Holidays got you down? Prefer humbug to good cheer? Commercials and annual, inescapable in-store music causing indigestion? There’s a cure for that. Get down to The Soho Playhouse, where Blanket Fort Entertainment’s “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” is tearing up the stage. Written and performed by Burt Grinstead and Anna …
The Irish Repertory Theatre’s production of “Two by Friel,” a bill comprising two seemingly unrelated one-act plays by the great Irish playwright, Brian Friel, “Lovers: Winners,” and “The Yalta Game,” is a holiday gift come early. Beautifully directed by Conor Bagley on the W.Scott McLucas Studio Stage, “Two by Friel” …
“Worse than Tigers,” an inventive new play by Mark Chrisler, presented by The Mill Theatre and New Ohio Theatre, concluded its run in downtown Manhattan on September 8th. I am still thinking about the play, which is a good thing. It may be more than the sum of its parts. …
Everything today is everywhere precarious & the future bodes ill as we struggle on against all the odds to make it better following Camus’s l’homme revolté Sisyphean primal cry: “Art & revolt will die only with the last man.” Duty bound we stand our revolting fate. Mary …
“The Naturalists,” a play by Jaki McCarrick and presented by The Pond Theatre Company is having its world premier at Walkerspace in downtown Manhattan. It is directed by Colleen Clinton & Lily Dorment, both co-founders of the nascent Pond Theatre Company, to whom credit must be paid. With too few …
Tell Me How I Did There was a time in Manhattan circa 1970 when actors performed “in the many places actors do plays in New York: churches, coffeehouses, bars, basement lofts, little theaters upstairs, little theaters downstairs, ELT (Equity Theatre Library), off-Broadway, on Broadway, everywhere,” said Michael Shurtleff, the late, …
I can find no better way to illustrate the significance of the PTP/NYC’s 32nd Season than to offer this excerpt from Brecht’s poem “Again and Again”: The rain Can’t go back up When the wound No longer hurts The scar does. Indeed, again and again, history repeats itself because those …
Down at the New Ohio Theatre on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, there is an odd, interesting play by the talented Built for Collapse company called “Danger Signals,” ostensibly about time, anxiety and lobotomies. A collaborative theatrical event with text by Nina Segal, composition by Jen Goma, choreography by Ben …
Every summer, at Atlantic Stage 2 in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, the exceptional Potomac Theatre Project comes to town under the PTP/NYC umbrella. This year is especially good, and marks their 31st season, with two plays by British playwrights in rep: Howard Barker’s Pity in History and Tom Stoppard’s …
The newly and beautifully-renovated Irish Repertory Theatre in association with The Public Theater in New York City have brought in a doozy of a production from The Abbey Theatre in Ireland: “Quietly” by Owen McCafferty. About “The Troubles” and their aftermath but set in present-day Belfast, “Quietly” offers a day …
In British playwright Howard Barker’s “No End of Blame: Scenes of Overcoming” Bela (Alex Draper), a poet, begins his journey toward truth and freedom on the Hungarian battlefields at the end of WWI. By the time he is back in Budapest, at the Institute of Fine Art, Bela has renounced …
The always-challenging, provocative PTP/NYC (Potomac Theatre Project) is celebrating their 30th anniversary season by bringing back two plays in repertory: “No End of Blame: Scenes of Overcoming,” by British playwright Howard Barker, and “Good” by Glasgow-born playwright C.P. Taylor. “Good,” written in 1981, contains lines that would not sound out …
For me, the most exciting part of “I’m Bleeding All Over the Place: A Living History Tour” created and directed by Brooke O’ Harra at La Mama Experimental Theatre in Manhattan’s East Village, was that I stood next to downtown actress Kate Valk. If you have ever seen The Wooster …
New Ohio Theatre and Blessed Unrest ensemble are currently presenting “Body: Anatomies of Being” downtown in New York City’s West Village until May 21st. It is an extraordinary, affecting theatrical experience about bodies: nine of them, to be exact. They are all different sizes, shapes, ethnicities, genders and ages. When …
FOOTFALLS ENCORE +in honor of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Beckett 13 April 1906+ “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” (1st line of his 1st novel, Murphy, entered in 1st of Murphy manuscript notebooks 5/9/1935) when every shoe hurts no shoe fits like …
The most inventive, wondrous sets in Manhattan are being created by Concrete Temple Theatre at the HERE Arts Center in the Village. Water is integral to the production of “The Bellagio Fountain has been known to make me cry,” and Water takes two agile performers to bring into existence nightly: …
I admit that initially I was skeptical about going to review an adults-only, “baroque-burlesque-ballet Cinderella,” presented by Company XIV and AMDM productions down in the Village at the Minetta Lane Theatre. In my head, I thought “Porn Cinderella” and that is what I expected. Wrong. So wrong. This is some …
Lisa Lewis’s smart, funny “Schooled” begins with a charismatic, world-weary professor and film maker, Andrew (Quentin Mare, smooth, swaggering, terrific) past his prime addressing a class of students (in reality, us, the audience). “I’ve sat right where you are now. Back when real people could afford this place. No offense. …
“It takes a clever man to play the fool, Robber,” says 90 year-old Hugh Pugh (Peter Maloney) from the relative comfort of his bathtub to Rob (Rufus Collins), the man who wants to buy his land. Isn’t that the truth? It also takes an outstanding actor to make Hugh come …
The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts, is now in its 10th year (Year TENN Ptown Sept 24-27). Co-founder and curator David Kaplan has said, “What we are about ultimately is to change the way that Williams is spoken about and thought about in the world.” I had …
ACORNS & AUTUMN LEAVES “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” John Keats vibrant hued falling season bright with promise tinged with rue breezes rustle to a frosty fate but not too late to rack & rake memories fond, fearful & true into love’s last great bonfire until in winter’s arms …
As I strolled down 50th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, on a bright, warm mid-September day, I approached the crosswalk and there was a man standing in front of me, already waiting for the light to change. I knew this was Pat Shortt. I just knew it. He was the right …
“Celebrity Autobiography,” created by Eugene Pack and a Drama Desk winner for Unique Theatrical Experience in 2009, has been running on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City and touring across the United States ever since. The show is taking part in Origin’s 1st Irish Theater Festival, …
I am trying to figure out the words to describe Pat Shortt, a unique performer I was unfamiliar with until I stepped foot into the Irish Arts Center on West 51st Street in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan. One-man band comes to mind, but this would be doing him …
Astonishing. That is the word that fits Genevieve Hulme-Beamen’s one-woman show, “Pondling,” which she wrote and stars in, presented by Guna Nua and Ramblinman as part of Origin’s 1st Irish Festival, and performed on the smallest of three stages in the 59E59 Theater complex in Manhattan. Hulme-Beamen’s Madeleine is an …
September in New York City ushers in a new theatrical season, and what better way to begin than with the annual Origin’s 1st Irish 2015? Now in its eighth year, this festival of Irish Theater, running from September 2-October 4, welcomes companies from Dublin, Limerick, Belfast and across NYC. Performed …
2015 is the 29th season for the PTP (Potomac Theater Project), and their 9th year in New York City. They are an exciting, adventurous company to watch for in future, currently running in rep Howard Barker’s play “Scenes from an Execution” (also reviewed in ONE Magazine) and an evening …
Bigger is not always better. Witness the current incarnation of “The Weir,” revived by The Irish Rep at their smaller, temporary location on E. 15th Street, off Union Square while their home theater on West 22nd Street undergoes renovations. I confess this is my fourth time seeing “The Weir”: once …
The great Jan Maxwell has said she is retiring from the theater, and if so, she has she chosen to revive a brilliant role in a brilliant play to go out on: Galactia in “Scenes From an Execution” by Howard Barker, presented by PTP/NYC at The Atlantic Stage 2 in …
For the Last Time. There is a sublime jazz band center stage of the musical “For the Last Time,” playing on Theater Row, 42nd Street in Manhattan. I would not say this is the only reason to see the seductive new jazz musical by veteran (“Wild Women Don’t Have the …
There’s some fine acting in quite a good play, “The Belle of Belfast” at the DR2 Theatre, New York’s Irish Rep’s temporary home off Union Square. “The Belle of Belfast,” by Nate Rufus Edelman, takes place in 1985 Belfast, at the height of “the Troubles.” At the center is Anne …
It is difficult to write a memory play, complete with ghosts and younger selves, without a shred of sentimentality. Yet that is exactly what Hugh Leonard achieved with his 1978 Drama Desk, New York Drama Critics’ Circle and Tony-award winning “Da,” presented in a beautiful revival by the Irish Repertory …
On 52nd Street in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, The Interart Theatre Development Series is presenting Blessed Unrest’s production of “Lying,” a stage adaptation by Matt Opatmy of Lauren Slater’s metaphorical memoir of the same title. Going in, I knew Blessed Unrest to be an exuberant, adventurous company. I also knew …
1 DESIRING “we can’t govern our affections” Washington Square-Henry James “hungry for the one thing everybody loses- young loving” Jazz-Toni Morrison Which is it, Aphrodite? What say you, John Keats? Beauty & Truth? Or Beauty & Youth? Just asking…. 2 COPING -for CAT- a toke at 10 for one a …
In 2008, I saw “Port Authority” by Conor McPherson at The Atlantic Theater Company (it was first staged in London in 2001). The extraordinary cast comprised John Gallagher Jr., Brian D’Arcy James, and Jim Norton (a McPherson stalwart). Once again, (having seen “The Weir,” “Shining City” and “The Seafarer,” all …
It is not often I see a flawless production of a brilliant play, one which transports me in time and space. One where I stop taking notes and just give in because I have no choice. “Indian Ink” by Tom Stoppard, finally getting its New York premier courtesy of the …
Two people faced with the exact same circumstances – debt, depression, divorce – could react in completely different ways. One muddles through, and the other commits suicide. As for the latter, who knows why? One of New York’s 7th annual Origin’s 1st Irish Festival Theatre offerings, “Man in the Moon” …
Gertrude – The Cry In the first scene of “Gertrude – The Cry” (a reworking of “Hamlet” focusing instead on the complex Queen Gertrude and her appetites) presented by the PTP/NYC Theater Project in their 28th season down at the Atlantic Stage II, Claudius poisons Polonius, Gertrude (Pamela J. …
EXIT 13 ENTER 14* “Exit, pursued by a bear.” “The Winter’s Tale” “what is the word” Beckett how shall we know it tragicomic calendar year of the sonnet
Let me tell you about the very fine, courageous acting going on in a play called “The Clearing” by Jake Jeppson at St. Clements Church on 46th Street in mid-town Manhattan. Spoiler alert: if you do not want to know the BIG EVENT of the play and other secrets, stop …
The terrific Irish actor Adrian Dunbar is appearing off-Broadway on Theatre Row 42nd Street, with a very fine cast that he also directed, in “Brendan at the Chelsea.” The play has come in from the Lyric Belfast, and is working alongside Origin’s 1st Irish Festival.
The usage of Buddy Holly’s music by playwright Bekah Brunstetter in Welthy Holliday Productions beautifully realized version of “Be A Good Little Widow” is ingenious. The music is lively, happy, yet the listener knows Holly was doomed to die in a plane crash. So too is Craig (Matt Bittner), who …
Manhattan in summertime is humid, sweaty and gross. Did I mention smelly? It’s that, too. To make yourself feel better, and smarter, you could take in one of the annual summer theater festivals: The NYC International Fringe, Under the Radar at The Public, or, you could avail yourself to the …
LAByrinth Theater is a company that has produced acclaimed productions and collaborations with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bob Glaudini (who are also the founders) as well as playwright Stephen Aldy Guirgis (“The Motherf**ker with the Hat). Since their move from The Public Theater across town to the new Bank Street location …
OCTOBER’S REALITY CHECK (autumn 2012: the post-fall fall) 1 topaz tree tops flash warning winter’s white expense some greens yearn for spring 2 flaming forward fast amidst lemon, crimson, rust topaz tree tops flash 3 jeweled mums abound albino pumpkins astound topaz tree tops last 4 autumn breezes blow topaz …
Congratulations to Elliot Murphy: Mayor Bertrand Delanoë is bestowing the Médaille de Vermeil of the city of Paris to an accomplished musician and writer. Mon 1 Oct 18:00 Salon Hotel de Ville Excellence is still key. -MLB http://www.paristribune.info/agenda/1er-octobre-Elliott-Murphy-decore-de-la-Medaille-de-Vermeil-de-la-Ville-de-Paris_ae202480.html
If you did not see the multi-award-winning ‘The Exonerated’ ten years ago, now is your chance. Culture Project, on 45 Bleecker Street in the Village, celebrates the 10th anniversary of the play in special association with The Innocence Project. Written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, directed by Bob Balaban, …
The editors, contributors and friends of ONE Magazine join the literary world in mourning one of the greatest writers and essayists of the 20th century. It’s going to be very quiet without Gore Vidal, 1925—2012. May he invigorate the next world as well as he did ours.
At the tail end of the fourth heat wave of this increasingly unbearable 2012 New York City summer, I was looking forward to a bit of relief at the 19th annual Ice Factory Festival down in the West Village. This is largely due to the talented Bekah Brunstetter’s new play, …
I went into the recent off-Broadway revival of Maltby and Shire’s musical “Closer Than Ever,” presented by The York Theatre Company at Saint Peter’s on the East Side of Manhattan, blind, as it were. I had little knowledge of their music, and did not see the 1989 original New York …
If you take seven bloodied murderers, four male and three female, and put them in a room together right after they have plotted and killed the town “devil” – a man who was a murderer and worse himself – one would think this set-up would yield interesting results, at the …
I am not an enormous fan of Neil Simon, and this opinion is largely based on the recent, unsuccessful revivals he has had on Broadway and off. However, after watching the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Lost in Yonkers,” in a beautifully rendered production presented by TACT (The Actors Company Theatre) on Theater …
From the Editor: In regards to the controversy surrounding MIKE DAISEY, I write to express my full support for THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS as a creative work. Theatres are not courtrooms, no matter how the monsterous public relations companies, recently hired by the parties involved, will now …
A Ballad of Reading in Gaol (Full version of Scottish Review of Books Essay.) By Martin Belk A young woman hangs back after my writing seminar at the new City of Glasgow College with a question: “What’s it like, ya’ know, in there?” For a second, I’m thrown, forgetting that …
A HAIKU DUO FOR 2012 Hard Times Encore ~a Café Loup haiku~ what a see-saw world these turbulent trying times no exit in sight • Good Times Ahead ~a New Year’s wish~ peace & love maybe but please first fair play for all then we’ll rock ’n’ roll —Mary Folliet
“You’re not missing anything,” is repeated like a mantra throughout the first act of Nina Raine’s brilliant and provocative “Tribes” by various members of Billy’s upper-middle class British family. Born deaf into an intellectually rambunctious, argumentative hearing clan, Billy (Russell Harvard), was raised reading lips and not taught sign language …
It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but when it comes to the great, early plays of Sam Shepard,
If “The Picture Box,” a new play by Cate Ryan presented by The Negro Ensemble Company (celebrating their 45th season) at the 42nd Street Beckett Theater, were instead a painting, it would be only in the colors black and white. What it needs are shades of gray.
How does society deal with a juvenile delinquent? An “abandoned boy?” In the case of “James X,” written and performed by the astonishing Gerard Mannix Flynn, at the age of eleven he was sentenced into Ireland’s industrial school system, run by congregations of nuns and brothers. On his way …
Midway through world premier of “Derby Day” by Samuel Brett Williams in the 42nd Street Clurman Theater, I wrote in my notebook, “The waitress will get the winning ticket.” And she did. The deserving waitress in question, Becky, played by the brilliant Beth Wittig, not only wins, she steals the …
There has been much press about Mike Daisey’s one-man show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” down at The Public Theater on Lafayette Street in the Village. Much of it is good (a rave in The NY Times, and a three-week extension); bad (a rather poisonous, anonymous blurb …
GAMING LIFE “the black idea of winning” –Bertolt Brecht there is no contest no opponent no side to take no stakes to risk no prize to win no victory to hope only moments to kill & longing to live Mary Folliet NYC 2011
Family Visits by Alexander Morrissey I am just back from visits. My son and partner were up today and it was good. I had been looking forward to it for two weeks. We were talking about what changes both of us have made since becoming parents. My partner seems to …
Less than halfway through “Kaddish” (or “The Key in the Window”), a version of Allen Ginsburg’s poem at The New York Theater Workshop in the East Village, I had to put my pen down, so mesmerized was I by Donnie Mather’s extraordinary performance. That “Kaddish,” which was not only performed …
LINING UP FOR FALL fall lineups galore fashion, fiction, Broadway, art fall back time hour saved back to school, work, home routines rousing us to our fixed fate —Mary Folliet, NYC Autumn 2011
And So We Begin By Bash Wallace Today was a gainful day. I left my cell and walked the enclosed pathway to my creative writing class. This pathway, referred to as the route, is six feet wide however us, the prisoners, are restricted to two feet of this, making out …
“Tape,” by Stephen Belber is playing at the June Havoc Theatre on 36th Street in mid-town Manhattan. “Tape” is a pitch-perfect study of the perpetual adolescence of the American male. I am not sure if there is a European male equivalent or even one a European will understand, other than …
When the last world war ended in 1945, Europe was gutted, short of all the means of maintaining a normal existence, except that, pre-war, the lower classes had rarely shared normality as the middle-classes knew it. Suddenly there was an equality of diet, dull but not unhealthy, a shortage of …
We are living through an age without shame, when corruption is endemic throughout society from the highest elected officials down through the guardians of our laws to those who want a little more of the desirable possessions of life, whether they have much or little. The Murdoch scandal has exposed …
Modern communication technology is effecting events that is involving the forgotten segment of society internationally in a way that no-one foresaw. And that segment is the youth of today, not only the teenagers and early twenty year-olds, but also those younger ones who have to share all the miseries of …
At the Atlantic II, in New York”s Chelsea, three plays ran in rep this summer, produced by the 25 year-old company PTP (Potomac Theatre Project, from Middlebury College, Vt.)/NYC. Three playwrights: Steven Dykes, Neil Bell, both Americans, and Howard Barker, English. Running in rep, while usual for many theatre companies …
The unfolding of the Murdoch saga brings surprise after surprise, and the whole evil empire shows signs of eventual collapse. How can a press mogul wield so much power that a supposedly democratic country like Great Britain, run by a three hundred year-old party system, can come to believe, at …
Historians will have such a wealth of material to deal with then they come to writing up the first decades of the twenty-first century, that may well drown under it. Around the world there is deepening depression unbelievably incompetent government and administration of industry. This of, natural resources (all dwindling …
There is much current discussion about the reform of the House Of Lords and whether it should be elected or not. It should be elected, but not by the general public that periodically elects one set of mediocrities after another, including some corrupt enough to claim large fictional expenses to …
My first encounter with a member of the ‘Pack’ known as ‘Scat’ was on the street, last Thursday, when I noticed a thin young man walking ahead of me wearing an outfit similar to a bumble bee: bright yellow and black. On the back of his jacket was the company …
The Sky is falling! No, It’s just the I.Q. of television content.
The Future of Property Among most tribal societies private property does not exist, other than a few utensils and weapons. Everything belongs to the tribe or the group or the society to which the group belong. With the growth of civilisation and national identity much private property developed, with wars …
History…Today…And Human Destiny How much can one say in a few words? There are certain historical dates: 1914, 1917, 1939, 1945, 1989—and 2011 looks as if it will be another one—that has been fixed in historical memory. Recorded history, other than the mythical texts that try to explain the reason …
The last century could hardly have been more eventful, although we have become too accustomed to some of its better moments. 1911 was a high point for Edwardinian optimism, the hey-day of expressionism in painting and the European arts, especially music. Der Rosenkavallier, perhaps the most popular opera of the …
Dickens was referring to the depth of the French Revolution, but the words are very apposite to 2011, not only in Britain, but nearly everywhere. This will be a year of revolution in many places, to chaotic trouble in most other places and to decline, suffering and misery almost everywhere …
The President of the United States gave a major news conference yesterday. The same President who controls the fate of US and British forces in Afghanistan, as well as a large part of the world economy. The number of viewers online was just over 450. The US spin-machines of infotainment …
The Grumpy Chef: Cook Like a Kid! Mason Douglas Good god…being a chef can be boring at times… It’s not the hours or the getting changed 8 times a day or even the laborious meetings with officious officials from the FSA. (Damn killjoys banned unpasteurised foodstuffs and are proceeding to …
I love cities. Being in a place where my surroundings constantly buzz and I have little to no idea of what could happen next. So far, this drive took me from a small village in Scotland to its biggest city, Glasgow. And then to study in the city that they …
ONE 10 prison states of mind contributions from Polmont Young Offender’s Institution Writers
At the upscale New York City restaurant where I work as a waiter, the Rail consists of six tables with roomy armchairs across from six booths lined up along a wall of windows facing a side street near Central Park. New York Notes: Sirloin Senator — Watching Tables & Keeping …
Learn how to write a screenplay for the low price of only $299.99! — or at least that’s what the Hollywood establishment would like you to believe. As an aspiring screenwriter, my email overflows every single day with offers and claims from various ‘pros’ pitching their latest book or workshop: …
In the summer of 1978, a telephone call from Rosalie Gomes, an editor at the English-language Paris newspaper, Paris Metro, was to lead to an out of the blue bizarre correspondence with a young woman. The newspaper had received a letter from an American woman who was an inmate in …
It was utter coincidence that while the immigration debate began raging anew in the US media and tighter restrictions along the US-Mexican border were being called for, I visited Mexico in June for the first time. Mexico Notes –Geraldine Sweeney
Edinburgh Notes: Reflections on Gaza Flotilla Day, 31 May 2010 –Charlie Graham Remember the Boxes for Bosnia? When you were at school, or sending your kids to school during the recent times of war in the former Yugoslavia? You’d send the young ones off with a box and you’d think …
Peace in La Paz During the week I recently spent in El Salvador, the only time I felt truly clean was the day we went to the beach at La Paz (Spanish for peace). The poverty and violence of the city ebbed away as we watched a small fishing boat …
In 1811, by municipal decree, Manhattan Island, between 14th and 155th Streets, was cordoned off into a carefully plotted rectilinear street grid — avenues run north and south, streets east and west. The first New World city to adopt such a plan, New York was ripe for commercial expansion north …
On the eve of my public conversation with the Premier of New South Wales, Kristina Keneally, as part of a Sydney Writers Festival event on the topic of Forgiveness, I felt nervous but prepared. It would be my first time moderating panels at the Festival, now the third-largest in the …
The Sense of an Ending –MSP Christopher Harvie I. I have been grateful over the past few years for the hospitality of the Guardian’s ‘CommentisFree’, until its self-editing system was changed and new-style gatekeepers made it clear that freedom stopped around Watford Gap: not just my contributions but anything from …
This is Mine: ‘ME-2’ (moi aussi) –Martin Belk Glasgow, May 2010 I get frustrated, searching for ways to outwit, outsmart, outfox the ubiquitous ad campaigns for booze, drugs, soulless Pop music, computer games and mobile phones that too often possess the minds of the new ‘ME-2’ generation.
Four-Year Stretch: Reflections of a 21st Century Graduate –Peter Simpson You may ask yourself, ‘How do I work this?’… You may ask yourself, ‘Where does that highway lead to?’… And you may ask yourself ‘My God, what have I done?’ —Talking Heads, 1981
On May 17, 2010, the justices of the US Supreme Court, in a miraculous decision, barred life terms for young offenders who haven’t committed murder. Miraculous because the current court leans decidedly to the right, and also because we in the US are very good at locking up and throwing …
Bebelplatz We huddle, peer through the pane of glass at our feet pebbled with raindrops as a large man crouches down with a folded tissue, gently wipes them away revealing more to us than bare shelves and missing books.
1. Where are you from? 2. Where are you now? 3. By way of? 4. Would you do it all again? 5. Describe your last memory of leaving what you consider ‘home’ or where you’re from. 6. What’s your profession? disclaimer: We wanted a quick survey not …
Someone in the West Coast of Scotland is reading the wrong web sites. As if a visit by the Pope might not be divisive enough, somebody, with the best of intentions, has invited none other than Ex-New York City Mayor Rudolf Giuliani to address the Scottish Council for Development and …
At last a little truth and reality is beginning to emerge from a long period where politicans have treated those who elect them as fools to be gulled with lies and impossible promises, while always careful to feather their own nests. For decades they have become increasingly ignorant and philistine, …
