Primrose Road

Timmy the Energy Bear.

Timmy is a furry stuffed bear who wears a big bow and a "Towelling Pocket Handkerchief" on which children can place a drop of their favorite essential oils. Timmy is "recommended" for children with asthma, breathing problems, allergies, or hay fever.

Uh, anybody who has had childhood asthma, has had a child with asthma, or has read The Velveteen Rabbit knows that kids with asthma and bad dust/mold/mildew allergies shouldn't keep stuffed animals in their bedrooms or sleep with them.

For additional allergy relief, they also sell ear candles, which scare the crap out of me and anyone who doesn't like the idea of his or her hair bursting into flames.

Most arguments against new media have already been made by either the Unabomber or Plato.

I've mostly seen references to this on About.com and the like (my students' favorite "research tools"), but there was also an NPR interview a few years back:

Martino Iuvara, a retired professor from Sicily, argues that Shakespeare's plays were not written by William Shakespeare of Stratford, but rather by Michelangelo Crollalanza, a (what do you know?) Sicilian who wrote a play titled "Tanto Traffico por Niente" (which basically could be loosely translated as "Much Ado About Nothing") and whose life story bears some passing resemblance to Romeo and Juliet and Othello. And, of course, "Crollalanza" can be translated as "Shakes spear."

I thought I already settled this issue in my essay Down With Tradition: A New And Exciting Exploration of the Highly Relevant Question of Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays.

As for Shakespeare's apparent familiarity with Italian names and landscapes, I have to go with the Reduced Shakespeare Company's pizza delivery theory.