Just last week the West Memphis Three were released, finally bringing an end to a well-known miscarriage of justice, nearly two decades too late.

In 1994 18 year old Damien Echols, 17 year old Jessie Misskelley and 16 year old Jason Baldwin were convicted of the murder of three eight year old boys who had been found murdered in the Robin Hood Hills area in West Memphis, Arkansas some months earlier. The case got a lot of publicity because of an HBO documentary about it, Paradise Lost, and a number of celebrities taking up the case of the dubiously convicted boys. The attention only served to highlight the shoddy investigative practices of the police and the practically nonexistent evidence connecting them with the murder.

The prosecution's case mostly relied on the testimony of one of the boys, Jessie Miskelley, who claimed that he had witnessed the murders, though he hadn't participated. But his confession had a number of problems. For one, he claimed the whole killing occurred at the creek bed where the bodies were eventually discovered, despite that physical evidence at the scene, indicated that the boys were probably killed, or at least assaulted, elsewhere and then taken to the scene where they were dumped (there was almost a complete lack of blood at the scene). Secondly, Miskelley also said the boys were tied with brown rope, despite that they were tied with their own shoelaces. Thirdly, Miskelley initially claimed that the boys were killed on the morning of May 5, 1993, when the killing occured, despite that the three victims were still alive at the time, and had to have been killed some time in the evening. Miskelley changed his confession several times before he finally latched on to a time late enough for it to be possible.

The only other evidence the prosecution had was a knife, which they found deposited in a lake near Baldwin's residence, and some fibers found on the suspects' clothes that were at least similar to fibers from the clothes of the victims. However, the knife couldn't be connected with the killing, nor could it be shown to have belonged to any of the boys. And the fibers were similar to a great many common products, and thus could have easily come from any number of sources.

The police struggled to find anyone who would claim that the three boys actually were well acquainted, finally turning up one witnesss, despite that Miskelley really only knew the other two boys through school and wasn't friends with them. Additionally, they found a witness that could put at least one of the boys near the scene of the crime near after the time of the murder. And, to the benefit of the prosecution, some children even stepped forward claiming that the boys had confessed to the killings afterwards. All of these testimonies were riddled with problems and strained credibility, but they were persuasive to a jury eager to convict the boys.

But most of the case relied on the fact that Echols was a devotee of neo-paganism, being interested in the Wicca, and the other boys were at least tangentially connected with such practices. The police had initially believed that the case appeared strongly to indicate satanic ritual killing. The charge that this was part of a Satanic ritual caught on in the religiously conservative West Memphis, especially since this was a time when the moral panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse was still hot concern in some corners of the country. The whole panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse eventually died down as investigators started to realize that probably all reported cases of it were due to urban legend and hearsay or "memories" falsely recovered under hypnosis. In other words, despite that the prosecution even brought in a witness at the trial who claimed to be an expert on Satanic Ritual Abuse, the whole thing was hogwash and the expert was worse than ignorant.

Nonetheless, despite an absence of evidence, the boys were convicted, probably mostly due to their perceived association with satanism (they weren't satanists, but the prosecution went to great lengths to demonstrate this, with evidence such as their tendency to wear black and listen to heavy metal) and neo-paganism.

The case seems similar to other cases of high-profile killings where pressure from the public has led police to follow highly dubious evidence in order to get a conviction, no matter the strength of the evidence, such as in the cases of William Heirens, The Boston Strangler and the Monster of Florence.

Finally, in 2007 DNA evidence from the victims was failed to connect any of the boys with the crime and the case was scheduled to be retried in light of this new evidence. In light of such an upcoming trial, this new deal has been struck. The boys have pleaded to a lesser crime, which will get them released immediately, but doesn't exonerate them. The boys will surely continue to fight for complete exoneration, but at least they can now do so from outside of a jail cell. Though at this point it's hard to see how such a miscarriage of justice can be reversed: the boys have sat in jail for far too long, and the true murderer or murderers may no longer be discoverable.

Just last week the West Memphis Three were released, finally bringing an end to a well-known miscarriage of justice, nearly two decades too late.

In 1994 18 year old Damien Echols, 17 year old Jessie Misskelley and 16 year old Jason Baldwin were convicted of the murder of three eight year old boys who had been found murdered in the Robin Hood Hills area in West Memphis, Arkansas some months earlier. The case got a lot of publicity because of an HBO documentary about it, Paradise Lost, and a number of celebrities taking up the case of the dubiously convicted boys. The attention only served to highlight the shoddy investigative practices of the police and the practically nonexistent evidence connecting them with the murder.

The prosecution's case mostly relied on the testimony of one of the boys, Jessie Miskelley, who claimed that he had witnessed the murders, though he hadn't participated. But his confession had a number of problems. For one, he claimed the whole killing occurred at the creek bed where the bodies were eventually discovered, despite that physical evidence at the scene, indicated that the boys were probably killed, or at least assaulted, elsewhere and then taken to the scene where they were dumped (there was almost a complete lack of blood at the scene). Secondly, Miskelley also said the boys were tied with brown rope, despite that they were tied with their own shoelaces. Thirdly, Miskelley initially claimed that the boys were killed on the morning of May 5, 1993, when the killing occured, despite that the three victims were still alive at the time, and had to have been killed some time in the evening. Miskelley changed his confession several times before he finally latched on to a time late enough for it to be possible.

The only other evidence the prosecution had was a knife, which they found deposited in a lake near Baldwin's residence, and some fibers found on the suspects' clothes that were at least similar to fibers from the clothes of the victims. However, the knife couldn't be connected with the killing, nor could it be shown to have belonged to any of the boys. And the fibers were similar to a great many common products, and thus could have easily come from any number of sources.

The police struggled to find anyone who would claim that the three boys actually were well acquainted, finally turning up one witnesss, despite that Miskelley really only knew the other two boys through school and wasn't friends with them. Additionally, they found a witness that could put at least one of the boys near the scene of the crime near after the time of the murder. And, to the benefit of the prosecution, some children even stepped forward claiming that the boys had confessed to the killings afterwards. All of these testimonies were riddled with problems and strained credibility, but they were persuasive to a jury eager to convict the boys.

But most of the case relied on the fact that Echols was a devotee of neo-paganism, being interested in the Wicca, and the other boys were at least tangentially connected with such practices. The police had initially believed that the case appeared strongly to indicate satanic ritual killing. The charge that this was part of a Satanic ritual caught on in the religiously conservative West Memphis, especially since this was a time when the moral panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse was still hot concern in some corners of the country. The whole panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse eventually died down as investigators started to realize that probably all reported cases of it were due to urban legend and hearsay or "memories" falsely recovered under hypnosis. In other words, despite that the prosecution even brought in a witness at the trial who claimed to be an expert on Satanic Ritual Abuse, the whole thing was hogwash and the expert was worse than ignorant.

Nonetheless, despite an absence of evidence, the boys were convicted, probably mostly due to their perceived association with satanism (they weren't satanists, but the prosecution went to great lengths to demonstrate this, with evidence such as their tendency to wear black and listen to heavy metal) and neo-paganism.

The case seems similar to other cases of high-profile killings where pressure from the public has led police to follow highly dubious evidence in order to get a conviction, no matter the strength of the evidence, such as in the cases of William Heirens, The Boston Strangler and the Monster of Florence.

Finally, in 2007 DNA evidence from the victims was failed to connect any of the boys with the crime and the case was scheduled to be retried in light of this new evidence. In light of such an upcoming trial, this new deal has been struck. The boys have pleaded to a lesser crime, which will get them released immediately, but doesn't exonerate them. The boys will surely continue to fight for complete exoneration, but at least they can now do so from outside of a jail cell. Though at this point it's hard to see how such a miscarriage of justice can be reversed: the boys have sat in jail for far too long, and the true murderer or murderers may no longer be discoverable.

A spoonful of Sugar

A new study in the Journal of Psychoactive drugs from Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz shows that the legalization of medical marijuana in California has led to a lot of people seeking marijuana prescriptions for an increasing variety of ailments (via Norml):

[R]elief of pain, spasms, headache, and anxiety, as well as to improve sleep and relaxation were the most common reasons patients cited for using medical marijuana.

...

Compared to earlier studies of medical marijuana patients, these data suggest that the patient population has evolved from mostly HIV/AIDS and cancer patients to a significantly more diverse array. ... This suggests that the patient population is likely to continue evolving as new patients and physicians discover the therapeutic uses of cannabis.

This reminds one of the rise of medical alcohol during prohibition. During the 19th century many doctors had believed that alcohol had a number of medicinal benefits. But as medicine advanced into the early 20th century, skepticism about the benefits of alcohol were on the rise, such that the AMA issued a statement discouraging the use of alcohol as a "therapeutic agent." But nothing like some good old prohibition to make doctors reconsider:

Alcohol was prescribed for a variety of ailments including anemia, high blood pressure, heart disease, typhoid, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Physicians believed it stimulated digestion, conserved tissue, was helpful for the heart, and increased energy.

Medicinal alcohol grew popular enough such that eventually, "Over a million gallons were consumed per year through freely given prescriptions." Even though medical alcohol was confined to hard liquor, congress held hearings in 1921 considering whether it might be possible to permit medicinal beer.

In the case of both medicinal alcohol and marijuana, the distinction between medical and non-medical drugs is becoming blurred, and the authors of the study note that this is on the rise (via Jacob Sullum):

Prozac and other SSRI-type antidepressants, for example, are often prescribed for patients who do not meet DSM criteria for clinical depression but who simply feel better when taking it. Such "cosmetic psychopharmacology"...is likely to grow as new psychiatric medications come to market. The line between medical and nonmedical drug use has also been blurred by performance enhancing drugs such as steroids, so-called "smart drugs" that combine vitamins with psychoactive ingredients, and herbal remedies like mahuang (ephedra) available in health food stores.

This is a circumstance that may be on the rise, but it's hardly new. Beyond medicinal alcohol we can also consider the case of the vibrator, which was first introduced as a medical device in the late 19th century. Since doctors, during the Victorian period believed that the way to relieve the bogus ailment of "female hysteria" was through orgasm (they thought this hysteria was caused by the buildup of "female semen" which was apparently released during orgasm) this meant that the manual stimulation of a woman's nether region was an established medical treatment. Doctors apparently welcomed the introduction of the first steam-powered vibrator as something much easier than fingering their patients to orgasm. As more affordable models of vibrator were introduced for the consumer market, its popularity rose sharply. We can imagine that a great many women discovered that they quite liked taking their medicine (some medicines don't need a spoonful of sugar to go down; they are the spoonful of sugar) and vigorously applied themselves to treating their hysteria.

The common thread through all of these is a sanction against something that people want to do (be it alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption or masturbation) and a plausible medical reason to skirt that sanction. In such cases the distinction between medical and recreational use becomes unclear and people take advantage of it to do what they enjoy.

A new study in the Journal of Psychoactive drugs from Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz shows that the legalization of medical marijuana in California has led to a lot of people seeking marijuana prescriptions for an increasing variety of ailments (via Norml):

[R]elief of pain, spasms, headache, and anxiety, as well as to improve sleep and relaxation were the most common reasons patients cited for using medical marijuana.

...

Compared to earlier studies of medical marijuana patients, these data suggest that the patient population has evolved from mostly HIV/AIDS and cancer patients to a significantly more diverse array. ... This suggests that the patient population is likely to continue evolving as new patients and physicians discover the therapeutic uses of cannabis.

This reminds one of the rise of medical alcohol during prohibition. During the 19th century many doctors had believed that alcohol had a number of medicinal benefits. But as medicine advanced into the early 20th century, skepticism about the benefits of alcohol were on the rise, such that the AMA issued a statement discouraging the use of alcohol as a "therapeutic agent." But nothing like some good old prohibition to make doctors reconsider:

Alcohol was prescribed for a variety of ailments including anemia, high blood pressure, heart disease, typhoid, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Physicians believed it stimulated digestion, conserved tissue, was helpful for the heart, and increased energy.

Medicinal alcohol grew popular enough such that eventually, "Over a million gallons were consumed per year through freely given prescriptions." Even though medical alcohol was confined to hard liquor, congress held hearings in 1921 considering whether it might be possible to permit medicinal beer.

In the case of both medicinal alcohol and marijuana, the distinction between medical and non-medical drugs is becoming blurred, and the authors of the study note that this is on the rise (via Jacob Sullum):

Prozac and other SSRI-type antidepressants, for example, are often prescribed for patients who do not meet DSM criteria for clinical depression but who simply feel better when taking it. Such "cosmetic psychopharmacology"...is likely to grow as new psychiatric medications come to market. The line between medical and nonmedical drug use has also been blurred by performance enhancing drugs such as steroids, so-called "smart drugs" that combine vitamins with psychoactive ingredients, and herbal remedies like mahuang (ephedra) available in health food stores.

This is a circumstance that may be on the rise, but it's hardly new. Beyond medicinal alcohol we can also consider the case of the vibrator, which was first introduced as a medical device in the late 19th century. Since doctors, during the Victorian period believed that the way to relieve the bogus ailment of "female hysteria" was through orgasm (they thought this hysteria was caused by the buildup of "female semen" which was apparently released during orgasm) this meant that the manual stimulation of a woman's nether region was an established medical treatment. Doctors apparently welcomed the introduction of the first steam-powered vibrator as something much easier than fingering their patients to orgasm. As more affordable models of vibrator were introduced for the consumer market, its popularity rose sharply. We can imagine that a great many women discovered that they quite liked taking their medicine (some medicines don't need a spoonful of sugar to go down; they are the spoonful of sugar) and vigorously applied themselves to treating their hysteria.

The common thread through all of these is a sanction against something that people want to do (be it alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption or masturbation) and a plausible medical reason to skirt that sanction. In such cases the distinction between medical and recreational use becomes unclear and people take advantage of it to do what they enjoy.

A spoonful of Sugar

Overly Broad Patents

I talked a few days ago about software patents, and that one of the problems with software patents is that they're frequently overly broad, giving patent-holders fairly excessive power to sue similar, independent inventions. It turns out that this may not be an at all new phenomenon.

Reading through Mark A. Lemley's paper "The Myth of the Sole Inventor," this problem seems to have existed since the beginning of the patent system, and fairly describes many famous inventions.

For one, Lemley notes that the invention of the steamboat was by no means the sole work of Robert Fulton, who ultimately received the patent. Instead:

While Robert Fulton is acknowledged by the popular imagination as the inventor of the steamboat, in fact the historical evidence suggests that many different people developed steamboats at about the same time. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, when the
Articles of Confederation left patent rights to the states, different states issued patents to different claimants to the steamboat. The conflict between these inventors over patent rights issued by different states was one of the driving forces of assigning patent rights to the federal government in the U.S. constitution.

Fulton is remembered as the inventor of the steamboat primarily because he was successful in writing a broad patent to cover it, albeit one patented decades after other claimants.

A similar case can be seen with the telephone. Many separate inventors were working on transmitting sound via telegraph wire simultaneously, and most of the pieces necessary to make a telephone work were invented by others before Bell. We only remember Bell because he ultimately got the patent:

Bell‘s ultimate invention put together a transmitter, a fluctuating current, and a receiver. But so did others. Elisha Gray filed an application in the patent office on the same day as Bell, following on other Gray applications that predated Bell‘s, and their inventions were ultimately put into interference. The resulting case went to the United States Supreme Court, and the Court‘s opinion takes up an entire volume of U.S. Reports. Despite the fact that Gray‘s independent invention was different and in some ways better than Bell‘s, and despite the fact that Bell actually got his invention to work only in March 1876, well after his filing date, Bell won the case. The Court ruled for Bell despite the breadth of his patent claim, which covered any device "for transmitting vocal or other sounds ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds."

Similarly, George Seldon was granted an unfortunately broad patent in 1895 on the combination of an internal combustion engine with a four-wheel carriage, even though he didn't invent the internal combustion engine (merely created a lighter version of it) nor did he create the four wheel carriage, nor was he the first to combine the engine with a wheeled carriage. He made some significant design improvements, but others subsequently developed better designs, but he was nonetheless effective granted a patent on the automobile. It took an eight year long legal fight, for Henry Ford to finally have Seldon's patent invalidated in 1911.

The same goes with the invention of the airplane. Gliders had been developed before the wright brothers; the airfoiled wings they used were invented by Horatio Phillips; adding a tail for stability was developed by Alphonse Penaud.

The Wrights invented only a particular improvement to flying machines, albeit a critical one: they came up with a way of warping a wing to control the direction of flight while turning a rear rudder to counterbalance the effect of bending the wing, maintaining the stability of the plane. The Wrights solved the stability problem by having a single cable warp the wing and turn the rudder at the same time. Their patent, however, was not so limited, and they successfully asserted it against subsequent inventors such as Glenn Curtiss. Curtiss improved the design of the wing by using ailerons, movable portions of the wing that had been developed years before by a consortium of others, including Curtiss and Alexander Graham Bell. A frustrated Curtiss was reported to have said that the Wright brothers believed their patent was so broad that anyone who jumped up and down and flapped their arms infringed it.

In short, the Wrights made an important improvement on the existing flying machines, but were basically granted a patent that covered all engine-powered flying machines.

These examples don't exhaust the instances of overly broad patents, but the highlight the most famous examples, and show that issuing overly broad patents has long been an issue with patent law. One of the main flaws of a patent system is that it relies on human beings can err in ways that can be very expensive to correct.

I talked a few days ago about software patents, and that one of the problems with software patents is that they're frequently overly broad, giving patent-holders fairly excessive power to sue similar, independent inventions. It turns out that this may not be an at all new phenomenon.

Reading through Mark A. Lemley's paper "The Myth of the Sole Inventor," this problem seems to have existed since the beginning of the patent system, and fairly describes many famous inventions.

For one, Lemley notes that the invention of the steamboat was by no means the sole work of Robert Fulton, who ultimately received the patent. Instead:

While Robert Fulton is acknowledged by the popular imagination as the inventor of the steamboat, in fact the historical evidence suggests that many different people developed steamboats at about the same time. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, when the
Articles of Confederation left patent rights to the states, different states issued patents to different claimants to the steamboat. The conflict between these inventors over patent rights issued by different states was one of the driving forces of assigning patent rights to the federal government in the U.S. constitution.

Fulton is remembered as the inventor of the steamboat primarily because he was successful in writing a broad patent to cover it, albeit one patented decades after other claimants.

A similar case can be seen with the telephone. Many separate inventors were working on transmitting sound via telegraph wire simultaneously, and most of the pieces necessary to make a telephone work were invented by others before Bell. We only remember Bell because he ultimately got the patent:

Bell‘s ultimate invention put together a transmitter, a fluctuating current, and a receiver. But so did others. Elisha Gray filed an application in the patent office on the same day as Bell, following on other Gray applications that predated Bell‘s, and their inventions were ultimately put into interference. The resulting case went to the United States Supreme Court, and the Court‘s opinion takes up an entire volume of U.S. Reports. Despite the fact that Gray‘s independent invention was different and in some ways better than Bell‘s, and despite the fact that Bell actually got his invention to work only in March 1876, well after his filing date, Bell won the case. The Court ruled for Bell despite the breadth of his patent claim, which covered any device "for transmitting vocal or other sounds ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds."

Similarly, George Seldon was granted an unfortunately broad patent in 1895 on the combination of an internal combustion engine with a four-wheel carriage, even though he didn't invent the internal combustion engine (merely created a lighter version of it) nor did he create the four wheel carriage, nor was he the first to combine the engine with a wheeled carriage. He made some significant design improvements, but others subsequently developed better designs, but he was nonetheless effective granted a patent on the automobile. It took an eight year long legal fight, for Henry Ford to finally have Seldon's patent invalidated in 1911.

The same goes with the invention of the airplane. Gliders had been developed before the wright brothers; the airfoiled wings they used were invented by Horatio Phillips; adding a tail for stability was developed by Alphonse Penaud.

The Wrights invented only a particular improvement to flying machines, albeit a critical one: they came up with a way of warping a wing to control the direction of flight while turning a rear rudder to counterbalance the effect of bending the wing, maintaining the stability of the plane. The Wrights solved the stability problem by having a single cable warp the wing and turn the rudder at the same time. Their patent, however, was not so limited, and they successfully asserted it against subsequent inventors such as Glenn Curtiss. Curtiss improved the design of the wing by using ailerons, movable portions of the wing that had been developed years before by a consortium of others, including Curtiss and Alexander Graham Bell. A frustrated Curtiss was reported to have said that the Wright brothers believed their patent was so broad that anyone who jumped up and down and flapped their arms infringed it.

In short, the Wrights made an important improvement on the existing flying machines, but were basically granted a patent that covered all engine-powered flying machines.

These examples don't exhaust the instances of overly broad patents, but the highlight the most famous examples, and show that issuing overly broad patents has long been an issue with patent law. One of the main flaws of a patent system is that it relies on human beings can err in ways that can be very expensive to correct.

Overly Broad Patents

End of the Dollar Coin Bonanza

Using dollar coins instead of paper coins saves money. Though coins are more expensive to produce (costing 8¢, versus 3.8¢ per dollar bill), since they last much longer and need to be replaced much less frequently the government could save money by producing only dollar coins. This has long been recognized and in 1997, congress passed a bill to start minting dollar coins again, creating the Sacagawea dollar, which was finally released and distributed beginning in 2000. Dollar coins, though, have never really caught on with the public, probably because they're much bulkier than paper money and additionally because the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing continues to produce the dollar bills. The government already tried dollar coins in 1979 with the Susan B Anthony coin, but it died quickly. And they continue to try, passing a 2005 law which created a new set of presidential dollar coins, which are being minted, but have largely gone uncirculated.

In an attempt to get the dollar coins more widely distributed, the US Mint instituted a program where individuals could buy rolls of the dollar coins at face value. In fact, the US Mint would even ship the coins to you for free and accepted many forms of payment.

People with credit cards that had rewards programs at some point realized that there was an opportunity in this. If you purchase, say, 1000 dollar coins for $1000 with your credit card, you could then take this $1000 in coins, deposit it in your bank account and then use the balance to pay off credit card bill. On net, you've neither lost nor gained any money, but, by using your credit card, you've added reward points, which you can accumulate. These rewards points you could use for free flights or free gifts or gift certificates or whatever.

The loser in all this was the US Mint, which had to pay the credit card fees and the shipping. Even worse, the coins weren't getting distributed, as was the point of this whole thing, since the banks would usually just end up shipping them back to the Federal Reserve after customers deposited them, contributing to an ever increasing cache of dollar coins in the Fed's vaults.

It couldn't last forever, though. The US Mint started to realize what was going on when the same people came back again and again to make large purchases of dollar coins. The Mint first started restricting the number of purchases that people could make, and then started getting in contact with customers to make sure the coins were for legitimate business purposes.

Such measures mitigated the problem, but it still continued. In fact, word was getting out (first on NPR's Planet Money on July 13, then on MSN Money on July 15), with the likely prospect of the problem only getting worse. Thus, beginning yesterday, the US Mint stopped accepting credit cards for buying dollar coins. You can still buy the dollar coins, but only with wire transfer, check or money order.

The lesson to be learned from this: if you find a really cool way of making money like this, don't tell anyone.

Using dollar coins instead of paper coins saves money. Though coins are more expensive to produce (costing 8¢, versus 3.8¢ per dollar bill), since they last much longer and need to be replaced much less frequently the government could save money by producing only dollar coins. This has long been recognized and in 1997, congress passed a bill to start minting dollar coins again, creating the Sacagawea dollar, which was finally released and distributed beginning in 2000. Dollar coins, though, have never really caught on with the public, probably because they're much bulkier than paper money and additionally because the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing continues to produce the dollar bills. The government already tried dollar coins in 1979 with the Susan B Anthony coin, but it died quickly. And they continue to try, passing a 2005 law which created a new set of presidential dollar coins, which are being minted, but have largely gone uncirculated.

In an attempt to get the dollar coins more widely distributed, the US Mint instituted a program where individuals could buy rolls of the dollar coins at face value. In fact, the US Mint would even ship the coins to you for free and accepted many forms of payment.

People with credit cards that had rewards programs at some point realized that there was an opportunity in this. If you purchase, say, 1000 dollar coins for $1000 with your credit card, you could then take this $1000 in coins, deposit it in your bank account and then use the balance to pay off credit card bill. On net, you've neither lost nor gained any money, but, by using your credit card, you've added reward points, which you can accumulate. These rewards points you could use for free flights or free gifts or gift certificates or whatever.

The loser in all this was the US Mint, which had to pay the credit card fees and the shipping. Even worse, the coins weren't getting distributed, as was the point of this whole thing, since the banks would usually just end up shipping them back to the Federal Reserve after customers deposited them, contributing to an ever increasing cache of dollar coins in the Fed's vaults.

It couldn't last forever, though. The US Mint started to realize what was going on when the same people came back again and again to make large purchases of dollar coins. The Mint first started restricting the number of purchases that people could make, and then started getting in contact with customers to make sure the coins were for legitimate business purposes.

Such measures mitigated the problem, but it still continued. In fact, word was getting out (first on NPR's Planet Money on July 13, then on MSN Money on July 15), with the likely prospect of the problem only getting worse. Thus, beginning yesterday, the US Mint stopped accepting credit cards for buying dollar coins. You can still buy the dollar coins, but only with wire transfer, check or money order.

The lesson to be learned from this: if you find a really cool way of making money like this, don't tell anyone.

End of the Dollar Coin Bonanza

The Oxford Shakespeare Theory

I was just noticing that Roland Emmerich is working on a movie premised on the idea that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by Oxford Earl Edward de Vere (due out 2012, a trailer is already up). My first reaction was, "How is Roland Emerich going to incorporate the destruction of famous landmarks into a movie set in Elizabethan England?" But my second reaction was, "So, they're making a movie out of the ol' Oxford-Shakespeare theory. Interesting."

The idea that the William Shakespeare from Stratord-upon-Avon was not the true author of the plays attributed to him is an old theory. First, in the nineteenth century, it was proposed that the plays were written by Francis Bacon. This theory runs into the problem that Bacon's style is fairly distinct from Shakespeare's and Bacon is not known otherwise to have written any plays.

The theory that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays was next proposed. This had more plausibility since Marlowe did write plays, was very good at writing plays, and certainly had more stylistic similarity to Shakespeare. But it ran into the problem that Marlowe was dead, dying in 1593, about twenty years before Shakespeare retired in 1613. No problem. These people claimed that Marlowed faked his own death. The problem this ran into is that his death, stabbed to death in a bar fight, doesn't exactly fit a plausible description of a faked death. Marlowe was a very public figure, a well-known playwright, who was killed in a very public place, a bar, and it was followed by a post-mortem and inquest. If you want to fake your own death, you're much better off doing it in a way that leaves very few witnesses and little evidence, like say dying in a fire or explosion or plane crash or drowning at sea. Heck even in this day and age you could probably get away with faking your own death as a drowning at sea (note to future self: do not attempt). Even though faking your death in 1593, with their rather primitive forensic science, would be a lot easier then than now, it's still hard to imagine how Marlowe could get away with it.

The currently most popular theory of Shakespearian alternative authorship is the Oxford theory, attributing authorship to Edward de Vere. This is more plausible since de Vere was known to be a celebrated poet and playwright in his day, was a patron of the theater and survived until 1604, which means that we only have to assume that some of de Vere's works were performed posthumously, which is possible.

On the other hand, we should note that most Shakespeare scholars are Stratfordians, that is to say that they believe that the plays of Shakespeare were written by the William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon, not by Edward de Vere or Bacon or Marlowe or anyone else. They believe this for a number of reasons based on very good evidence. For one, there is the simple and obvious one: the plays were, in their day, widely attributed to Shakespeare. The facts that everyone said the plays were written by Shakespeare and that all of the (admittedly unauthorized) publications of the plays that name an author attribute them to Shakespeare are pretty strong evidence. Admittedly, it's possible that there was some sort of clandestine intrigue behind the scenes to obfuscate authorship, but in the absence of evidence of such intrigue, it's best not to assume that everyone was being duped. Additionally, we have good evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford was a real person, which makes one wonder why de Vere (or one of the other supposed authors) attributed their plays to a real person, a minor actor in an acting company, instead of just making up a a pseudonym like "Eddy Veretti" or "Redox Fordbridge" or something.

Also, most scholars reject the argument, which is behind all the alternative authorship theories, that, since education wasn't as widespread then and Shakespeare wasn't from the gentry that could afford high quality education and access to books, Shakespeare simply wasn't well-educated or cultured enough to have written such plays. The truth is that Shakespeare was the son of a prominent merchant and had access to a rigorous grammar school education and certainly became well-connected with the English aristocracy as he became more prominent. Not to mention the fact that most of Shakespeare's plays are adaptations, not original works, meaning a lot of the details that Shakespeare was supposedly not able to know about, come directly from the original works he adapted. Additionally, we only have a small sliver of the plays written during Shakespeare's time, meaning that literary allusions that we now assume to be only possible for someone well-educated, may have in fact between quite commonplace in the theater community at the time. In fact, some Cambridge students, in 1601, mocked the university-trained playwrights for over-using classical allusion, and noted how Shakespeare, not university-educated, was fortunately clear of that vice (quoted here).

When I was a young English major pursuing my undergraduate education, I too toyed with the idea of alternative Shakespeare authorship, first with the Marlowe theory and later with the Oxford theory. But ultimately I dropped them because there were a couple of problems with the theories I couldn't reconcile. For one, Shakespeare became extremely wealthy during his career. He was an actor, but reportedly a relatively minor and not particularly celebrated actor. It just didn't seem plausible that a minor actor could accumulate wealth enough to become, for example, a part owner of the Globe theater.

Even more implausible for me was the idea that a prominent and dignified courtier could write such a bloody play like Titus Andronicus. In the play, not only is Titus' daughter raped and has her hands and tongue cut off, but also Tamora's sons are killed then baked into a pie and fed to her. Trying to imagine a stately Elizabethan aristocrat writing such stories is really difficult (there are authorship questions surrounding Titus Andronicus, but these don't really change things since most scholars believe Shakespeare wrote all of it or co-authored it and was still the author of these famous bloody scenes)

That being said, though I think the Oxford-Shakespeare theory is wrong, it still is an interesting and tantalizing theory. So, making a movie based on it may not be a bad idea, and it could turn out to be a good movie. It's just to say that Hollywood sort of has an unfaithful relationship with historical accuracy, and this movie will probably be no exception.

I was just noticing that Roland Emmerich is working on a movie premised on the idea that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by Oxford Earl Edward de Vere (due out 2012, a trailer is already up). My first reaction was, "How is Roland Emerich going to incorporate the destruction of famous landmarks into a movie set in Elizabethan England?" But my second reaction was, "So, they're making a movie out of the ol' Oxford-Shakespeare theory. Interesting."

The idea that the William Shakespeare from Stratord-upon-Avon was not the true author of the plays attributed to him is an old theory. First, in the nineteenth century, it was proposed that the plays were written by Francis Bacon. This theory runs into the problem that Bacon's style is fairly distinct from Shakespeare's and Bacon is not known otherwise to have written any plays.

The theory that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays was next proposed. This had more plausibility since Marlowe did write plays, was very good at writing plays, and certainly had more stylistic similarity to Shakespeare. But it ran into the problem that Marlowe was dead, dying in 1593, about twenty years before Shakespeare retired in 1613. No problem. These people claimed that Marlowed faked his own death. The problem this ran into is that his death, stabbed to death in a bar fight, doesn't exactly fit a plausible description of a faked death. Marlowe was a very public figure, a well-known playwright, who was killed in a very public place, a bar, and it was followed by a post-mortem and inquest. If you want to fake your own death, you're much better off doing it in a way that leaves very few witnesses and little evidence, like say dying in a fire or explosion or plane crash or drowning at sea. Heck even in this day and age you could probably get away with faking your own death as a drowning at sea (note to future self: do not attempt). Even though faking your death in 1593, with their rather primitive forensic science, would be a lot easier then than now, it's still hard to imagine how Marlowe could get away with it.

The currently most popular theory of Shakespearian alternative authorship is the Oxford theory, attributing authorship to Edward de Vere. This is more plausible since de Vere was known to be a celebrated poet and playwright in his day, was a patron of the theater and survived until 1604, which means that we only have to assume that some of de Vere's works were performed posthumously, which is possible.

On the other hand, we should note that most Shakespeare scholars are Stratfordians, that is to say that they believe that the plays of Shakespeare were written by the William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon, not by Edward de Vere or Bacon or Marlowe or anyone else. They believe this for a number of reasons based on very good evidence. For one, there is the simple and obvious one: the plays were, in their day, widely attributed to Shakespeare. The facts that everyone said the plays were written by Shakespeare and that all of the (admittedly unauthorized) publications of the plays that name an author attribute them to Shakespeare are pretty strong evidence. Admittedly, it's possible that there was some sort of clandestine intrigue behind the scenes to obfuscate authorship, but in the absence of evidence of such intrigue, it's best not to assume that everyone was being duped. Additionally, we have good evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford was a real person, which makes one wonder why de Vere (or one of the other supposed authors) attributed their plays to a real person, a minor actor in an acting company, instead of just making up a a pseudonym like "Eddy Veretti" or "Redox Fordbridge" or something.

Also, most scholars reject the argument, which is behind all the alternative authorship theories, that, since education wasn't as widespread then and Shakespeare wasn't from the gentry that could afford high quality education and access to books, Shakespeare simply wasn't well-educated or cultured enough to have written such plays. The truth is that Shakespeare was the son of a prominent merchant and had access to a rigorous grammar school education and certainly became well-connected with the English aristocracy as he became more prominent. Not to mention the fact that most of Shakespeare's plays are adaptations, not original works, meaning a lot of the details that Shakespeare was supposedly not able to know about, come directly from the original works he adapted. Additionally, we only have a small sliver of the plays written during Shakespeare's time, meaning that literary allusions that we now assume to be only possible for someone well-educated, may have in fact between quite commonplace in the theater community at the time. In fact, some Cambridge students, in 1601, mocked the university-trained playwrights for over-using classical allusion, and noted how Shakespeare, not university-educated, was fortunately clear of that vice (quoted here).

When I was a young English major pursuing my undergraduate education, I too toyed with the idea of alternative Shakespeare authorship, first with the Marlowe theory and later with the Oxford theory. But ultimately I dropped them because there were a couple of problems with the theories I couldn't reconcile. For one, Shakespeare became extremely wealthy during his career. He was an actor, but reportedly a relatively minor and not particularly celebrated actor. It just didn't seem plausible that a minor actor could accumulate wealth enough to become, for example, a part owner of the Globe theater.

Even more implausible for me was the idea that a prominent and dignified courtier could write such a bloody play like Titus Andronicus. In the play, not only is Titus' daughter raped and has her hands and tongue cut off, but also Tamora's sons are killed then baked into a pie and fed to her. Trying to imagine a stately Elizabethan aristocrat writing such stories is really difficult (there are authorship questions surrounding Titus Andronicus, but these don't really change things since most scholars believe Shakespeare wrote all of it or co-authored it and was still the author of these famous bloody scenes)

That being said, though I think the Oxford-Shakespeare theory is wrong, it still is an interesting and tantalizing theory. So, making a movie based on it may not be a bad idea, and it could turn out to be a good movie. It's just to say that Hollywood sort of has an unfaithful relationship with historical accuracy, and this movie will probably be no exception.

The Oxford Shakespeare Theory

The Eldritch Quagmire of Lovecraft's Copyrights

I had recently been reading through the works that are generally considered part of H. P. Lovecraft's dreamland stories, including "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," "Nyarlathotep," and "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." When looking for online copies of these works, I stumbled upon the rather tangled copyright questions concerning Lovecraft's works: are any of his stories under copyright, and if so which ones, and if so who owns the copyright. I should say at the outset that I reached no resolution on determining whether Lovecraft's works are in the public domain and believe no resolution is forthcoming.

All of Lovecraft's works entered the public domain in the EU in 2008, since the EU decided that copyright in all cases is merely 70 years after the death of the author and Lovecraft died in 1937. Australia's Gutenberg project has virtually all of his fictional works up, since the works are apparently in the public domain in Australia. But in the US it's more uncertain. Wikisource has an even more complete collection though it notes that some works are under copyright, and there is an extensive wikipedia entry on this question. At the US gutenberg site, the only works available are some early works, and in fact they've deliberately declined to offer any of the later works. Librivox.org similarly, only records works from 1922 and earlier (with the sole exception, so far, of The Shunned House, which first appeared in an amateur press and didn't originally have its copyright registered). You would think copyright would be a moot point since Lovecraft died 74 years ago, but you would be assuming that copyright law actually makes sense. As one Gutenberg staffer says Lovecraft is a rather interesting case.

To start off, any book published prior to 1923 is in the public domain. Some of Lovecraft's early works fall in this time period. But all of his most famous works, including "Call of Cthulhu," "Dreams in the Witch House," "At the Mountains of Madness" and so on were written after 1923. Before 1976, all works had to be registered with the copyright office to avoid falling into the public domain, and many of Lovecraft's works (the ones published in amateur presses) were almost certainly never registered. Additionally, any work published between the years 1923-1963, not only had to have been originally registered, but had to have that copyright renewed sometime between 1950 and 1992 to avoid avoid falling into the public domain. If it was renewed, then it is copyrighted until 95 years after publication. Unfortunately, there's no official database that explicitly lists which works published before 1963 had their copyright renewed. The Copyright Office has an online database of works renewed after 1977, but if the work was renewed from 1950-1977, that requires searching through the copyright office's database of physical paper records. The Stanford library has tried to address this, with their Copyright Renewal Database, which has tried to put all of the renewals into a digital, searchable form. If we just wanted to answer the question, for example, whether the "Call of Cthulhu" is in the public domain we can do searches for "Lovecraft," "Cthulhu" or "Weird Tales" (the publication that it was first published in). The only renewals we find are those of August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, Lovecraft proteges who edited and published several early collections of Lovecraft's works. They registered and renewed the copyrights on some collections they published of Lovecraft's works. But copyrights on such collections normally only cover new material and contributions, namely the arrangement, editing, introductions and any new stories; they wouldn't apply directly to Lovecraft's original work. Thus, if one went back and republished the original Cthulhu story published in Weird Tales in 1928, those copyrights presumably wouldn't apply. And no further evidence of other renewals has been found.

There may be, nonetheless, some exceptions, namely in works originally published posthumously by Darleth and Wandrei. For example, Derleth and Wandrei registered and renewed the copyright to Beyond the Walls of Sleep, in which the "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath," first appeared and in which "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," was first published in its complete form. If they held full rights to these works at the time of publication, they may have successfully renewed rights to these works. But with the rest of the stories, there appears to be no evidence of renewal.

Unfortunately, there have been and still are copyright holders that claim the rights. Chris J Karr has a long article detailing the claims of these copyright holders. As he first explains, there are 23 works of Lovecraft that were written prior to 1923 and 15 works that never had their copyright registered, but the remaining 27 works are uncertain. They are claimed to be held by Arkham House Publishers, a publishing house founded by Derleth and Wandrei, and by Lovecraft's reconstituted literary estate.

It is generally believed that Lovecraft retained all rights to his works published from 1926 forward (though we don't have documentation to confirm this). In the period 1923-25, he published a few works in amateur presses like The Tryout that didn't register their copyrights, and six works in Weird Tales, which did register its copyrights. Weird Tales did transfer whatever rights it held to Derleth and Wandrei and Arkham House in 1947, which would probably only include the short stories "The Festival," "The Hound," "The Temple," "The Unnameable," "The Horror at Martin's Beach," and "Under the Pyramids." As already stated, there is no evidence that the copyrights were renewed on these stories.

Of the rights to the remaining 21 works published from 1926-37, that Lovecraft retained rights to, his rights were transferred, upon his death in 1937, to his only heir, his aunt, Annie Gamwell. Gamwell transferred the royalties in her will to Derleth and Wandrei, but the copyrights she held and these were transferred to her heirs, Edna Lewis and Ethel Morrish. Lewis and Morrish subsequently transferred at least some of their rights to Arkham House in an agreement. The problem is that the language of the agreement in which Morrish and Lewis ostensibly gave rights to Derleth and Wandrei is not clear about what rights are being transferred, and many dispute whether copyrights were actually transferred by this agreement. The question is whether granting "the right to publish H. P. Lovecraft's work," and "sell second serial rights" constitutes giving them full copyrights or just amounts to giving them permission to publish and collect the royalties.

All of this would be moot if the copyrights weren't renewed. Even if there is no evidence of renewal, it's possible that when Darleth and Wandrei renewed the copyrights to collections in which Lovecraft's works were republished, this constituted renewal of the copyright on those works; it's also possible renewals were made that have simply not been found. Karr concludes that all of Lovecraft's work are in the public domain, based on arguments used by Arkham House in a much later lawsuit with Wandrei. The lawsuit was over disputed royalties apparently owed to Wandrei. Arkham house used the argument that Wandrei was not owed royalties because he lacked the rights to the relevant works because the copyrights were never renewed. Karr takes this as definitive, since it is the statement of the publishing house itself that the publishing house did not own the rights to any of the works of Lovecraft that might be under copyright. I'm not so confident that Karr is right, since it's entirely possible that Arkham House is mistaken and such a statement in the context of a lawsuit needn't be legally binding, and Karr notes that Arkham house and the reconstituted Lovecraft estate still claim to the own the copyrights (for example, copyright notices of Lovecraft Properties LLC, the reconstituted Lovecraft estate, here and here). But, without any records of renewal, it's about the strongest evidence available.

For my money, I'd say all of Lovecraft's are probably in the public domain (possibly excepting writings published posthumously, such as "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward), but there really is no answer to the question of their copyright status. Were the rights properly renewed? Were they transferred to Arkham House? Copyright law has been stretched so far into the past that lost documentation, orphaned works and uncertainties about ownership become more and more problematic. All we can say is that if someone were to challenge copyright ownership, a court would be able to come to a decision, but the decision could go either way. It's doubtful it'll be worth anyone's time and money to try and resolve this in court, and this makes the situation de facto as if the copyrights still hold, since no one wants to risk getting sued (thought the copyright holders haven't, at least so far been zealous in pursuing their lawsuits). So, long as no one challenges their claim, the persons claiming own the rights, own them by default. And the issue won't really be resolved until 2032 when the last of Lovecraft's works published in his lifetime will enter the public domain (and I'm excluding the few posthumous publications, which appeared as late as 1944), unless there's another copyright extension, which would just push all of this mess forward.

All of this really illustrates the absurdity of copyright law, which only grows more absurd the further copyrights are extended. Today, copyright law covers works published before 1978 for 95 years after their publication and 70 years after the death of the author for works published since 1978. Such a term undermines the original intention of copyright law, namely to encourage the creation of art. Not only do rights devolve to people who have no part in the creation of original works, but the longer the term, the more copyright holders invest in protecting valuable copyrights and the less they invest in creating new copyrightable works. But, just as I said before, assuming that copyright law should actually abide by its purported rationale assumes that copyright law actually makes sense.

I had recently been reading through the works that are generally considered part of H. P. Lovecraft's dreamland stories, including "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," "Nyarlathotep," and "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." When looking for online copies of these works, I stumbled upon the rather tangled copyright questions concerning Lovecraft's works: are any of his stories under copyright, and if so which ones, and if so who owns the copyright. I should say at the outset that I reached no resolution on determining whether Lovecraft's works are in the public domain and believe no resolution is forthcoming.

All of Lovecraft's works entered the public domain in the EU in 2008, since the EU decided that copyright in all cases is merely 70 years after the death of the author and Lovecraft died in 1937. Australia's Gutenberg project has virtually all of his fictional works up, since the works are apparently in the public domain in Australia. But in the US it's more uncertain. Wikisource has an even more complete collection though it notes that some works are under copyright, and there is an extensive wikipedia entry on this question. At the US gutenberg site, the only works available are some early works, and in fact they've deliberately declined to offer any of the later works. Librivox.org similarly, only records works from 1922 and earlier (with the sole exception, so far, of The Shunned House, which first appeared in an amateur press and didn't originally have its copyright registered). You would think copyright would be a moot point since Lovecraft died 74 years ago, but you would be assuming that copyright law actually makes sense. As one Gutenberg staffer says Lovecraft is a rather interesting case.

To start off, any book published prior to 1923 is in the public domain. Some of Lovecraft's early works fall in this time period. But all of his most famous works, including "Call of Cthulhu," "Dreams in the Witch House," "At the Mountains of Madness" and so on were written after 1923. Before 1976, all works had to be registered with the copyright office to avoid falling into the public domain, and many of Lovecraft's works (the ones published in amateur presses) were almost certainly never registered. Additionally, any work published between the years 1923-1963, not only had to have been originally registered, but had to have that copyright renewed sometime between 1950 and 1992 to avoid avoid falling into the public domain. If it was renewed, then it is copyrighted until 95 years after publication. Unfortunately, there's no official database that explicitly lists which works published before 1963 had their copyright renewed. The Copyright Office has an online database of works renewed after 1977, but if the work was renewed from 1950-1977, that requires searching through the copyright office's database of physical paper records. The Stanford library has tried to address this, with their Copyright Renewal Database, which has tried to put all of the renewals into a digital, searchable form. If we just wanted to answer the question, for example, whether the "Call of Cthulhu" is in the public domain we can do searches for "Lovecraft," "Cthulhu" or "Weird Tales" (the publication that it was first published in). The only renewals we find are those of August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, Lovecraft proteges who edited and published several early collections of Lovecraft's works. They registered and renewed the copyrights on some collections they published of Lovecraft's works. But copyrights on such collections normally only cover new material and contributions, namely the arrangement, editing, introductions and any new stories; they wouldn't apply directly to Lovecraft's original work. Thus, if one went back and republished the original Cthulhu story published in Weird Tales in 1928, those copyrights presumably wouldn't apply. And no further evidence of other renewals has been found.

There may be, nonetheless, some exceptions, namely in works originally published posthumously by Darleth and Wandrei. For example, Derleth and Wandrei registered and renewed the copyright to Beyond the Walls of Sleep, in which the "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath," first appeared and in which "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," was first published in its complete form. If they held full rights to these works at the time of publication, they may have successfully renewed rights to these works. But with the rest of the stories, there appears to be no evidence of renewal.

Unfortunately, there have been and still are copyright holders that claim the rights. Chris J Karr has a long article detailing the claims of these copyright holders. As he first explains, there are 23 works of Lovecraft that were written prior to 1923 and 15 works that never had their copyright registered, but the remaining 27 works are uncertain. They are claimed to be held by Arkham House Publishers, a publishing house founded by Derleth and Wandrei, and by Lovecraft's reconstituted literary estate.

It is generally believed that Lovecraft retained all rights to his works published from 1926 forward (though we don't have documentation to confirm this). In the period 1923-25, he published a few works in amateur presses like The Tryout that didn't register their copyrights, and six works in Weird Tales, which did register its copyrights. Weird Tales did transfer whatever rights it held to Derleth and Wandrei and Arkham House in 1947, which would probably only include the short stories "The Festival," "The Hound," "The Temple," "The Unnameable," "The Horror at Martin's Beach," and "Under the Pyramids." As already stated, there is no evidence that the copyrights were renewed on these stories.

Of the rights to the remaining 21 works published from 1926-37, that Lovecraft retained rights to, his rights were transferred, upon his death in 1937, to his only heir, his aunt, Annie Gamwell. Gamwell transferred the royalties in her will to Derleth and Wandrei, but the copyrights she held and these were transferred to her heirs, Edna Lewis and Ethel Morrish. Lewis and Morrish subsequently transferred at least some of their rights to Arkham House in an agreement. The problem is that the language of the agreement in which Morrish and Lewis ostensibly gave rights to Derleth and Wandrei is not clear about what rights are being transferred, and many dispute whether copyrights were actually transferred by this agreement. The question is whether granting "the right to publish H. P. Lovecraft's work," and "sell second serial rights" constitutes giving them full copyrights or just amounts to giving them permission to publish and collect the royalties.

All of this would be moot if the copyrights weren't renewed. Even if there is no evidence of renewal, it's possible that when Darleth and Wandrei renewed the copyrights to collections in which Lovecraft's works were republished, this constituted renewal of the copyright on those works; it's also possible renewals were made that have simply not been found. Karr concludes that all of Lovecraft's work are in the public domain, based on arguments used by Arkham House in a much later lawsuit with Wandrei. The lawsuit was over disputed royalties apparently owed to Wandrei. Arkham house used the argument that Wandrei was not owed royalties because he lacked the rights to the relevant works because the copyrights were never renewed. Karr takes this as definitive, since it is the statement of the publishing house itself that the publishing house did not own the rights to any of the works of Lovecraft that might be under copyright. I'm not so confident that Karr is right, since it's entirely possible that Arkham House is mistaken and such a statement in the context of a lawsuit needn't be legally binding, and Karr notes that Arkham house and the reconstituted Lovecraft estate still claim to the own the copyrights (for example, copyright notices of Lovecraft Properties LLC, the reconstituted Lovecraft estate, here and here). But, without any records of renewal, it's about the strongest evidence available.

For my money, I'd say all of Lovecraft's are probably in the public domain (possibly excepting writings published posthumously, such as "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward), but there really is no answer to the question of their copyright status. Were the rights properly renewed? Were they transferred to Arkham House? Copyright law has been stretched so far into the past that lost documentation, orphaned works and uncertainties about ownership become more and more problematic. All we can say is that if someone were to challenge copyright ownership, a court would be able to come to a decision, but the decision could go either way. It's doubtful it'll be worth anyone's time and money to try and resolve this in court, and this makes the situation de facto as if the copyrights still hold, since no one wants to risk getting sued (thought the copyright holders haven't, at least so far been zealous in pursuing their lawsuits). So, long as no one challenges their claim, the persons claiming own the rights, own them by default. And the issue won't really be resolved until 2032 when the last of Lovecraft's works published in his lifetime will enter the public domain (and I'm excluding the few posthumous publications, which appeared as late as 1944), unless there's another copyright extension, which would just push all of this mess forward.

All of this really illustrates the absurdity of copyright law, which only grows more absurd the further copyrights are extended. Today, copyright law covers works published before 1978 for 95 years after their publication and 70 years after the death of the author for works published since 1978. Such a term undermines the original intention of copyright law, namely to encourage the creation of art. Not only do rights devolve to people who have no part in the creation of original works, but the longer the term, the more copyright holders invest in protecting valuable copyrights and the less they invest in creating new copyrightable works. But, just as I said before, assuming that copyright law should actually abide by its purported rationale assumes that copyright law actually makes sense.

The Eldritch Quagmire of Lovecraft's Copyrights

Birthers and belief

With the release of President Obama's long form birth certificate today you'd think this would be the end of the so called birther movement. Sadly, this may not be the case. I'm going to make a prediction and say that, though this movement will become further marginalized, I don't think it'll disappear. The reason I think this is not because there is anything like significant evidence that Obama was born outside the US, but because of the nature of human belief. I think this can be illustrated two ways.

We might first illustrate this with a story. In fact, we'll illustrate it with two stories. First, we have the case of Shabbethai Zebi (aka Sabbatai Zevi), a 17th century Jew living in the Levant under Ottoman rule who became convinced that he was the messiah. He was apparently a charismatic figure, who gained quite a following, on the conviction that he was the long-awaited messiah who was going to lead the Jews to independence and victory over their current ruler, the Ottoman empire, under Sultan Mehmet IV. He was a powerful figure in the Jewish community, garnered a huge following, and ultimately went to Istanbul convinced that, perhaps through some miracle, he would replace the sultan as leader of the Ottomans and would wear the sultans crown on his head. It didn't work out that way, and he was quickly imprisoned. He made a good enough impression on the Ottoman leadership that they permitted him to join the court, if he converted to Islam. And that's what he did. He converted to Islam. Understandably, this was devastating to the great movement that followed him, since it profoundly disconfirmed everything they'd been led to believe, but it didn't entirely kill it. Those who weren't disenchanted by his conversion started the Sabbatean movement, which is still alive today in Turkey. The movement is characterized by Jews who openly practice Muslim ways, but secretly subscribe to Jewish beliefs and await the return Shabbethai as a messiah.

Another similar case is the Paul is Dead conspiracy theory. This one began in 1969 as just a rumor in the US that Paul McCartney of the Beatles was dead. The rumor quickly gained speed, spreading across college campuses and into mainstream news. It was able to build up so much momentum because at the time Paul McCartney was out of touch; he was way out in his Scottish retreat with his wife, trying to deliberately cut himself off from the world for a little while to get a break. The rumor became popular because the Beatles had apparently hidden all types of clues in their songs and album art. For example, people claimed that the shrubbery on the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band is a grave, that the cover of Abbey Road is a funeral procession with Paul as the deceased, or that the "Number 9" voice on "Revolution 9" played backwards sounded like "Turn me on dead man." The shear number of ostensible clues that have been found is astounding, mind-blowing, and you could see and hear them all for yourself if you owned the albums. The whole rumor was quickly killed within a couple weeks when a reporter from Life tracked down Paul at his Scottish retreat and got some pictures and an interview. Most people were reassured and chuckled to themselves at how such a rumor got so out of control. But not everyone was convinced, and there are people to this day who believe that Paul died and was replaced by a lookalike.

What are we to make of these stories? We can also think of it in terms of W. V. O. Quine's concept of the web of belief. The idea is that we have many beliefs which are interconnected and which confirm one another. When new evidence is presented which perhaps shakes up or disconfirms these beliefs, we have to adjust these beliefs to accommodate it. Usually, we adjust the beliefs that are at the edge of our web of belief, the one's that are the least foundational. At the center are the beliefs that are pretty much unchanging and are the foundation for all other beliefs. Quine identified things like logic and beliefs about experience (for example, that sensory experience is largely accurate) and perhaps basic tenets about science as most foundational. But then again these foundation beliefs could vary from person to person. For some people a core belief might be a belief in God or a belief in the superiority of scientific method. These beliefs are the things that most identify us, so we are going to always try to change our other beliefs to preserve these central beliefs, no matter what the new evidence is. This core of our web of belief could be any ideology, say Marxism or Catholicism or Keynesianism or Platonism or whatever. And in fact, it could be some sort more marginal ideology like being a Holocaust denier, or a Moon Landing Denier, or a believer in Shape-shifting Lizard Aliens, or a birther. If you look hard enough and are creative enough, you can find evidence for anything and figure out ways to deny any contrary evidence. If it's important enough to you to preserve those beliefs, you can find a way.

With the release of President Obama's long form birth certificate today you'd think this would be the end of the so called birther movement. Sadly, this may not be the case. I'm going to make a prediction and say that, though this movement will become further marginalized, I don't think it'll disappear. The reason I think this is not because there is anything like significant evidence that Obama was born outside the US, but because of the nature of human belief. I think this can be illustrated two ways.

We might first illustrate this with a story. In fact, we'll illustrate it with two stories. First, we have the case of Shabbethai Zebi (aka Sabbatai Zevi), a 17th century Jew living in the Levant under Ottoman rule who became convinced that he was the messiah. He was apparently a charismatic figure, who gained quite a following, on the conviction that he was the long-awaited messiah who was going to lead the Jews to independence and victory over their current ruler, the Ottoman empire, under Sultan Mehmet IV. He was a powerful figure in the Jewish community, garnered a huge following, and ultimately went to Istanbul convinced that, perhaps through some miracle, he would replace the sultan as leader of the Ottomans and would wear the sultans crown on his head. It didn't work out that way, and he was quickly imprisoned. He made a good enough impression on the Ottoman leadership that they permitted him to join the court, if he converted to Islam. And that's what he did. He converted to Islam. Understandably, this was devastating to the great movement that followed him, since it profoundly disconfirmed everything they'd been led to believe, but it didn't entirely kill it. Those who weren't disenchanted by his conversion started the Sabbatean movement, which is still alive today in Turkey. The movement is characterized by Jews who openly practice Muslim ways, but secretly subscribe to Jewish beliefs and await the return Shabbethai as a messiah.

Another similar case is the Paul is Dead conspiracy theory. This one began in 1969 as just a rumor in the US that Paul McCartney of the Beatles was dead. The rumor quickly gained speed, spreading across college campuses and into mainstream news. It was able to build up so much momentum because at the time Paul McCartney was out of touch; he was way out in his Scottish retreat with his wife, trying to deliberately cut himself off from the world for a little while to get a break. The rumor became popular because the Beatles had apparently hidden all types of clues in their songs and album art. For example, people claimed that the shrubbery on the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band is a grave, that the cover of Abbey Road is a funeral procession with Paul as the deceased, or that the "Number 9" voice on "Revolution 9" played backwards sounded like "Turn me on dead man." The shear number of ostensible clues that have been found is astounding, mind-blowing, and you could see and hear them all for yourself if you owned the albums. The whole rumor was quickly killed within a couple weeks when a reporter from Life tracked down Paul at his Scottish retreat and got some pictures and an interview. Most people were reassured and chuckled to themselves at how such a rumor got so out of control. But not everyone was convinced, and there are people to this day who believe that Paul died and was replaced by a lookalike.

What are we to make of these stories? We can also think of it in terms of W. V. O. Quine's concept of the web of belief. The idea is that we have many beliefs which are interconnected and which confirm one another. When new evidence is presented which perhaps shakes up or disconfirms these beliefs, we have to adjust these beliefs to accommodate it. Usually, we adjust the beliefs that are at the edge of our web of belief, the one's that are the least foundational. At the center are the beliefs that are pretty much unchanging and are the foundation for all other beliefs. Quine identified things like logic and beliefs about experience (for example, that sensory experience is largely accurate) and perhaps basic tenets about science as most foundational. But then again these foundation beliefs could vary from person to person. For some people a core belief might be a belief in God or a belief in the superiority of scientific method. These beliefs are the things that most identify us, so we are going to always try to change our other beliefs to preserve these central beliefs, no matter what the new evidence is. This core of our web of belief could be any ideology, say Marxism or Catholicism or Keynesianism or Platonism or whatever. And in fact, it could be some sort more marginal ideology like being a Holocaust denier, or a Moon Landing Denier, or a believer in Shape-shifting Lizard Aliens, or a birther. If you look hard enough and are creative enough, you can find evidence for anything and figure out ways to deny any contrary evidence. If it's important enough to you to preserve those beliefs, you can find a way.

Birthers and belief

In search of the Villa-Diodata

When I was taking my Junior Year abroad at Exeter University in England, I spent a long spring break traveling through Europe, first to Prague, then to Venice, and finally to Paris. But I had to decided that I wanted to make a stop in between Paris and Venice. I hadn't been sure where to go, thinking maybe Barcelona would be nice, but a bit out of the way.

At the time I was trying to catch up on my reading for my 19th century literature class, reading through Dracula, Tennyson's In Memorium and Bronte's Villette. While in Venice, though, trying to decide on where to go next, I was finishing up Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Among the Appendices to my edition were a short story called Vampyre by John Polidori and a fragment of a novel by Byron. As I read, I discovered the reason why these were included in the appendix. At the time of the composition of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley was 18 and her name was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She was the daughter of notable political thinker William Godwin and early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Her father had attracted a follower in poet Percy Shelley, and at the age of 16, Mary Godwin started a romantic relationship with this married man. In the interim, Mary's stepsister, the energetic and beautiful Claire Clairmont began a relationship with Lord Byron, and through her Percy and Byron became acquainted. Byron grew tired of Claire quickly, but she continued to pursue him, now pregnant with his child, and sought to visit him at his villa in Switzerland, the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. In 1816, to persuade Byron, Claire brought along Mary and Percy so the three could meet. The four of them, along with Byron's physician John Polidori spent the summer there, initiating a rather productive period of writing for Byron, Percy and Mary. One night after reading some ghost stories, Byron suggested they write their own horror stories. Byron himself started a story, which he quickly abandoned, and it was picked up by Polidori who created Vampyre, the first vampire story in English, featuring a Lord-Byron-like vampire, which would influence later horror writers, like Bram Stoker. But even more notable was the story that Mary would start to write, a story that Percy would encourage her to continue and would eventually become Frankenstein. Later in 1816, Percy's first wife committed suicide and Percy and Mary were finally able to marry, and she changed her named to Mary Shelley from then on.

Reading about this while I was in Venice, I thought that it would be interesting to visit Geneva and make a pilgrimage to this literary site. I took the train to Geneva and stayed at a hostel in the city. I tried to visit the Villa Diodati, finding the neighborhood where it was located in the northeastern part of the city. I'm sure I saw the villa, but I wasn't able to determine which, among several villas in the vicinity was the Villa Diodati, and eventually gave up, walking down the Chemin Byron towards the edge of Lake Geneva.

When I was taking my Junior Year abroad at Exeter University in England, I spent a long spring break traveling through Europe, first to Prague, then to Venice, and finally to Paris. But I had to decided that I wanted to make a stop in between Paris and Venice. I hadn't been sure where to go, thinking maybe Barcelona would be nice, but a bit out of the way.

At the time I was trying to catch up on my reading for my 19th century literature class, reading through Dracula, Tennyson's In Memorium and Bronte's Villette. While in Venice, though, trying to decide on where to go next, I was finishing up Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Among the Appendices to my edition were a short story called Vampyre by John Polidori and a fragment of a novel by Byron. As I read, I discovered the reason why these were included in the appendix. At the time of the composition of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley was 18 and her name was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She was the daughter of notable political thinker William Godwin and early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Her father had attracted a follower in poet Percy Shelley, and at the age of 16, Mary Godwin started a romantic relationship with this married man. In the interim, Mary's stepsister, the energetic and beautiful Claire Clairmont began a relationship with Lord Byron, and through her Percy and Byron became acquainted. Byron grew tired of Claire quickly, but she continued to pursue him, now pregnant with his child, and sought to visit him at his villa in Switzerland, the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. In 1816, to persuade Byron, Claire brought along Mary and Percy so the three could meet. The four of them, along with Byron's physician John Polidori spent the summer there, initiating a rather productive period of writing for Byron, Percy and Mary. One night after reading some ghost stories, Byron suggested they write their own horror stories. Byron himself started a story, which he quickly abandoned, and it was picked up by Polidori who created Vampyre, the first vampire story in English, featuring a Lord-Byron-like vampire, which would influence later horror writers, like Bram Stoker. But even more notable was the story that Mary would start to write, a story that Percy would encourage her to continue and would eventually become Frankenstein. Later in 1816, Percy's first wife committed suicide and Percy and Mary were finally able to marry, and she changed her named to Mary Shelley from then on.

Reading about this while I was in Venice, I thought that it would be interesting to visit Geneva and make a pilgrimage to this literary site. I took the train to Geneva and stayed at a hostel in the city. I tried to visit the Villa Diodati, finding the neighborhood where it was located in the northeastern part of the city. I'm sure I saw the villa, but I wasn't able to determine which, among several villas in the vicinity was the Villa Diodati, and eventually gave up, walking down the Chemin Byron towards the edge of Lake Geneva.

In search of the Villa-Diodata

Battle of Cunaxa

In 401 BC, king Artaxerxes younger brother, Cyrus the Younger, led a battle against his brother to try and seize the Persian throne. From Cyrus' perspective, Artaxerxes has been unjustly given the kingship upon his father's death, and it was up to him to seize it back by force. Cyrus gathered a large army of Persian native with grievances against Artaxerxes, but he was forced to supplement this army with a large number of Greek mercenaries. The mercenaries were hired in a very secretive manner, believing they were to help the Persians squash a local rebellion. It wasn't until they had arrived in Persia and already marched for several days, when they were told what was going on. They were understandably reluctant, but Cyrus was ultimately able to coax them to continue with more money.

When Cyrus finally met up Artaxerxes troops for battle, the Persian troops were being led by Tissaphernes, who was a very shrewd and able military strategist. Cyrus had his troops arrayed with himself leading in the middle, with Ariaeus, a Persian, leading a number of Persian natives on the left, and with Clearchus, a Spartan, leading the Greek mercenaries on the right.

Xenophon is our best source for this battle, giving the most detail and having the advantage of being there, so we get the most information from the perspective of him and his fellow Greek troops on the right. The battle they saw was a strong Greek victory, with the Greeks driving back and putting into flight the Persian troops that faced them. As far as they saw it, and the way that Xenophon describes it, it looks like a clear victory. But in the middle of the fray, where Tissaphernes and Cyrus were fighting, things didn't quite go the same. Cyrus faced tough opposition. It has been suggested that Tissaphernes deliberately made his left side (facing the Greeks on the right) weak and had them retreat, in order to distract them and essentially remove them from the battle, while Tissaphernes focused on Cyrus who he wanted to defeat and hopefully kill. Whether this was his deliberate strategy or not, Cyrus and Ariaeus were successfully beaten back and Cyrus was ultimately killed in battle.

Since the Greeks thought they were the victors, they believed that Artaxerxes was defeated and must cede his crown. They even nominated Ariaeus, the most senior Persian on their side still living, king, but he sensibly declined.

In fact, saw the situation as an opportunity to win back his favor with Artaxerxes, and started to scheme with Tissaphernes to betray the Greek generals. Meno, the Thessalian general who was the subject of Plato's dialogue (mentioned in the last post) was, according to Xenophon, quite intimate with Ariaeus (perhaps even romantically intimate) and he met and Ariaeus met with Tissaphernes and participated in their scheming. Ariaeus and Meno then arranged for the Greek generals, including Clearchus, along with many officers and soldiers to meet with Tissaphernes, to arrange some sort of agreement on their safe departure out of Persia. Meno, at this point, played a role in persuading the reluctant Greeks that this meeting was legitimate and Tissaphernes could be trusted.

When the main Greek generals with their retinue of officers and soldiers met with Tissaphernes, though, they were completely betrayed. A few soldiers escaped and ran back to the Greek troops to warn them of the betrayal. The rest were all slain, including the Greek generals, except for Meno. At this point our historical sources appear to diverge. Diodorus and Ctesias both simply say that Meno was spared. Xenophon, though, says that Meno was only spared for the time being, and that he was ultimately imprisoned and tortured for a full year before he was finally killed.

Personally, I tend to subscribe to Xenophon's story. The reasons are for one that Diodorus and Ctesias merely say that Meno was spared, which is not necessarily in conflict with the story that he was spared for the time being but killed much later. In fact, the Persians didn't kill any of the Greek generals right away; they were put in chains and sent to Artaxerxes at Babylon. Attempts were even made to save Clearchus' life before it was finally decided to kill him. Perhaps, it simply ended up being the case that they were indecisive about what to do with Meno for a very long time.

It also is wouldn't be entirely implausible if Ariaeus, despite being close to Meno, betrayed him. The only other major story we have of Ariaeus, outside the events surrounding the Battle of Cunaxa, is a time when he betrayed Tissaphernes, the Persian general at the Battle of Cunaxa. Ariaeus, under orders from Tithraustes, invited Tissaphernes to visit. Tissaphernes apparently trusted Ariaeus, since he came without his bodyguards. Ariaeus offered Tissaphernes a bath, and then while he was unarmed in the bath, Ariaeus and his servants rushed him, tied him up and sent him off to Tithraustes. Tithraustes beheaded Tissaphernes under orders from king Artaxerxes and took Tissaphernes' Satrapi. So, Ariaeus may not have been the most trustworthy friend.

Returning to the Greeks at the Battle of Cunaxa, as noted, those left were warned by some survivors of the betrayal of Tissaphernes. For them, problems were only beginning. Now they were in the middle of hostile and unfamiliar territory, already weakened by battle and with their leaders dead. If you've read the Anabasis (or seen The Warriors) you know that they decided not to surrender to the Persians. They fought their way out of Persia on a long march to the sea, which they ultimately reached and from which they could arrange transportation home to Greece.

In 401 BC, king Artaxerxes younger brother, Cyrus the Younger, led a battle against his brother to try and seize the Persian throne. From Cyrus' perspective, Artaxerxes has been unjustly given the kingship upon his father's death, and it was up to him to seize it back by force. Cyrus gathered a large army of Persian native with grievances against Artaxerxes, but he was forced to supplement this army with a large number of Greek mercenaries. The mercenaries were hired in a very secretive manner, believing they were to help the Persians squash a local rebellion. It wasn't until they had arrived in Persia and already marched for several days, when they were told what was going on. They were understandably reluctant, but Cyrus was ultimately able to coax them to continue with more money.

When Cyrus finally met up Artaxerxes troops for battle, the Persian troops were being led by Tissaphernes, who was a very shrewd and able military strategist. Cyrus had his troops arrayed with himself leading in the middle, with Ariaeus, a Persian, leading a number of Persian natives on the left, and with Clearchus, a Spartan, leading the Greek mercenaries on the right.

Xenophon is our best source for this battle, giving the most detail and having the advantage of being there, so we get the most information from the perspective of him and his fellow Greek troops on the right. The battle they saw was a strong Greek victory, with the Greeks driving back and putting into flight the Persian troops that faced them. As far as they saw it, and the way that Xenophon describes it, it looks like a clear victory. But in the middle of the fray, where Tissaphernes and Cyrus were fighting, things didn't quite go the same. Cyrus faced tough opposition. It has been suggested that Tissaphernes deliberately made his left side (facing the Greeks on the right) weak and had them retreat, in order to distract them and essentially remove them from the battle, while Tissaphernes focused on Cyrus who he wanted to defeat and hopefully kill. Whether this was his deliberate strategy or not, Cyrus and Ariaeus were successfully beaten back and Cyrus was ultimately killed in battle.

Since the Greeks thought they were the victors, they believed that Artaxerxes was defeated and must cede his crown. They even nominated Ariaeus, the most senior Persian on their side still living, king, but he sensibly declined.

In fact, saw the situation as an opportunity to win back his favor with Artaxerxes, and started to scheme with Tissaphernes to betray the Greek generals. Meno, the Thessalian general who was the subject of Plato's dialogue (mentioned in the last post) was, according to Xenophon, quite intimate with Ariaeus (perhaps even romantically intimate) and he met and Ariaeus met with Tissaphernes and participated in their scheming. Ariaeus and Meno then arranged for the Greek generals, including Clearchus, along with many officers and soldiers to meet with Tissaphernes, to arrange some sort of agreement on their safe departure out of Persia. Meno, at this point, played a role in persuading the reluctant Greeks that this meeting was legitimate and Tissaphernes could be trusted.

When the main Greek generals with their retinue of officers and soldiers met with Tissaphernes, though, they were completely betrayed. A few soldiers escaped and ran back to the Greek troops to warn them of the betrayal. The rest were all slain, including the Greek generals, except for Meno. At this point our historical sources appear to diverge. Diodorus and Ctesias both simply say that Meno was spared. Xenophon, though, says that Meno was only spared for the time being, and that he was ultimately imprisoned and tortured for a full year before he was finally killed.

Personally, I tend to subscribe to Xenophon's story. The reasons are for one that Diodorus and Ctesias merely say that Meno was spared, which is not necessarily in conflict with the story that he was spared for the time being but killed much later. In fact, the Persians didn't kill any of the Greek generals right away; they were put in chains and sent to Artaxerxes at Babylon. Attempts were even made to save Clearchus' life before it was finally decided to kill him. Perhaps, it simply ended up being the case that they were indecisive about what to do with Meno for a very long time.

It also is wouldn't be entirely implausible if Ariaeus, despite being close to Meno, betrayed him. The only other major story we have of Ariaeus, outside the events surrounding the Battle of Cunaxa, is a time when he betrayed Tissaphernes, the Persian general at the Battle of Cunaxa. Ariaeus, under orders from Tithraustes, invited Tissaphernes to visit. Tissaphernes apparently trusted Ariaeus, since he came without his bodyguards. Ariaeus offered Tissaphernes a bath, and then while he was unarmed in the bath, Ariaeus and his servants rushed him, tied him up and sent him off to Tithraustes. Tithraustes beheaded Tissaphernes under orders from king Artaxerxes and took Tissaphernes' Satrapi. So, Ariaeus may not have been the most trustworthy friend.

Returning to the Greeks at the Battle of Cunaxa, as noted, those left were warned by some survivors of the betrayal of Tissaphernes. For them, problems were only beginning. Now they were in the middle of hostile and unfamiliar territory, already weakened by battle and with their leaders dead. If you've read the Anabasis (or seen The Warriors) you know that they decided not to surrender to the Persians. They fought their way out of Persia on a long march to the sea, which they ultimately reached and from which they could arrange transportation home to Greece.

Battle of Cunaxa

Ancient historical research.

Doing historical research on Ancient events and persons is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, since there aren't many available sources, it's difficult - the details of ancient events can be vague and indeterminate and leave many questions and require much careful analysis. On the other hand, since there aren't many available sources, it's easy - it's pretty quick and easy to read through all available sources on many ancient events and persons.

Such is the case with the Battle of Cunaxa, a 5th century BC battle between the Persian king Artaxerxes II and his younger brother, Cyrus the Younger. There are four, and (I'm pretty sure only four), ancient sources of information about this battle, the Anabasis, by Xenophon (which details Xenophon's experience with the Greek mercenaries called on to help in the battle, who afterwards had to fight their way out of Persia, and is also the basis of the 1979 cult movie The Warriors), Photius' summary of Ctesias' Persica (a summary of a now lost work of history by Artaxerxes' physician), Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes (one of several biographies by Plutarch, written some 500 years later), and Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca Historica (a broad sweeping history which attempts to tell a complete history of everything from the beginning of history, to his own day in the 1st century AD). You could gather together everything said in these primary sources about the Battle of Cunaxa into a few pages of text. Admittedly, it helps to know a lot about background, context, culture and so on, but such is the case with all history.

I first did some research on the Battle of Cunaxa when I was doing a paper on Plato's dialogue, the Meno. I was trying to help clarify that dialogue, which was about what is virtue and whether it could be taught, by talking about the life story of Meno and how it related to the philosophical message of the dialogue. Meno was among the Greek generals called to Cunaxa and features prominently in the early sections of the Anabasis. He was a young man who led a contingent of Thessalian troops, but, unfortunately, came to a rather bad end (which I'll discuss in my next post). Since, a Greek person reading Plato's Meno (written well after the events in question) would have been familiar with this history, I thought it might help to detail it. Thus, I delved into the rather scant information available on Meno and the Battle of Cunaxa, and very quickly became a leading expert on the life of Meno (which really isn't that hard and not something I should be too proud of, but we all got to have our accomplishments). Suffice it to say, I'm not going to start teaching classes on Meno, or create a Meno major for college students, since there isn't much to say. But I still quite enjoy Ancient historical research.

Doing historical research on Ancient events and persons is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, since there aren't many available sources, it's difficult - the details of ancient events can be vague and indeterminate and leave many questions and require much careful analysis. On the other hand, since there aren't many available sources, it's easy - it's pretty quick and easy to read through all available sources on many ancient events and persons.

Such is the case with the Battle of Cunaxa, a 5th century BC battle between the Persian king Artaxerxes II and his younger brother, Cyrus the Younger. There are four, and (I'm pretty sure only four), ancient sources of information about this battle, the Anabasis, by Xenophon (which details Xenophon's experience with the Greek mercenaries called on to help in the battle, who afterwards had to fight their way out of Persia, and is also the basis of the 1979 cult movie The Warriors), Photius' summary of Ctesias' Persica (a summary of a now lost work of history by Artaxerxes' physician), Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes (one of several biographies by Plutarch, written some 500 years later), and Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca Historica (a broad sweeping history which attempts to tell a complete history of everything from the beginning of history, to his own day in the 1st century AD). You could gather together everything said in these primary sources about the Battle of Cunaxa into a few pages of text. Admittedly, it helps to know a lot about background, context, culture and so on, but such is the case with all history.

I first did some research on the Battle of Cunaxa when I was doing a paper on Plato's dialogue, the Meno. I was trying to help clarify that dialogue, which was about what is virtue and whether it could be taught, by talking about the life story of Meno and how it related to the philosophical message of the dialogue. Meno was among the Greek generals called to Cunaxa and features prominently in the early sections of the Anabasis. He was a young man who led a contingent of Thessalian troops, but, unfortunately, came to a rather bad end (which I'll discuss in my next post). Since, a Greek person reading Plato's Meno (written well after the events in question) would have been familiar with this history, I thought it might help to detail it. Thus, I delved into the rather scant information available on Meno and the Battle of Cunaxa, and very quickly became a leading expert on the life of Meno (which really isn't that hard and not something I should be too proud of, but we all got to have our accomplishments). Suffice it to say, I'm not going to start teaching classes on Meno, or create a Meno major for college students, since there isn't much to say. But I still quite enjoy Ancient historical research.

Ancient historical research.

April Fools Pranks

The Museum of Hoaxes wrote a few years ago their Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes, and it's quite a treasure if you haven't read it yet. Some of my favorite are the 1976 hoax by British astronomer Patrick Moore announced that a special alignment with Pluto would temporarily reduce the earth's gravity and that if you were to jump at just the right moment, you would experience a strange floating sensation. Unsurprisingly, people reported that they did feel this sensation. Amazing the type of things you can convince people that they can perceive.

Or there's the 1933 report that the Wisconsin State Capitol building had collapsed due to a series of internal explosions; these explosions were caused by the voluminous amount of hot air being spewed by politicians.

Then there was the great comic strip switcheroonie of 1997, which I actually remember. I remember opening the comics and thinking, "These comics look different," until I finally figured out what was going on. All the major comic strip writers wrote each other's comics strips for that day. You can see examples of it here. I seriously wish they would do this every year, but Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott who orchestrated the switcheroonie found out it was way too much work to organize and so haven't tried it again.

When I was in college I remember two acquaintances pulling the most unusual prank I think I've heard of. These two guys went to a pet store and they bought about fifty small fish. Then they took these fish and put them in water in fifty small plastic cups in this girl's room. And just to add to it, they individually named each and every fish. The girls spent like the next week or so trying to find homes for all these fish. How does one even come up with such an off the wall prank like that?

Pogue at the New York Times has a summary of some of the pranks today.

The Museum of Hoaxes wrote a few years ago their Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes, and it's quite a treasure if you haven't read it yet. Some of my favorite are the 1976 hoax by British astronomer Patrick Moore announced that a special alignment with Pluto would temporarily reduce the earth's gravity and that if you were to jump at just the right moment, you would experience a strange floating sensation. Unsurprisingly, people reported that they did feel this sensation. Amazing the type of things you can convince people that they can perceive.

Or there's the 1933 report that the Wisconsin State Capitol building had collapsed due to a series of internal explosions; these explosions were caused by the voluminous amount of hot air being spewed by politicians.

Then there was the great comic strip switcheroonie of 1997, which I actually remember. I remember opening the comics and thinking, "These comics look different," until I finally figured out what was going on. All the major comic strip writers wrote each other's comics strips for that day. You can see examples of it here. I seriously wish they would do this every year, but Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott who orchestrated the switcheroonie found out it was way too much work to organize and so haven't tried it again.

When I was in college I remember two acquaintances pulling the most unusual prank I think I've heard of. These two guys went to a pet store and they bought about fifty small fish. Then they took these fish and put them in water in fifty small plastic cups in this girl's room. And just to add to it, they individually named each and every fish. The girls spent like the next week or so trying to find homes for all these fish. How does one even come up with such an off the wall prank like that?

Pogue at the New York Times has a summary of some of the pranks today.

April Fools Pranks

Gantry Plaza 2

PLong Island-Gantry Plaza a photo by allistair on Flickr.

I mentioned in my previous entry about coming across Gantry Plaza quite by accident. What makes it most interesting is the evident history behind it. You can see in the sitting area, around the benches, the remnants of train tracks that the Long Island Railroad used to use to ride the train cars up to the water's edge. The buildings you see are gantry cranes, which would lift the train cars onto massive barges, so they could be ferried back and forth from Manhattan. It was cumbersome work, so when it could be done more efficiently by bridge, these gantries went out of use and mostly were just left to rust. In the late 90s, the state decided to restore the area and turn it into a park. The gantries are just a part of the Gantry Plaza State Park, which extends up the East River coastline to the famous Pepsi sign.

PLong Island-Gantry Plaza a photo by allistair on Flickr.

I mentioned in my previous entry about coming across Gantry Plaza quite by accident. What makes it most interesting is the evident history behind it. You can see in the sitting area, around the benches, the remnants of train tracks that the Long Island Railroad used to use to ride the train cars up to the water's edge. The buildings you see are gantry cranes, which would lift the train cars onto massive barges, so they could be ferried back and forth from Manhattan. It was cumbersome work, so when it could be done more efficiently by bridge, these gantries went out of use and mostly were just left to rust. In the late 90s, the state decided to restore the area and turn it into a park. The gantries are just a part of the Gantry Plaza State Park, which extends up the East River coastline to the famous Pepsi sign.

Gantry Plaza 2

Priam's Treasure

There's a famous story in the life of Heinrich Schliemann, the famed archeologist and excavator of Troy, involving his discovery of "Priam's Treasure." Apparently, he saw a glint of gold peaking out from under the dirt. Not trusting his workers, he called them away and then extracted it himself with his wife. They had to rush to dig it up and gather it all together in her shawl since an overhanging wall was about to collapse. The ultimate result was a king's ransom of precious artifacts, which Schliemann dubbed "Priam's Treasure." What's most interesting about this story is that the wholes story is a fabrication. Schliemann's wife was not present at the time, and these artifacts were not found in one place at one time. Schliemann made up the story.

In fact, Schliemann had a had a habit of making up stories. It has even been documented that in his journal, he recorded stories (ostensibly only to himself) that were made up or significantly altered. It makes one wonder, what he was doing. Was Schliemann lying to himself? Was he rehearsing and refining his stories in his journals? Or did he just remember the stories poorly and indulge in a habit of embellishing with details, when he couldn't remember?

From personal experience, I can say that sometime there are critical details of a faded memory that you sort of have to add back in to make it into a good story. Certainly, it'd be better if you remembered exactly how it happened, but second best is to add a detail or two that's in the spirit of the original event, though maybe not quite historically accurate. Thucydides admitted in his history to simply writing the speeches he puts in his characters mouth himself, either reconstructing them from what details he could gather, or simply making them up based on what seemed appropriate for the occasion.

On the other hand, it's also true that our memory isn't so reliable as it seems. Stories are transformed in the process of telling and retelling them. Language has a way of intruding on our memory. We remember certain things non-linguistically with astonishing accuracy, such as a person's face, their voice, even their smell. But when we try to put memories in words, it can tend to distort, the original memory, especially with memories that aren't as clear. Just as reading a story elicits images in our head, the recounting of a story can elicit images just as much based on (if not more so) the description of the event as on the original event. After many retellings of a story it can move further and further away from its original content. Something to bear in mind as one tries to recount one's memory.

What we do know ultimately about Priam's Treasure, is that Schliemann smuggled it out of the Ottoman Empire to Germany. Part of it was returned to Turkey, but most of it was kept by Germany. It disappeared after World War II, but eventually resurfaced in Russia, as the Russians had stolen it during their 1945 invasion of Berlin.

There's a famous story in the life of Heinrich Schliemann, the famed archeologist and excavator of Troy, involving his discovery of "Priam's Treasure." Apparently, he saw a glint of gold peaking out from under the dirt. Not trusting his workers, he called them away and then extracted it himself with his wife. They had to rush to dig it up and gather it all together in her shawl since an overhanging wall was about to collapse. The ultimate result was a king's ransom of precious artifacts, which Schliemann dubbed "Priam's Treasure." What's most interesting about this story is that the wholes story is a fabrication. Schliemann's wife was not present at the time, and these artifacts were not found in one place at one time. Schliemann made up the story.

In fact, Schliemann had a had a habit of making up stories. It has even been documented that in his journal, he recorded stories (ostensibly only to himself) that were made up or significantly altered. It makes one wonder, what he was doing. Was Schliemann lying to himself? Was he rehearsing and refining his stories in his journals? Or did he just remember the stories poorly and indulge in a habit of embellishing with details, when he couldn't remember?

From personal experience, I can say that sometime there are critical details of a faded memory that you sort of have to add back in to make it into a good story. Certainly, it'd be better if you remembered exactly how it happened, but second best is to add a detail or two that's in the spirit of the original event, though maybe not quite historically accurate. Thucydides admitted in his history to simply writing the speeches he puts in his characters mouth himself, either reconstructing them from what details he could gather, or simply making them up based on what seemed appropriate for the occasion.

On the other hand, it's also true that our memory isn't so reliable as it seems. Stories are transformed in the process of telling and retelling them. Language has a way of intruding on our memory. We remember certain things non-linguistically with astonishing accuracy, such as a person's face, their voice, even their smell. But when we try to put memories in words, it can tend to distort, the original memory, especially with memories that aren't as clear. Just as reading a story elicits images in our head, the recounting of a story can elicit images just as much based on (if not more so) the description of the event as on the original event. After many retellings of a story it can move further and further away from its original content. Something to bear in mind as one tries to recount one's memory.

What we do know ultimately about Priam's Treasure, is that Schliemann smuggled it out of the Ottoman Empire to Germany. Part of it was returned to Turkey, but most of it was kept by Germany. It disappeared after World War II, but eventually resurfaced in Russia, as the Russians had stolen it during their 1945 invasion of Berlin.

Priam's Treasure

The Phibionites

I just finished read Bart Ehrman's book Peter, Paul & Mary, which I enjoyed, about the life of the three followers of Jesus - Simon Peter, Paul of Tarsus and Mary Magdalene. And in one his sections on later legends about Mary, he notes the story of the Phibionites (or Borborites as they're also called), who took Mary to be of central importance to their doctrine. And the practices attributed to the Phibionites are quite interesting.

We only have two sources for description of the beliefs of the Phibionites, Theodoret and Epiphanius of Salamis, and it's only in Epiphanius' description in The Panarion that we find the more sordid details. Before telling us about these intriguing practices, Epiphanius acknowledges that, though "It is a shame even to speak of the things that are done of [the disobedient] in secret"(25 2,5, [trans. Frank Williams], quoting Ephesians 5:12), he will tells us about these secret practices, not in order to titillate us (in his words "not to dirty the ears of the listeners or readers"), but to excite our enmity against these Phibionites (25 3,3). And what are these secret practices that it is a shame to speak of? To begin with, Epiphanius says that during communion, after feasting (communion was more commonly a potluck feast at this time in Christian history than just consuming wafers and wine) they would partner-swap. In his words, each would man tell his wife "Get up perform the Agape [Christian love] with the brother"(26 4,4), at which point, the wife would go have sex with some other man.

But Epiphanius is not done at this point, and he braces his readers for these even more sordid detail, noting again that though it may be shameless to relate these things, these Phibionites are much more shameless in doing them. He tells us that the men climax by ejaculating into each others' hands. Then they raise their hands, saying "We offer this gift, the body of Christ" and they both consume the sperm (26 4,4-7). In other words, they eat sperm instead of bread for the communion

Now, you might be wondering, "Ok, so they've got the first part of the communion, with the body of Christ. But what about the other part? Did they do something to consume the blood of Christ?" Well, I'm glad you asked. In fact they do. They used menses for this purpose. While saying "This is the blood of Christ" they, in Epiphanius' words, "likewise take the unclean menstrual blood they gather from her, and eat in common," (26 4,8).

Surprisingly, it actually gets worse. According to Epiphanius they extolled non-procreative sex and forbade procreation (at least in the context of the ritual, one presumes). For this reason, if one of the women got pregnant during the ritual, they would extract the fetus. Then they would grind it up, spice it with honey, pepper and other spices and then they eat it, communally, with their bare hands.

Epiphanius claims to have first-hand knowledge of at least some of the beliefs and practices of the Phibionites, saying that he learned about their practices from members who tried to lure him into the sect. He says that he was for a time tempted to join their sect, but backed away when he discovered some of their more nefarious practices (26 17,4-9). One imagines that he probably heard about their sex rituals, thought it sounded awesome, saw the beautiful women that were in the sect (he admits that the women that tried to entice him to join the sect were beautiful (26 27,8) and was thinking of joining. Then he heard about the sperm-, menses- and fetus-eating and though better of it. Or on the other hand, perhaps Epiphanius made the whole thing up. He's not exactly considered the most reliable historian and he's been frequently accused of profoundly distorting the beliefs and practices of the various sects he discusses. For all we know, Epiphanius was in love with one of their members, was jilted by her, and then reported the sect to the Bishop (26 17,9) and then made up scandalous tales about them as revenge. People have done pettier things.

I just finished read Bart Ehrman's book Peter, Paul & Mary, which I enjoyed, about the life of the three followers of Jesus - Simon Peter, Paul of Tarsus and Mary Magdalene. And in one his sections on later legends about Mary, he notes the story of the Phibionites (or Borborites as they're also called), who took Mary to be of central importance to their doctrine. And the practices attributed to the Phibionites are quite interesting.

We only have two sources for description of the beliefs of the Phibionites, Theodoret and Epiphanius of Salamis, and it's only in Epiphanius' description in The Panarion that we find the more sordid details. Before telling us about these intriguing practices, Epiphanius acknowledges that, though "It is a shame even to speak of the things that are done of [the disobedient] in secret"(25 2,5, [trans. Frank Williams], quoting Ephesians 5:12), he will tells us about these secret practices, not in order to titillate us (in his words "not to dirty the ears of the listeners or readers"), but to excite our enmity against these Phibionites (25 3,3). And what are these secret practices that it is a shame to speak of? To begin with, Epiphanius says that during communion, after feasting (communion was more commonly a potluck feast at this time in Christian history than just consuming wafers and wine) they would partner-swap. In his words, each would man tell his wife "Get up perform the Agape [Christian love] with the brother"(26 4,4), at which point, the wife would go have sex with some other man.

But Epiphanius is not done at this point, and he braces his readers for these even more sordid detail, noting again that though it may be shameless to relate these things, these Phibionites are much more shameless in doing them. He tells us that the men climax by ejaculating into each others' hands. Then they raise their hands, saying "We offer this gift, the body of Christ" and they both consume the sperm (26 4,4-7). In other words, they eat sperm instead of bread for the communion

Now, you might be wondering, "Ok, so they've got the first part of the communion, with the body of Christ. But what about the other part? Did they do something to consume the blood of Christ?" Well, I'm glad you asked. In fact they do. They used menses for this purpose. While saying "This is the blood of Christ" they, in Epiphanius' words, "likewise take the unclean menstrual blood they gather from her, and eat in common," (26 4,8).

Surprisingly, it actually gets worse. According to Epiphanius they extolled non-procreative sex and forbade procreation (at least in the context of the ritual, one presumes). For this reason, if one of the women got pregnant during the ritual, they would extract the fetus. Then they would grind it up, spice it with honey, pepper and other spices and then they eat it, communally, with their bare hands.

Epiphanius claims to have first-hand knowledge of at least some of the beliefs and practices of the Phibionites, saying that he learned about their practices from members who tried to lure him into the sect. He says that he was for a time tempted to join their sect, but backed away when he discovered some of their more nefarious practices (26 17,4-9). One imagines that he probably heard about their sex rituals, thought it sounded awesome, saw the beautiful women that were in the sect (he admits that the women that tried to entice him to join the sect were beautiful (26 27,8) and was thinking of joining. Then he heard about the sperm-, menses- and fetus-eating and though better of it. Or on the other hand, perhaps Epiphanius made the whole thing up. He's not exactly considered the most reliable historian and he's been frequently accused of profoundly distorting the beliefs and practices of the various sects he discusses. For all we know, Epiphanius was in love with one of their members, was jilted by her, and then reported the sect to the Bishop (26 17,9) and then made up scandalous tales about them as revenge. People have done pettier things.

The Phibionites

Siege of Antioch

This is a story from 1098, during the first crusade in the city of Antioch. When the Christian crusaders captured and were holding Antioch after a long and difficult siege, there was a monk, named Peter Bartholomew, who saw, in a vision, St. Andrew telling him that the Holy Lance (the spear that had pierced Jesus' side during the crucifixion [John 19:34]), was buried in the grounds of the Cathedral of St Peter there. They dug for a while and found nothing, until Bartholomew himself, entered the pit, and under suspicious circumstances emerged with a hunk of metal he claimed to be the spear tip of the holy lance. Some of the leaders were skeptical, but the common soldiers looked upon it as a good omen and it lifted morale and helped them rebuff the Muslim armies trying to take back the city.

Even after successfully defeating the Muslim armies at Antioch, Bartholomew's visions continued. St. Andrew, according to Bartholomew's visions, had considerable military advice, such as where they should go and where they should attack next, and when the leadership ignored him, St. Andrew, via Bartholomew's visions, became increasingly critical of the leadership.

Finally, tired of Bartholomew's harangues, and looking for him to really prove himself, the leadership asked Bartholomew to undergo an ordeal by fire to prove the genuineness of his visions. Ordeals were a common technique of proving honesty at the time, involving taking some risk or enduring certain torture to prove that one had God's protection. Most of the time, they were more simple. For example, you'd put your hand in a fire briefly or a held a hot iron, and if your hand didn't burn or at least healed quickly, people would know you were telling the truth. In most cases, these tests were really rigged in favor of passing, since no pious person would even attempt to endure an ordeal if they were lying, since they genuinely believed ordeals involved divine intervention.

The ordeal for Bartholomew, on the other hand, seems to have been rigged against him. He had to walk through a tunnel of fire, which means they lined up two rows of upright logs, lit them on fire, and then he required him to walk between them. Amazingly, he made it through the tunnel, but he was so badly burned that he stood little chance of recovery. Bartholomew claimed that he wasn't actually burned in the process, but that when people rushed up to congratulate him, he was pushed back in and suffered all his burns then. Whatever the case may be, he died some days later, and the first crusade ultimately ended with the city of Jerusalem being captured and held by the Christians.

This is a story from 1098, during the first crusade in the city of Antioch. When the Christian crusaders captured and were holding Antioch after a long and difficult siege, there was a monk, named Peter Bartholomew, who saw, in a vision, St. Andrew telling him that the Holy Lance (the spear that had pierced Jesus' side during the crucifixion [John 19:34]), was buried in the grounds of the Cathedral of St Peter there. They dug for a while and found nothing, until Bartholomew himself, entered the pit, and under suspicious circumstances emerged with a hunk of metal he claimed to be the spear tip of the holy lance. Some of the leaders were skeptical, but the common soldiers looked upon it as a good omen and it lifted morale and helped them rebuff the Muslim armies trying to take back the city.

Even after successfully defeating the Muslim armies at Antioch, Bartholomew's visions continued. St. Andrew, according to Bartholomew's visions, had considerable military advice, such as where they should go and where they should attack next, and when the leadership ignored him, St. Andrew, via Bartholomew's visions, became increasingly critical of the leadership.

Finally, tired of Bartholomew's harangues, and looking for him to really prove himself, the leadership asked Bartholomew to undergo an ordeal by fire to prove the genuineness of his visions. Ordeals were a common technique of proving honesty at the time, involving taking some risk or enduring certain torture to prove that one had God's protection. Most of the time, they were more simple. For example, you'd put your hand in a fire briefly or a held a hot iron, and if your hand didn't burn or at least healed quickly, people would know you were telling the truth. In most cases, these tests were really rigged in favor of passing, since no pious person would even attempt to endure an ordeal if they were lying, since they genuinely believed ordeals involved divine intervention.

The ordeal for Bartholomew, on the other hand, seems to have been rigged against him. He had to walk through a tunnel of fire, which means they lined up two rows of upright logs, lit them on fire, and then he required him to walk between them. Amazingly, he made it through the tunnel, but he was so badly burned that he stood little chance of recovery. Bartholomew claimed that he wasn't actually burned in the process, but that when people rushed up to congratulate him, he was pushed back in and suffered all his burns then. Whatever the case may be, he died some days later, and the first crusade ultimately ended with the city of Jerusalem being captured and held by the Christians.

Siege of Antioch