V, W

"The Defense Department distributes 100,000 free copies of ...Shakespeare's 'Henry V,'.... The books are ... handed out ... in the lobby of the Pentagon, on missile-carrying frigates, in Bosnia. Soldiers are thrilled, and write e-mail messages to reporters in praise of the program...."

"....The play's plotline, for instance, offers more commentary on our current situation than the Pentagon probably intended: A newly crowned king's claim to the throne is subject to grave constitutional question, since his father usurped it by murdering its previous holder. The king needs to win his people's trust; he also wants to make them forget his youth as a drunk and a bum. He does exactly that by skillfully and courageously prosecuting a war against France, just as his father told him to do: '''Be it thy course to busy giddy minds / With foreign quarrels.''' -- Judith Shulevitz

I hear this Shakespeare is the next Harold Pinter. Will no one speak out against his depraved, hateful, poisonous resentment?