Today I have a few odds and ends to discuss. I have closed the comments on yesterday’s blog post due to the ridiculous number of comments making threats and engaging in verbal fireworks. I have only recently been given the power to close comments on individual blog posts rather than the blog as a whole, so I intend to use this power to prevent comments explosions like yesterday’s. For now, comments will remain open on each new blog post, but if readers begin to abuse the comments, I will delete the comments and switch that entry’s comments to “require approval” or close them entirely. This will, I hope, balance the ability to comment with some measure of control over extreme situations. A Byzantine Blacklist Let’s move on to some more interesting things. If you were watching NBC, on The Blacklist last night the plot involved a Byzantine-Ottoman expedition to Staten Island in the fourteenth century (“a century before Columbus!”) following ley lines that connect historical sites around the world. The most ridiculous part was probably that archaeologists uncovered these Greek skeletons along with a rock carved in Cyrillic writing, dated them to the fourteenth century, and no one noticed or cared! TV shows rarely seem to take place in the real world, where cable TV shows would be lining up at the site to film the “paradigm-busting” discovery. A New Lovecraft Biography A British publisher sent me a review copy of a new biography of H. P. Lovecraft. The book is The Curious Case of H. P. Lovecraft by Paul Roland, an author best known for The Complete Guide to Dreams. I just received the book this morning, so obviously I haven’t had time to read it yet. I’ll be reading the book and reviewing it in the coming weeks. Oreo Conspiracies at Yahoo! The Oreo cookie conspiracy theory attributing the design to the cookie to Freemasons and the Knights Templar reared its ugly head again when Yahoo! News reported on the allegations in its article on “What You Didn’t Know about Oreo.” The material, though, is recycled directly from a years-old Atlantic magazine article, itself inspired by an Above Top Secret forum thread, as I laid out in an earlier blog post. Conspiracy Theory Nursery Rhymes Finally, I wanted to share this link to Buzzfeed’s conspiracy theory nursery rhymes, which might just as well be a storyboard for the History Channel’s next round of program development. The art is cute and the poems are clever. Here’s just one of the 26 entries: Y is for Yonaguni, the underwater rock formation Be sure to check it out in full!
42 Comments
An Over-Educated Grunt
10/21/2014 04:23:04 am
Yeah, we need a couple days of kitten videos and cat GIFs. My unsolicited advice? Keep it light the rest of the week, not like we're in prime fringe TV season yet.
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10/21/2014 05:02:37 am
Actually, the plot of the show was about the plague: According to the show, a set of priests set off to America to take the last samples of plague to the "ends of the earth" (i.e. Staten Island) to get them out of Europe. The long and short of it is that for budget reasons, the show needed to get the plague from Europe ($$$) to America without the need to show expensive European locations.
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The Other J.
10/21/2014 06:43:58 am
I've never watched The Blacklist, but especially lately have been hearing more buzz about it. Your review doesn't sound promising. Since it's well into the second season, is it worth checking out? Say for someone who already has a pretty set TV-watching schedule, is it worth carving some time out for? 10/21/2014 07:34:22 am
Short answer: No. It's derivative and often unnecessarily cruel, and it promotes a paranoid fantasy of a world where everyone and everything is part of a vast terrorist conspiracy.
FrankenNewYork
10/23/2014 09:17:18 am
I'm originally from Staten Island and there is an old, possibly the oldest, native burial site there on the North Shore. But the whole island is only 15 miles so Trinity Church can't be 30 miles away. For history they only want verisimilitude from a story, for geography, nobody knows geography, so they don't even look at a map. They probably checked the "how many cubits to a mile" math more closely than anything else in the story.
An Over-Educated Grunt
10/21/2014 06:27:29 am
That's dumber than a bag of hammers! Plum Island is right offshore, Fort Dietrich is a long drive away, and they feel the need to make up medieval priests, who wouldn't be on speaking terms with the Turks, who are apparently carrying plague samples in medieval storage conditions without any outbreak? Bag. Of. Hammers.
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.
10/21/2014 06:31:09 am
when or if racing ahead of the plague as it goes from port to port Not to mention that the plague killed off at least 25% of the European people, who were already used lesser things like smallpox, measles, influenza and so forth. But what would happen to a virgin population that that never been exposed to the common cold let alone the plague. If the plague had been released here (either accidentally or intentionally) would there have been anyone left to greet Columbus when he landed.
PNO TECH
10/21/2014 04:52:41 am
Great point about the plague years, O.E.G. While it wasnt a monolithic event(multiple waves with years-even decades between them), it severely restricted trade: that trader might be carrying it. Add to that the loss of manpower and political instability(an army was ripe for spreading plague!), and the 1300s became a time to tend to one's own town, not voyage abroad. Not really the time of adventure and discovery.
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Kal the infamous
10/21/2014 05:21:16 am
JC, you may need to just block offending posters period, as they don't seem to know when to stop. On the forums out there they call it being banned. The rest can stay.
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Mark L
10/21/2014 09:02:19 pm
The current site software doesn't allow you to block anyone, sadly.
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EP
10/23/2014 02:11:28 pm
That's not quite correct. There are ways of working around Weebly to IP ban posters.
EP
10/21/2014 06:03:33 am
"A British publisher sent me a review copy of a new biography of H. P. Lovecraft. The book is The Curious Case of H. P. Lovecraft by Paul Roland... I’ll be reading the book and reviewing it in the coming weeks."
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The Other J.
10/21/2014 06:46:44 am
Books with titles like "Nazi Women" usually come with a brown paper wrapper.
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EP
10/21/2014 06:49:01 am
Yeah, Nazisploitation was my first association as well.
Matt Mc
10/21/2014 07:12:05 am
Strange because I thought of a book that talks about the women behind the Nazi movement. I guess it is all about where you mind is at.
Shane Sullivan
10/21/2014 07:24:16 am
I was thinking that about "Contact Your Guardian Angel". What does that say about me? =P
EP
10/21/2014 07:25:26 am
Angels are asexual, Shane. Sorry to break it to you :P
Shane Sullivan
10/21/2014 10:57:00 am
Yeah, you'll be singin' a different tune when I have an army of heroic baby Nephilim on my side!
EP
10/21/2014 06:23:55 pm
They do indeed. However, the less is said about them, the better :)
The Other J.
10/21/2014 07:18:46 am
"Strange because I thought of a book that talks about the women behind the Nazi movement. I guess it is all about where you mind is at."
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Matt Mc
10/21/2014 07:24:16 am
I guess if you are so inclined to think that way.
EP
10/21/2014 07:26:29 am
I'll tell you why it's a natural association, Matt Mc. It's because Paul Roland's resume suggests that he is a sensationalist writer.
Matt Mc
10/21/2014 07:31:01 am
Again if you are so inclined. After a brief look at his amazon page it noticeable that he has written several books about Nazi's and all seem to approach things from a historical perspective so I have no idea why one would assume the one book about woman would be exploitive as opposed to what most likely is endless recycling of already documented knowledge.
EP
10/21/2014 07:32:42 am
How magnanimous of you :)
Shane Sullivan
10/21/2014 06:51:46 am
I was surprised not to see "V is for Vaccination" in those nursery rhymes. Must have been a tough choice between that and "Vril Society".
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EP
10/21/2014 07:29:48 am
V is for Vaccination, which makes kids autistic.
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An Over-Educated Grunt
10/21/2014 07:57:17 am
"V" Vril-bound stands For secret kept
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Laetitia
10/21/2014 08:58:04 am
"...a storyboard for the History Channel’s next round of program development."
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Only Me
10/21/2014 10:10:38 am
Hey, Jason, unless I already missed it, when is the episode of Codes and Conspiracies you appear in going to air? I'm hoping you'll let us know what did or didn't make it into the show from your interview.
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10/21/2014 10:29:51 am
They haven't let me know yet. It should be sometime in the next month or two. Once I find out the date, I'll be sure to post it.
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Luke
10/21/2014 01:11:31 pm
Sadly comment sections are where civi discussion goes to die.
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Not the Comte de Saint Germain
10/21/2014 01:16:24 pm
Discussions on this site are actually pretty civil most of the time, but occasionally we have big flare-ups. Yesterday's was the worst yet.
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EP
10/21/2014 02:25:28 pm
I agree with NtCdSG, your claim is too categorical, both in general and when applied to this blog in particlar.
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BillUSA
10/21/2014 03:39:28 pm
Dag, I go away for a couple of weeks and a blog scrum ensues. You guys have all the fun.
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DanD
10/22/2014 08:11:58 am
I don't think Jason had any fun at all.
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BillUSA
10/22/2014 02:33:53 pm
I guess it got more serious than I thought. Didn't mean to step on any toes with my previous comment. Just tried to make light of it.
An Over-Educated Grunt
10/23/2014 10:59:49 am
It was like shaving drunk, in the dark, with a dull razor of uncertain sanitation.
Joseph Craven
10/21/2014 04:47:36 pm
I would strongly advise retaining copies of any comments you delete, if possible. In the event of an actual legal action, they could be extremely useful.
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Mark L
10/21/2014 09:07:40 pm
I'd like to defend "The Blacklist". It's vitally important that you don't take any of it seriously - it's a show about the world's most successful criminal walking into an FBI building and giving himself up, so he can meet up with an FBI agent he has some unspecified relationship with and help her catch the world's worst bad guys, who are so bad they're not even on the FBI's radar (the "blacklist" of the title).
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EP
10/22/2014 02:35:36 pm
"the world's most successful criminal walking into an FBI building and giving himself up"
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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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