I knew something about all this was jogging a synapse or three, such as are left after a year and then some of Republicans imitating bad fiction, and leaving me feeling like their icon St. Teri, on a bad day.
Quick music parodies issued today, such as that of Aerosmith: "Cheney's Got A Gun", left me with aching sides most of the day. I needed to journey back, back, way-y-y-y back into the history of my Medieval forebears.
And so I googled my way (when does Google begin its Kleenex defense?) to:
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/...
where I could read the Halliburton-like story of London's four-time Lord Mayor, Dick Whittington, and the graft, lying, bribery, and money-laundering that associated itself with high office (and the name "Dick") even in such enlightened times as 15th century Britain.
While Harry Whittington probably did not have to protest "I'm not dead yet" in the Pythonesque mode of "Bring out yer dead!", his strange experience makes me ponder more his entanglement in Dick Cheney's bad karma, than their respective places in history.
(Ye mun flippit here)
From the Museum of London site:
"The Dick Whittington myth
"The gifts left in Whittington's will originally made him famous. However, Londoners did not know how he first made his money. Stories began about how a poor boy became rich with the help of his cat. There is no evidence that Whittington kept a cat, and as the son of a Lord he was never very poor. Despite being untrue the stories flourished. A play produced in 1606 tells most of the story. There are many different versions, but essentially the tale was:
Dick Whittington was a poor boy from Gloucestershire who walked to London to seek his fortune. He found work in the house of a rich merchant Fitzwarren, and fell in love with Fitzwarren's daughter, Alice. Dick had a cat to keep down the mice in the attic where he slept. Fitzwarren invited his servants to put money into a sailing voyage. Dick had no money, but gave his cat to the captain to sell.
Dick decided there was no future for him in London, and left to go home to Gloucestershire. He stopped on top of Highgate Hill on the way out of London. There he heard the bells of London ringing - they seemed to say: `Turn again, Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London'.
Dick thought this was a good omen and returned to Fitzwarren's house. He learnt that the ship had returned with great news. The sailing party arrived in a foreign land where the king's court was overrun by rats. Dick's cat killed or drove out all the rats. In thanks the king paid a huge sum of gold to buy the cat. Dick was now a very wealthy man. He married Alice Fitzwarren, and eventually became Lord Mayor of London.
The story continued to grow in the 17th and 18th centuries and appeared in many children's books. In the 19th century, the story became the subject for pantomimes and other characters were added. The story is still told today in pantomimes and new versions of the story are still published. Even now, Dick Whittington and the cat that made his fortune are familiar to people who have never heard of the `real' Richard Whittington."
Hmmmmm -- "In thanks the king paid a huge sum of gold to buy the cat. Dick was now a very wealthy man." Sounds like a Saudi/Bush bailout to me, or straight-out money laundering...