There is no new episode of Ancient Aliens tonight due to the History Channel’s car-focused programming week. (What, no “Aliens and Automobiles” episode?) So, it looks like I get the night off! That would be great, except that I am bombarded with work today. Therefore, I’m going to keep today’s posting short.
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The continuing education department at Centralia College of Centralia, Washington began offering an adult education course which claims that Bigfoot is a Native American and ape hybrid who was hugely “influential” in the culture of the Solutreans, whom educator Mitchel Townsend (a candidate for a doctorate in education) identifies as “the first Americans.” The course is called “The Old Ones, the Firsts Americans,” and it started running on Saturday, the first of four two-hour sessions. According to a newspaper article touting the course, it’s essentially a mishmash of various fringe archaeology claims woven together with the growing myth of Bigfoot
Well, that didn’t take long. After a love affair with the Republican Party and Donald Trump, Christian Nephilim theorist L. A. Marzulli has turned against the party whose leader he recently said was God’s own choice for governance, and for the most banal of reasons: money. Marzulli is upset that Congress doesn’t work long enough, and when they do they find new ways to burn money. Specifically, Marzulli claims that “I’m furious about this as I pay upward of 50% of my income to the Feds and the state,” and he doesn’t want to keep paying. He had hoped that the Republicans would give him tax relief by cutting social programs. You know, like Jesus would. I have to ask: What is he doing wrong to pay so much since the average American has a total tax burden of less than 30% (excluding sales and property tax), according to The Motley Fool?
There is sad news from the world of fringe archaeology. Tour guide John Anthony West, who appeared in the 1993 Mysteries of the Sphinx documentary and inspired Graham Hancock, announced that he is suffering from Stage 4 cancer, and he is asking his friends and followers to give him $115,000 to pay for “alternative” cancer treatments. West chose to forgo mainstream treatments in favor of what Skeptical Inquirer had deemed the “unproven” cancer cure of Stanislaw Burzynski, who faced legal proceeding last year for “medical malfeasance.” “The Rogue Oncologist meets the Rogue Egyptologist, soon with your help,” states West’s crowdfunding page. West is asking for money because insurance will not pay for unproven treatments. I wish West the best and hope he will go into remission, but I fear that choosing a path in line with his belief that mainstream science is flawed will not produce his desired outcome.
Since today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and also the planned launch date for the new altright.com website of white nationalist Richard Spencer and so-called “alt-right” “intellectual” Jason Reza Jorjani (which as of this writing has not happened), this seems like a perfect time to explore some of Jorjani’s views on Africa in his 2016 magnum opus, Prometheus and Atlas, which is based on his doctoral dissertation in philosophy. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), he doesn’t address sub-Saharan Africa in his universal theory of human achievement [update: I found a brief mention of West African weights and measures], but he does touch on the part of Africa most important to those who glorify the Aryan race, Egypt. Does it surprise you to learn that he casts his lot with fringe writers who don’t think that the Egyptians were responsible for developing their own culture?
It wasn’t my intention to revisit the saga of Jason Reza Jorjani again until I had finished reading his book Prometheus and Atlas, but events have overtaken me, and I think it’s worth talking about him some more. Regular readers will recall that Jorjani became the subject of controversy late last year after his alma mater raised questions in a private faculty meeting about his affiliation with the so-called “alt-right,” prompting him to angrily and publicly deny that he is a white nationalist when the school accidentally emailed him the meeting minutes. Jorjani, who embraces the deceptive “alt-right” moniker, which the Associated Press advises is a euphemism for white nationalism, fancies himself an intellectual force reshaping radical rightwing ideology in favor of his particular version of the Aryan race, which he defines as including most white Europeans and also the people of his family’s ancestral homeland, Iran.
The Economist had an interesting blog this week speculating on why far right Americans have come to embrace the Middle Ages. Specifically, the blog post – anonymous, like most Economist pieces – looks at why far right advocates seem to have moved the center of their intellectual interest from Classical Antiquity to medieval times:
Happy New Year! As we start 2017, I thought I would continue my annual tradition and look back at 2016 in fringe history. It was probably one of the most depressing years for fringe history in decades.
Today I intend to discuss the flawed intellectualism proffered by the so-called alt-right, a term I use here in contravention of recommended media usage because the example I will discuss comes from an intellectual of the alt-right school who denies being a white nationalist while writing approvingly of “Aryan heritage” and of “my support for the Alt-Right’s struggle to prevent another white genocide.” I will forestall efforts to dismiss my critique with arguments over the terminology of white nationalism in order to focus on the faulty arguments and bad history used to erect an alt-right philosophy.
Cast your mind back to that far-off distant year of 2009, when conservative thinkers were outraged that an elementary school teacher in Chicago led her students in a chant praising Barack Obama. Fox News pundits decried what they alleged was an incipient communist cult of personality, and Sean Hannity devoted several segments of his various programs to red-face outrage. Then-GOP chairman Michael Steele said at the time “Friend, this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin’s Russia or Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I’d see it here in America.” Yesterday white nationalists held a meeting in Washington, giving fascist salutes and shouting “Hail Trump!”, led by the man that Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, through his Breitbart website, hailed as a great “intellectual” of compelling brilliance. You get no points for guessing that Fox News downplayed the event, or that Ann Coulter dismissed it as merely thirty people in a room, or that Sean Hannity devoted his time instead to praising torture and begging Vice President-Elect Mike Pence to use the power of his office to silence criticism.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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