5: "Those hours that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell Will play the tyrants to the very same, And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting Time leads summer on To hideous winter, and confounds him there, Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness everywhere. Then, were not summer's distillation left A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it nor no remembrance what it was. But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet, Lose but their show; their substance still lives sweet. 6: Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled. Make sweet some vial, treasure thou some place, With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed. That use is not forbidden usury Which happies those that pay the willing loan: That's for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier be it ten for one; Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigured thee-- Then what could death do if thou shoulds't depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest, and make worms thine heir." Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cliftonaduncan Follow me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/cliftonduncanonline IMDB: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1687476/ Theatre Credits: https://tinyurl.com/tg4mgov Made with Film Maker Pro App Intro: "Underwater", artist unknown Outro: "Willow Trees" by Gustavv -- https://tinyurl.com/y8wz9w2r ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NicGddAGQUI

While I had intended to narrow the focus of the podcast to Art and Entertainment, I am completely transfixed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its continued societal impacts. As result, many of my interviews have unwittingly become very pandemic-centric. In order to enable listeners to easily differentiate this content from what's intended as the main focus of The Clifton Duncan Podcast, I will deem these interviews "The COVID Series" (technically, my recent sit downs with playwright CJ Hopkins and entertainers Right Said Fred also fall into this category). ABOUT MY GUESTS: First, here is their damning editorial, in "Unherd", from which this episode derives its title: https://www.unherd.com/2021/11/the-lefts-covid-failure/ THOMAS FAZI -- Journalist/writer/translator/socialist. He mostly spends his time in Rome, Italy. Amongst other things, he's the co-director of "Standing Army" (2010), an award-winning feature-length documentary on US military bases featuring Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky; and the author of "The Battle for Europe: How an Elite Hijacked a Continent – and How We Can Take It Back" (Pluto Press, 2014) and "Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World" (co-authored with Bill Mitchell; Pluto Press, 2017). His articles have appeared in numerous online and printed publications. He can be contacted at the following address: battleforeurope[at]gmail.com. His Twitter account is @battleforeurope. You can also follow him on Facebook (though he mostly writes in Italian) and/or sign up to his Substack to receive updates about articles etc. TOBY GREEN -- formerly a journalist and travel writer, Toby is Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King’s College London. His 2019 book "A Fistful of Shells" won the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the American Historical Association’s Jerry Bentley Prize in World History and the Historical Writers’ Association Non-Fiction Crown. Toby is the author of the recent book "The COVID Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality", which The New Statesman named one of the "Best Books About the COVID-19 Pandemic". Find more information about it here: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-covid-consensus/ FOLLOW ME: Twitter (you can now leave tips!): https://www.twitter.com/cliftonaduncan IG: https://www.instagram.com/cliftonduncanonline Substack: https://www.cliftonduncan.substack.com/ INTRO/OUTRO TRACK: "Brunch" by Jobii -- https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/stJzyKNNgz/ ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02DFtcJU_2I

NOTE: I said the name "Michael K. Brown" when I meant Michael K. WILLIAMS, who left an indelible mark with his iconic portrayal of Omar on HBO's "The Wire". I truly regret the error. Excerpted from episode 48 of The Clifton Duncan Podcast: https://youtu.be/VIWto_jzCAg Chuck Dixon is the most prolific scripter in the history of comic books, with well over 40,000 pages of comics in publication. His work on both Batman and the "Punisher" are considered seminal to those franchises. He contributed the majority of the writing done on the legendary 'Knightfall' event for the Batman comic, which formed the basis for Christopher Nolan’s "Dark Knight" trilogy (he also co-created the iconic villain Bane, with Graham Nolan), and is also the co-creator of the Birds of Prey comic series with Jordan B. Gorfinkel. Characters he’s created for both DC and Marvel have appeared repeatedly in movies, television, and games and his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s "The Hobbit" remains an international bestseller thirty years after its first publication. Chuck is also known worldwide, with comics written specifically for the European and Indian markets. He remains a major player in the growing world of independent comics, with dozens of new titles produced in recent years, and has written more than thirty novels (including his popular "Levon Cade" series and his recent "Conan the Barbarian" novel). Outro: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/stJzyKNNgz/ ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh-Qi6uJ8Dc

Ashley Rindsberg is an investigative journalist, author and media expert. His book "The Gray Lady Winked", about how the New York Times' misreporting changed history, started a conversation about the future, past and present of the mainstream media's flagship publication. INFO ON "THE GRAY LADY WINKED": https://www.thegrayladywinked.com/ FOLLOW ASHLEY ON TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/AshleyRindsberg FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/cliftonaduncan SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK: https://cliftonduncan.substack.com MY IMDB PAGE: https://www.imdb.me/cliftonduncan (MOST OF) MY THEATRICAL CREDITS: https://www.abouttheartists.com/artists/265366-clifton-alphonzo-duncan Intro/Outro: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/stJzyKNNgz/ SUPPORT THIS PODCAST BY BUYING SOME DELICIOUS COFFEE FROM OUR FIRST SPONSOR, TWIN ENGINE COFFEE: https://www.twinenginecoffee.com/CliftonDuncan I NARRATED THIS AUDIOBOOK: https://www.berlinersbook.com/ CHAPTERS: 0:00:00 -- Sexy Promo! 0:01:14 -- Teaser and Intro. 0:03:12 -- How the Rise of the Third Reich Inspired "The Gray Lady Winked". 0:09:40 -- Who are the Sulzbergers? 0:14:26 -- Guido Enderis and the Nazis. 0:19:35 -- Walter Duranty and the Soviets. 0:27:35 -- Herbert Matthews and Fidel Castro. 0:33:23 -- Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial. 0:40:38 -- David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, and the Vietnam War. 0:45:18 -- The Curious Case of Muhammad Al-Dura. 0:51:21 -- The 1619 Project. 0:58:00 -- A Note of Optimism. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unat-nLRRHA