State of the Union... Sad!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrEEDQgFc8

        I chose this clip from Meet The Press for the obvious reason that 'alternative facts' described by Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway parallel the theme of Tonypandy within The Daughter in Time. The manipulation of information is not only prevalent in news media and White House press briefings today, but was also prevalent in the Medieval ages, and was a tactic utilized by many to oust previous rulers.

        Ultimately, I agree with Grant's claim that King Richard III's portrayal as a monstrous-hunchback-mass killer is a distortion of the truth. The Tudor regime ascended to the throne by way of riding the coattail of a falsehood that King Richard III had maliciously tortured and eradicated his only opposition to the crown. When in reality, Henry VII rescinded the Titulus Regius Act and spread 'alternative facts' in order to ensure that his ascension to the crown would not be disputed, despite the fact that he may have been the product of a long line of illegitimacy.

Tonypandy For Your Thoughts.

Left to right foreground; Henry, Earl of March, King Richard III, and Richard, Duke of York (Robert East, Peter Cook, and Brian Blessed respectively) in season 1, episode 1 of Black Adder in 1983.

Intro Black Adder Season 1 Episode 1 (only watch the first 1:06)

   History is written by the victors? Not necessarily. Sometimes, all it takes is a lie in a sympathetic novel, or a monument that fires the imagination.
   The name "Tonypandy" is used over and over in Daughter of Time, being adopted by Allen Grant and his associates as shorthand for "historical myths many people consider to be facts". the name comes from the Tonypandy riots in Wales, where miners demanding better wages and safety regulations were confronted by police armed with "rolled-up Mackintoshes" (according to Tey, 104). After reading this, and the associated myth-turned-popular-fact that soldiers who were ordered into the area fired upon the rioters, I went looking for the source of the myth. What I found was Cwmardy, a "documentary novel" by Lewis Jones, a trade union leader contemporary to the riots. his book includes a completely fictional incident where 11 miners were gunned down by soldiers.

    In the reading for today,Grant and Carradine discuss another bit of Tonypandy, the public image of the Covenanters. Grant received a letter from his friend Laura, which told him about a set of monuments in Scotland. These were dedicated to "two women martyrs, drowned for their faith" (Tey 130). It turned out not only were they convicted of treason in connection with an invasion from Holland (rather than for religious reasons) and were granted a reprieve instead of executed.
  Laura's letter concludes by noting the reaction people have when told about such things. "it's an odd thing but when you tell someone the facts of a mythical tale, they are indignant not with the teller but with you" (131). The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance is one we are all distressingly familiar with these days. People will cling to what they believe, or to what supports their own position, regardless of facts.

We All Have Our Own Tonypandy

"More Tonypandy, he thought. " (Pg. 132) How many of us say this on a daily basis? Probably not many, but we do say "what is the point of this?", "why do I need to know this?" Or even "what was the purpose of saying that?" Overall in The Daughter of Time, Tonypandy is present.  My take on Tonypandy is that it's basically unneeded information, statements or maybe even people that enter our lives.  This is present in today's society and was clearly present in the past.  Although many of the resources Grant pulls from may be reliable such as the portrait he examines and the school history book, who's to say there isn't some Tonypandy hidden in there? We discussed last class how the portrait of Richard III can be viewed from many different point such of view, so there's really no way to know the true image of Richard III.  On a larger scale, the discussions he has with people such as his surgon and a few of his friends about Richard III's portrait should not be taken into consideration for facts.  That hearsay goes hand in hand with Tonypandy and basically has no business in his investigation.  There are many situations like this in our present day, some on a smaller scale such as rumors in a high school, and some on a larger scale like unnecessary tweets posted by our president.  All in all society has changed on a large scale through the years, but some parts will never be unchanged.