner in the Tower, as men
constantly say, and that without commandment or knowledge of the King, which
would undoubtedly if he had intended that thing, have appointed that butcherly office,
to some other than his own born brother.
Some wise men also ween, that his drift covertly conveyed, lacked not in
helping forth his brother of Clarence to his death: which he resisted openly, howbeit
somewhat (as men deemed) more faintly than he that were heartily minded to his
wealth. And they that thus deem, think that he long time in King Edward's life,
forethought to be King in case that that King his brother (whose life he looked that
evil diet should shorten) should happen to decease (as in deed he did) while his
children were young. And they deem, that for this intent he was glad of his brother's
death that Duke of Clarence, whose life must needs have hindered him so intending,
whither the same Duke of Clarence had he kept him true to his nephew the young
King, or enterprised to be King himself. But of all this Pointe, is there no certainty,
and whoso divineth upon conjectures, may as well shoot to far as to short. Howbeit
this have I by credible information learned, that the self night in which King Edward
died, one Mistlebrooke long ere morning, came in great haste to the house of one
Pottier dwelling in Redcross Street without Cripplegate: and when he was with hasty
rapping quickly let in, he showed unto Pottier that King Edward was departed. By my
truth man quod Pottier then will my master the Duke of Gloucester be King. What
cause he had so to think hard it is to say, whether he being toward him, any thing
knew that he such thing purposed, or otherwise had any inkling thereof: for he was
not likely to speak it of nought.
But now to return to the course of this history, were it that the Duke of
Gloucester had of old foreminded this conclusion, or was now at erst thereunto
moved, and put in hope by the occasion of the tender age of the young Princes, hi

More continues by describing Richard's character:

He was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from before his birth, ever perverse. 

He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly friendly where he inwardly hated, not omitting to kiss whom he thought to kill, pitiless and cruel, not for evil will always, but for ambition, and either for the surety or increase of his estate. Friend and foe was much the same, where his advantage grew, he spared no man death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew with his own hands King Henry the Sixth, being prisoner in the Tower, as men constantly say, and that without commandment or knowledge of the King, who would undoubtably, if he had intended such a thing, have appointed that butchery office to some other than his own born brother.

Nice guy huh? 

But Sir Thomas tips his hand by adding "as men constantly say" after bringing up the death of King Henry VI, telling us that he is relying on hearsay to tell his story rather than substantial evidence. Feel free to draw your own conclusions, as historians have for the past 500 years. 

From my reading on the subject of the deposed King Henry VI, his death would almost certainly have been ordered by the man who had a motive to kill him, namely Richard's brother and deposer of Henry, King Edward IV. While Richard may have had a part in Henry's death, he did serve as Lord Constable under his brother, there is no clear evidence of it.

By far the most serious accusation against Richard III, is that after his brother the king's death, Richard had his nephews, the two sons of Edward IV and immediate heirs to the throne, killed, thereby paving his own way to the crown. 

Unlike the case of King Henry VI, Richard had an obvious (if horrendous) motive to kill the two boys, who were moved to the Tower of London in preparation for the formal coronation of the eldest son, twelve year old Edward V. Yet it is almost certain that the Bishop of York and Wells, Robert Stillington petitioned that the two boys' births be ruled illegitimate, (there is a strong likelihood for that charge), making both ineligible to become king. There is also good reason to believe that it was Parliament who petitioned Richard to accept the crown, as they formally accepted Stillington's petition. Since his new role as king was a fait accompli, there seems little reason for Richard to have the boys killed. There is also no hard evidence of the boys having been killed at all, they simply vanished, perhaps for their own protection. As they say, no body no crime. This is another issue historians have been debating for centuries, making the case of The Two Princes in the Tower one of the most enduring whodunit mysteries of all time.

There is another inconvenient matter that contradicts the notion that Richard III was a pure monster. He was actually quite a decent king by many accounts, at least as far as the commoners were concerned. This from the Richard III Society:

Richard III's commitment to justice was evident in his actions and policies throughout his reign. He was known for his impartial administration of the law, protecting the poor, elderly, dispossessed, and powerless, and ensuring that the strong did not oppress the weak. His good works included providing legal redress for the poor, sending his treasurer’s servant to be tried and punished for a fracas, and leading a successful invasion of Scotland while bringing to the field of conflict the principles of mercy and justice.

And this from Britannica:

Richard III's Parliament was noted for its acts that improved conditions for ordinary people, such as allowing bail for persons imprisoned on suspicion of felony and protecting their possessions until formally tried and found guilty. The standard of juries selected for sheriffs' courts was raised, ensuring that more well-to-do individuals were less open to bribery.

I've also read speculation that had he lived, Richard whose reign only lasted two years, would have continued bringing reforms to the country that would have given common people more control, much to the chagrin of the nobles. This might explain why the army of Sir Stanley turned on him at Bosworth Field. 

Finally, there's one bit of irrefutable evidence that was unearthed in that now famous car park in Leicester in 2012 that refutes Thomas's and Shakespeare's histories, Richard's body. It was discovered that he did have a significant curvature of the spine, resulting from Scoliosis. While the condition would have caused him pain and perhaps had a slightly noticeable effect on his posture, in no way would it have caused him to have a hunched back nor any noticeable limp. And measurements of his skeleton show that Richard stood at about 5'8", slightly taller than average for a 15th Century English male.

This is important. From our 21st Century sensibilities, the emphasis on Richard's extreme physical issues provides us with a motivation for Richard's depravity as well as evokes at least a modicum of sympathy for his character. But to 16th Century observers like Sir Thomas and Shakespeare, the focus on his physical features only emphasizes Richard's ignominy as sad to say at the time, physical handicaps were intrinsically tied to moral handicaps. 

Because Richard's physical impairments are central to both Sir Thomas and Shakespeare's stories, the fact that there was little or no outward sign of any physical issues during his life casts doubt upon the rest of their accounts.

So, what are we to make of all this? Was Richard as bad as legend has it, or was he a truly good guy whose reputation was destroyed by the Tudors who killed him?

Most of the opinions I've read place him somewhere in between, not Sir Thomas or Shakespeare's monster, nor the saint that the Richard III Society and Philippa Langley seem to suggest. He was after all a Medieval English monarch, a group not known above all for their benevolence. 

The next obvious question is so what? Why should we care about an English king who died over 500 years ago?

For me, first and foremost is justice. To understand that, we need to ask ourselves the following: "how would I feel if after I'm gone and unable to defend myself, I was judged harshly by history based upon falsehoods?" I think most of us would object to that.

A close second I believe is that understanding history is a very important tool to help us understand the world in which we live. By understanding history, I don't mean the ability to regurgitate facts and dates presented to us in high school history class, but an understanding about how those facts got to us in the first place, and how they fit into the larger picture. 

One thing we can thank the current US administration for, perhaps the only thing, is the lesson we learn from their example of how easy it is for those in a position of power to rewrite history, even deny events we can see with our own eyes, with impunity to suit their own purposes.

As we just saw, there's nothing new about that, we've seen it all before.

Finally, what are we to make of Sir Thomas and Shakespeare's works on Richard III, and others, that have dubious historical merit? Should we toss them into the proverbial trash heap of history, dismissing them (in contemporary jargon) as "fake news"?

That would be missing the point.

It must be remembered that in Sir Thomas More's and William Shakespeare's day, writing something that displeased the monarch was grounds for losing one's head, quite literally. I have a strong suspicion that both Shakespeare and Thomas were more interested in writing social commentary rather than historical records. Under the Tudor monarchs, the Henrys VII and VIII in Thomas's case, and Elizabeth I in Shakespeare's, the dead Plantagenet Richard was a politically safe subject on which to project the evils of raw ambition, vanity, lawlessness, and other ills these writers saw in their own times. 

I'm convinced that it was not by accident that the lawyer Sir Thomas More slipped in the line suggesting to us that what we are about to read is based not upon real evidence but rather hearsay, intentionally casting doubt about the specific events he presents, but not the general themes of the abuse of absolute power, corruption and treachery, to name just three.

It's also interesting that More's book was left unfinished at the time of its publication. Could it be that perhaps his depiction of royal tyranny was hitting a little too close to home?

Again, pure speculation on my part but something to think about.

The key to understanding history is critical thinking. It's a matter of being able to understand and accept that history doesn't come to us fully assembled, gift wrapped and placed under the tree on Christmas morning, but rather it comes in bits and pieces like furniture from IKEA with a few items missing and no set of instructions to put it all together. In other words, history is imperfect and messy.

In that sense these works of Sir Thomas and Shakespeare don't necessarily speak to a particular time and place, but to all time and to every place.

Even our own time and place 500 years hence you ask?

Perhaps we need them here and now more than ever. But that's a story for next time. Stay tuned.

Tidying Up

Long as my last post was, there were still ideas I wanted to present, as well as items related to it that came up after I hit the "publish" button.

You may be relived to know the ideas that didn't make the final edit have now slipped my mind, but not the things that came up out of the blue.

The first was a query to Quora, the random question and answer website. The question that caught my eye, was whether Hitler could speak English: 

Here's part of the answer, emphasis mine: 

German was the only language he was fluent in. In a very typical Hitler manner, he refused to study any other languages. His excuse? He believed he would only butcher the language and embarrass himself. Maybe this is true. Maybe he would have sounded absolutely ridiculous trying to pronounce the word “squirrel” and nobody would have taken him seriously ever again. 

If you recall, my last post was inspired by the question: "why does the squirrel inspire such funny names that are hard to pronounce in so many languages?"

Of course, there is absolutely nothing funny about Hitler which is why this response is so amusing. Adolph Hitler bringing up an animal so innocent and amusing as an Eichhörnchen, not to mention him attempting to say it in a foreign language, is so out of character for him, that the idea alone is hilarious. And the thought of him butchering the word squirrel causing him to never again be taken seriously, and by extension causing the downfall of the Third Reich, is something straight out of Monty Python.

There in one sentence is proof that I was on to something.

Hitler may never have brought up a squirrel in any language including his own in public, but he certainly talked an awful lot about vermin, many of whom are related to the squirrel. In my piece, I also wrote quite a bit about the squirrel's close cousin, the rat.

On the day I published the piece, during an unexpected trip to visit my sick mother, (she's better, thanks), I turned on the car radio in the middle of an episode of the NPR series This American Life. The particular episode, all one hour of it, was devoted to the rat. The segment I came in on was about a guy who during the Pandemic, became obsessed with keeping rats as pets, and at one point I believe had sixteen of them roaming about his apartment at the same time. In part of that segment, the narrator described in detail, scientific studies of rat behavior and it turns out, as the Ancient Chinese could have told you, that rats are very smart. 

I haven't gotten the chance to hear the entire episode but plan to do so tomorrow on my New Years Day holiday.

But you can beat me to it by clicking this link. 

Something else I alluded to in the post, but really didn't discuss in any depth, was the subject of Artificial Intelligence. If you read the piece, you probably noticed that much of what I wrote referenced queries I made of ChatGPT and other AI tools. In fact, the very premise of the piece, how our common names of animals reflect the roles they play in our lives, was inspired by ChatGPT's response to a my specific question about why the cute furry tree dwelling rodent inspires such funny names in so many languages, including English.

You can read the post to see verbatim the chat bot's response.

I can imagine many of you might be put off by my reliance on AI in putting together that post. 

Frankly, that was my intent. 

Unlike the subject of rats and especially the subject of squirrels, after all the horrific wars and the impact of the new world order caused by the extreme shift to the right on the pendulum of public opinion, Artificial Intelligence has been the news topic du jour globally. And much of the reporting is about how AI is going to change the world, mostly for the worse.

Earlier this year I wrote a piece in this space called CheatGPT? As the title suggests, the piece questioned how much of the use of AI constitutes cheating, especially in the academic setting. 

There is of course no question that having ChatGPT write a term paper is cheating, but as I argued, the person doing this is only cheating him or herself, as the purpose of education is learning something, or isn't it? 

AI, I insisted, is a tool which like all groundbreaking innovations from time immemorial, could be put to either good or bad use. Like a hammer for example that can be used to build homes, or it could be used to bash in someone's skull.

But this is a very simplistic viewpoint as historian/philosopher Yuval Noah Harari asserts:

The most important thing to know about AI, is that it is not a tool, like all previous human inventions; it is an agent. And agent in the sense it can make decisions independently of us. It can invent new ideas, it can learn and change by itself.

Also cited by critics are AI's effect on the environment, (as AI systems require tremendous amount of energy and with that, natural resources), and the automation of jobs. 

Beyond these existential threats to society and life as we know it are what AI has the potential to do and in fact is already doing to us, especially to our minds. One of the criticisms I hear all the time is that AI is leading to the ultimate destruction of critical thinking. 

Along those lines, here's an article in the Atlantic I came across the other day. It's called:  Aphoristic Intelligence Beats Artificial Intelligence with the subtitle: It’s not just okay for some things in life to be hard—it’s essential.

The article was s adapted from James Geary’s book, The World in a Phrase. : A Brief History of the Aphorism.

Aphorisms are little statements of wisdom that have been handed down through the generations, or could very well be if they are written or uttered today.

A good aphorism requires thought and reflection, rather than being advice that states the obvious. They're calls to action, not feel good assurances that encourage passivity. Here's the money quote from the article:

In some ways, aphorisms are perfectly suited to our era of short-form communication. They’re concise, catchy, easily consumable. But so much of our discourse, online and IRL, is anti-aphoristic—rage bait, trash talk, knee-jerk toxicity, gauzy affirmations, hashtag claptrap. And now comes that upstart other AI, artificial intelligence, promising to reduce our cognitive loads to zero by proffering frictionless friendships and sycophantic agreeability, and doing all of our creative thinking for us.

Aphorisms are different. They are the antithesis of the half-baked hot take and nothing like the machine-made flattery that’s now permeating so many informational environments. A platitude is a placebo for the mind; an aphorism is a wake-up call. Aphorisms provoke debate; they don’t promote dogma. Though they’re short, aphorisms spur considered reflection, not Pavlovian partisanship. At a time when polarization is so amped up, aphorisms can serve as psychological circuit breakers, interrupting our comfortable assumptions and prodding us to open our minds, unclench our fists, and think for ourselves.

Ah yes that upstart other, AI. Much of what is said about it is true and we should heed the warnings from Harari and so many others about the dangers and pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence. 

At the same time, maybe we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, that is, being so wrapped up in in our anti-AI dogma that we reject it outright. After all, where is the critical thinking in that?

In my book, the best way to prevent Artificial Intelligence from living up to all the dark predictions is this: treat it with critical thinking. That's what I tried to accomplish in my last post. 

Bringing it all full circle, the original, original inspiration of that last post is the German word for squirrel, Eichhörnchen. I already knew the word but it was recently brought to my attention this month in a little book called German Short Stories, written by Sven Sebastian. The book is intended for adult learners of the language and is according to its author, written in the B1, or early intermediate level, pretty much where I'm at. Originally, I thought this book was a little basic for my needs but eventually realized that it was perfect as I could understand virtually everything except for certain key phrases which were conveniently translated on the opposite page. 

The stories tend to be in the vein of children's stories as all of them feature animals and are told in a style similar to Aesop's fables. 

Nevertheless, it's a lovely book.

One of these stories naturally featured a squirrel and was titled Das vergessenes Eichhörnchen, (The Forgetful Squirrel) Aren't they all? Other stories include Die Marathon-Schnecke (The Marathon Snail), Der Wanderkaktus (The Wandering Cactus), and Die Stadt die Tiere, (The Animal City).

But hands down my favorite story in the book is called the Die poetische Brieftaube (The Poetic Mail Pigeon). The hero of this story is Paula, the pigeon of the title, who has a job working for a company that employs pigeons to deliver advertising flyers to people's homes. She hated the job but hey, a job's a job, even for a pigeon I guess.

One day Paula delivered one of her flyers to the home of a retired school teacher. When he got the ad for this or that, he looked at Paula with a sad face and said: "Oh little bird, you fly all over the city every day, couldn't you for once bring something that warms the heart?

Taking what he said to heart, the next day instead of heading to work to collect her leaflets, Paula flew to the public library. There she found a book of poetry. (This next part will be disturbing to all my librarian friends so continue reading at your own risk). She took the book off the shelf and ripped out some pages containing inspirational words to deliver to her clients. 

To the retired school teacher she delivered a page with this splendid aphorism:

"Wege entstehen dadurch, dass man sie geht."

"Paths are made by walking them."

Pretty good words to close out 2025 don't you think?

Happy New Year!