SCENE: The castle of Pharyngula in the city of Science Blogs. Enter KING MYERS and attendants.

1ST MESSENGER:

My lord, a new cache of letters has arrived, declaiming threats against your royal person, offering up chants of prayer for your still-vexèd soul, and asserting with much hauteur that the Law of Entropy does the Darwinist belie.

MYERS:

Do aught of these ill-nocked epistles yield
A shaft whose point we have not brushed away
A thousand times, and myriad encore?

1ST MESSENGER:

I should judge not, my lord.

MYERS:

Then shall the brazier these old verses scan,
And sparks for glosses serve while theses light
The Bacchal revels of our midnight court.
By starshine shall we share their bosom warmth
While I hold forth upon the pair-rule gene
And cups are loft to ion-channel pores.
— Lady Hunter, to the fires with these remarks.

HUNTER:

Burn, pages, burn, and let your ashes mingle with your betters.

2ND MESSENGER:

My most gracious sovereign! I bring you news from the dungeons, where trolls and specimens most vile wait in durance for the mercy of your gracious Majesty.

MYERS:

What word from the cellars, good my herald?

2ND MESSENGER:

The ruffians, late apprehended in a comment thread, who railed against your person have with gasping pipes now sung the name of their employer. Gracious King, they did brawl for pay, and withal for the gold of your Grace's foe, the Marquis de Coiffure.

COUNT DI PIETRO:

Coiffure? I'll draw my poniard now, and through
With him who takes his pyrite-minted coin!

MYERS:

Peace, 'coz. He feeds on nothing but our fame.
You know we rule a kingdom of good sense;
He has himself expelled from our domain.

A noise at the door.

What subject craves an audience with us?

HUNTER:

It is the young man Stacey, gracious King,
Who has but lately pledged devotion liege
To your right puissant and most noble house.

MYERS:

Bid the vassal enter.

Enter STACEY.

So, lætus fey,
What brings you to our throne on Saturn's day?

STACEY:

Your Grace, my sovereign most dread, I come
With tidings borne here from that distant isle
That is the Duchy of the Blackford called,
Where sceptered children dream of being more
Than human when maturity they reach.
And more than salutations do I bring,
For on my conduct through Your goodly lands
Petitions have I gathered, writs which beg
The intercession of Your royal touch,
To benedict with bless of traffic count
The wretches who ignobly toil without.

MYERS:

We do sense a spirit magnanimine
Moving in ourself today. Read you, then,
The substance of these suits which importune
Our time. — But charge you, finish soon.

STACEY:

The tale, my valiant Lord, is swiftly told.
Before all else, Greg Downey does discourse
On "gender gaps" in math and of the lies
Which to exploit them have been told.

HUNTER:

Oft have we heard, indeed, of oafish men,
Pretenders to the throne of Academe,
Who having styled themselves "professor" like,
Profess their heads concerned with narrow tails
Of bell-shaped curves; but well in troth we've seen
Their gaze fixate upon the curvy tails
Of narrow shapely belles. Oh, epic fails!

STACEY:
Alas, 'tis so; innumerates are rife.
The Almost Adamant does speak of what
"Attention span" now means in our odd age.
And on the heels of that, Evolving Mind
Notes when by cover may a book be judged.

STACEY:

I traveled next into my native land,
Where physicists talk long and late of div
And grad and curl. The first I met did bend
My ear about the LHC, and then
I met a man who with lasers works.

MYERS:

Lasers do the factor cool possess.
Marry, on, and let the man be blessed.

STACEY:
And this petitioner does Steve Ballmer
Most cruelly mock and rip and shred.

MYERS:
In troth,
Well does he make his points, but think thou not
That his elitist bastard tongue is yet
An instrument untrained? No matter; on!

STACEY:

Three worthies I do note, who write of that
Most vital practice and inquiry,
That which as medicine we call; first John
And Pal and then does Annie speak.

MYERS:

All well,
Yet in all this sweep of grand ideal
What of the matters which the moment does
Contest? Cannot we draw a lesson from
The heat and wild of politic today?

STACEY:

Your Grace, Cobalt and Ames do to that end
Their voices do donate. And as Cobalt
Speaks of the walls authority can build
Within the heart to keep the pulse pristine
Against subversion by a little thing
As truth, so does Mike O'Risal take on
The "colleges" which work against the mind,
And teach not fact but Fundamental faith.

MYERS:

The character our subjects do evince
Does please us well.

STACEY:

Indeed, my lord, and but
A single suit remains. The authors of
10,000 Birds present the wonders of —

MYERS:

Of fowl which are but maladapted fish!
Of chromatophores they all nothing have,
Nor ink nor tentacles to weaklings grab.

STACEY:

Perhaps I do mistake your meaning quite,
My gracious Lord, but do you mean to say —

MYERS:

Shall I be plain? I wish the bustards dead.
And I would have it suddenly performed.
Who then is next to bootless plead our touch
Before our royal court and carnival?

HUNTER:

The date is set, good king, for one month's time.

MYERS:

We hope that their most humble suits do please
Us better than this basal nest of fleas.