New Jersey has the Jersey Devil. West Virginia has Mothman. Southern England has Spring-heeled Jack. All sightings of mysterious, humanoid creatures with distinctly non-human features, who are capable of running, jumping and (in some cases) vanishing in a way no normal person could, and who are blamed for strings of attacks on a terrified citizenry.
And now, in Malaysia, we have the orang minyak -- "Oily Man."
According to a story on the Asia News Network, residents of Gombak, Selangor province, have been terrorized lately by an entity (or more than one of them) that would certainly scare the crap out of me -- a large, muscular, half-naked man, with glowing eyes -- and completely covered in oil.
The orang minyak, so goes the legend, is a resident of the dense forest, and comes out at night with the intent of finding human women to have his way with. In the case of the recent sightings, there have been a couple of unsuccessful attacks -- the women Oily Man attacked escaped unscathed -- but there have been multiple reports of oily footprints, and in one case a human-shaped oil patch on the ground where the orang minyak is alleged to have slept. One resident, Aslam Khan, says he got a good look at one.
"I saw the bald orang minyak hiding behind the water tank of a house at about two in the morning," Khan told reporters. "It was breathing really loudly, like a cow. It was black and shiny. When I shone my light on it, the thing stuck out its head to look back at me. Before I could do anything, it climbed up the roof and disappeared."
Khan said that upon investigation, they had found the spot where the orang minyak conducts its nightly oil bath and reciting of jampi (ritual prayers). I'm relieved, actually. At least Oily Man is observing the religious formalities. Who knows what an atheist Oily Man might be capable of?
The article in question clearly treated the appearances of the orang minyak as a paranormal occurrence; and that's obviously what the residents of Gombak think. In fact, their explanation is that the orang minyak is a spirit that is attempting to complete its initiation into black magic and become a full-fledged demon, and in order to do so has to have sex with a certain (unspecified) number of human women. To which I say: I'm doubtful. If I were a resident of Gombak, I would be looking for a guy who seems to be buying more than his fair share of Head & Shoulders Greasy Hair Formula Shampoo.
Once again, I have to ask the question of why people seem so determined to jump to a paranormal explanation for something that admits of a simple, logical, and rational solution. It's all well and good to say, "Well, those are superstitious people, down there in Malaysia" -- which may or may not be true, and ignores the fact that we self-congratulatory Americans have our own way of ignoring Ockham's Razor (consider how many people read, and trust, horoscopes, and how rich the "Psychic Hot Line" people are). So it's perhaps unjustified for us to point fingers. But whatever the source of the attacks -- be it an evil spirit with an affinity for grease, or a sexual predator taking advantage of a credulous populace -- I hope they stop soon. The article stressed how tense the people of Gombak were becoming, having to be on guard round-the-clock. I can see how that would wear on one, whatever the nature of the attacker -- paranormal or otherwise.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
A mental lacuna
Without going into any gruesome personal details, I've been in therapy for two-and-a-half years in order to deal with on-and-off bouts of depression. My therapist, a 60-something Ithaca MSW whose office stands next to her home, was recommended to me by a friend with the words, "She's the real deal."
About a month ago, there was an odd change in her manner. Rather than opening her office door to let me in, she called through the closed door, "Gordon? You can come in now." Getting up from my seat in her waiting room, I went into her office to find her seated, legs crossed at the ankle, in her customary armchair, looking rather embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm having trouble walking."
I said, "I'm sorry to hear that." Upon inquiring further, I found that the trouble wasn't confined to her legs; she had weakness all down her right side, including her right arm.
I knew her to be a heavy smoker, with a persistent hacking cough she always attributed to "allergies." When she described her symptoms, alarm bells went off in my head. I said, "Have you seen a doctor about this?"
Her response was immediate, and unequivocal: "I don't believe in doctors."
Over the next few weeks, I asked each time how she was doing, and each time she said, "I'm slowly getting better." But her reluctance to walk, even to stand, continued, and the two other times I brought up going to the doctor, I was cut off sharply.
I found out on New Year's Eve that she died two days after Christmas of a massive stroke.
The Latin word lacuna means "gap," and in English usually refers to a missing section of a manuscript, or a concept for which no word exists in a given language. I'm going to use it differently here; as a blind spot, a missing piece of self-awareness. In particular; how could a trained therapist, who daily counseled people about how to deal with their problems in an honest way, have such a mental lacuna regarding her own health?
She was up front, and defiant, about being a smoker; she related to me once being confronted by a patient, who didn't like the faint cigarette smell that hung about the office, despite the fact that she always smoked in another room. That the patient could object to this was, my therapist said, out of line. "It's none of her business what I do," she said, which is true, of course; but her rough voice and persistent, grating cough were always blamed on "pollen allergy," a statement that left me thinking, "C'mon. You and I both know a smoker's cough when we hear it."
The lacuna extended, apparently, to a distrust in doctors -- odd for a person whose obituary called her a "mental health professional" to refuse to consult a different kind of health professional. Even with symptoms that virtually everyone would consider a red flag of the most serious kind, she refused to admit the facts, refused to seek help. And ultimately, that refusal killed her.
While this is an extreme example, with a tragic outcome, the whole thing leaves me wondering what sorts of unacknowledged lacuna I have -- and what ones we all have. What things are there about ourselves that are so troubling that we cannot even get within arm's reach before our denial mechanism kicks in? What things will we not entertain, because to do so opens up such an emotional can of worms that we can't face it?
Most of us like to think that we're honest with ourselves, about ourselves, for the most part. But if a trained counselor can have one realm in which she was this much in denial, what unguessed, uncharted territories exist within all of us?
About a month ago, there was an odd change in her manner. Rather than opening her office door to let me in, she called through the closed door, "Gordon? You can come in now." Getting up from my seat in her waiting room, I went into her office to find her seated, legs crossed at the ankle, in her customary armchair, looking rather embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm having trouble walking."
I said, "I'm sorry to hear that." Upon inquiring further, I found that the trouble wasn't confined to her legs; she had weakness all down her right side, including her right arm.
I knew her to be a heavy smoker, with a persistent hacking cough she always attributed to "allergies." When she described her symptoms, alarm bells went off in my head. I said, "Have you seen a doctor about this?"
Her response was immediate, and unequivocal: "I don't believe in doctors."
Over the next few weeks, I asked each time how she was doing, and each time she said, "I'm slowly getting better." But her reluctance to walk, even to stand, continued, and the two other times I brought up going to the doctor, I was cut off sharply.
I found out on New Year's Eve that she died two days after Christmas of a massive stroke.
The Latin word lacuna means "gap," and in English usually refers to a missing section of a manuscript, or a concept for which no word exists in a given language. I'm going to use it differently here; as a blind spot, a missing piece of self-awareness. In particular; how could a trained therapist, who daily counseled people about how to deal with their problems in an honest way, have such a mental lacuna regarding her own health?
She was up front, and defiant, about being a smoker; she related to me once being confronted by a patient, who didn't like the faint cigarette smell that hung about the office, despite the fact that she always smoked in another room. That the patient could object to this was, my therapist said, out of line. "It's none of her business what I do," she said, which is true, of course; but her rough voice and persistent, grating cough were always blamed on "pollen allergy," a statement that left me thinking, "C'mon. You and I both know a smoker's cough when we hear it."
The lacuna extended, apparently, to a distrust in doctors -- odd for a person whose obituary called her a "mental health professional" to refuse to consult a different kind of health professional. Even with symptoms that virtually everyone would consider a red flag of the most serious kind, she refused to admit the facts, refused to seek help. And ultimately, that refusal killed her.
While this is an extreme example, with a tragic outcome, the whole thing leaves me wondering what sorts of unacknowledged lacuna I have -- and what ones we all have. What things are there about ourselves that are so troubling that we cannot even get within arm's reach before our denial mechanism kicks in? What things will we not entertain, because to do so opens up such an emotional can of worms that we can't face it?
Most of us like to think that we're honest with ourselves, about ourselves, for the most part. But if a trained counselor can have one realm in which she was this much in denial, what unguessed, uncharted territories exist within all of us?
Monday, January 2, 2012
Love Potion Number Nine
My son and I spent an entertaining hour yesterday afternoon looking at websites for magic potion recipes, and guffawing like idiots.
I always find it interesting to trace back how we end up talking about a particular topic. In this case, the subject of magic spells came up because Nathan developed quite an interest in edible and medicinal herbs a while back, and started a nice little herb garden. We've had an unusually mild winter, and a few days ago he went out and did a bit of light weeding, and found that he still had a lot of green and growing plants -- lemon balm, mint, lavender, and selfheal, amongst many others, despite its being midwinter, a time when normally upstate New York would be blanketed with snow. Then, yesterday at lunch, I commented that a piece of pottery he'd made looked like a vessel for cooking magic potions, and he responded, "I bet some of my garden herbs have magical uses!"
So we got on the computer and did a quick Google search, using the keywords "magic potion recipes." I figured we might find a site or two, maintained by some poor deluded soul who really thinks that (s)he can do magic.
Well. "A site or two" turned out to be a vast underestimate. We stopped looking at about page seven of lists of sites which claim to present Real Magical Potion Recipes. We found recipes for everything from love potions to something called "Black Arts Oil" (the latter, it's said, is extremely potent and should be used with extreme caution [italics theirs]; since it contains black pepper oil, I'd guess that's prudent enough).
There was a lot of the usual stuff, potions for making money, for good luck, for getting someone to have sex with you, for driving away evil. A few, however, made for wonderful reading. One of the better ones we found was "Separation Powder," which you make from chili powder, black pepper, iron filings, cinnamon, and a couple of other things. If you're tired of your lover, you're supposed to toss the powder on him/her, and it will assure a separation. Me, I think the chili powder and iron filings alone would suffice; I'd certainly be pissed if anyone threw that on me, all magic aside. One recipe for a love potion -- to be shared with your prospective love -- takes some ice cubes, a banana, some strawberries, a peach, and some orange juice, with a bit of vanilla extract. Carol and I must still be in love because we share this potion sometimes -- only we call it a "smoothie." A potion called "Yula Death Oil" is made from the combination of rose oil, wisteria oil, lavender oil, and melon extract, with black dye added; one practitioner said, "Do not use this unless the death of the target individual is desired!" but the owner of the website commented, "Even with the black dye, this mixture doesn't smell like death to me, so I have my doubts that it would work."
So do I, lady. So do I.
One of the more interesting sites we came across was written by someone who calls herself "Silver RavenWolf" (actual name: Betty Sue Ludnowski), which had potions and incantations. The best find here was a magickal (in real magic, it's always spelled with a "k," to differentiate it from fake magic) procedure for conferring invisibility. Silver/Betty Sue described the procedure, along with a caution that "it doesn't always work;" the whole thing seemed to center around focusing on a white light and concentrating until the image of yourself in your mind becomes blurry around the edges. My personal opinion is that anyone who believes this would work is a little blurry around the edges already, and it immediately reminded me of the wonderful movie Mystery Men (the best sendup ever of comic-book superhero movies), in which there's a character called "Invisible Boy" who, as advertised, can become invisible. The problem is, it only works when no one is looking.
Another one this site confers to you the "strength of an oak tree." It begins with directing you to take a twig from an oak tree, but "only if the dryad agrees," and tells you to obtain oak bark from a herbal medicine store if she doesn't. Honestly, if you think the spirit in your oak tree is talking to you, your best option may be to come indoors where it's safe and have a nice cup of tea, and leave aside the magic for a spell. (ba-dump-bump-kssssh)
So, anyway, Nathan is going to collect various plants the next chance he gets and give the whole thing a try. I have volunteered to test whatever he concocts, as long as it doesn't contain anything disgusting or outright poisonous. I'm all about the scientific method. I will definitely report back here if I grow antlers, or suddenly find I can fly, or start receiving divine prophecies from the water spirits in the creek in our back yard. Trust me, you'll be the first to know.
I always find it interesting to trace back how we end up talking about a particular topic. In this case, the subject of magic spells came up because Nathan developed quite an interest in edible and medicinal herbs a while back, and started a nice little herb garden. We've had an unusually mild winter, and a few days ago he went out and did a bit of light weeding, and found that he still had a lot of green and growing plants -- lemon balm, mint, lavender, and selfheal, amongst many others, despite its being midwinter, a time when normally upstate New York would be blanketed with snow. Then, yesterday at lunch, I commented that a piece of pottery he'd made looked like a vessel for cooking magic potions, and he responded, "I bet some of my garden herbs have magical uses!"
So we got on the computer and did a quick Google search, using the keywords "magic potion recipes." I figured we might find a site or two, maintained by some poor deluded soul who really thinks that (s)he can do magic.
Well. "A site or two" turned out to be a vast underestimate. We stopped looking at about page seven of lists of sites which claim to present Real Magical Potion Recipes. We found recipes for everything from love potions to something called "Black Arts Oil" (the latter, it's said, is extremely potent and should be used with extreme caution [italics theirs]; since it contains black pepper oil, I'd guess that's prudent enough).
There was a lot of the usual stuff, potions for making money, for good luck, for getting someone to have sex with you, for driving away evil. A few, however, made for wonderful reading. One of the better ones we found was "Separation Powder," which you make from chili powder, black pepper, iron filings, cinnamon, and a couple of other things. If you're tired of your lover, you're supposed to toss the powder on him/her, and it will assure a separation. Me, I think the chili powder and iron filings alone would suffice; I'd certainly be pissed if anyone threw that on me, all magic aside. One recipe for a love potion -- to be shared with your prospective love -- takes some ice cubes, a banana, some strawberries, a peach, and some orange juice, with a bit of vanilla extract. Carol and I must still be in love because we share this potion sometimes -- only we call it a "smoothie." A potion called "Yula Death Oil" is made from the combination of rose oil, wisteria oil, lavender oil, and melon extract, with black dye added; one practitioner said, "Do not use this unless the death of the target individual is desired!" but the owner of the website commented, "Even with the black dye, this mixture doesn't smell like death to me, so I have my doubts that it would work."
So do I, lady. So do I.
One of the more interesting sites we came across was written by someone who calls herself "Silver RavenWolf" (actual name: Betty Sue Ludnowski), which had potions and incantations. The best find here was a magickal (in real magic, it's always spelled with a "k," to differentiate it from fake magic) procedure for conferring invisibility. Silver/Betty Sue described the procedure, along with a caution that "it doesn't always work;" the whole thing seemed to center around focusing on a white light and concentrating until the image of yourself in your mind becomes blurry around the edges. My personal opinion is that anyone who believes this would work is a little blurry around the edges already, and it immediately reminded me of the wonderful movie Mystery Men (the best sendup ever of comic-book superhero movies), in which there's a character called "Invisible Boy" who, as advertised, can become invisible. The problem is, it only works when no one is looking.
Another one this site confers to you the "strength of an oak tree." It begins with directing you to take a twig from an oak tree, but "only if the dryad agrees," and tells you to obtain oak bark from a herbal medicine store if she doesn't. Honestly, if you think the spirit in your oak tree is talking to you, your best option may be to come indoors where it's safe and have a nice cup of tea, and leave aside the magic for a spell. (ba-dump-bump-kssssh)
So, anyway, Nathan is going to collect various plants the next chance he gets and give the whole thing a try. I have volunteered to test whatever he concocts, as long as it doesn't contain anything disgusting or outright poisonous. I'm all about the scientific method. I will definitely report back here if I grow antlers, or suddenly find I can fly, or start receiving divine prophecies from the water spirits in the creek in our back yard. Trust me, you'll be the first to know.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
The year in review
Well, 2011 is almost over, and I thought it would be entertaining to review some of the top stories from this year, as a way of reminding ourselves how bloody amazing it is that humanity has survived this long, considering some of the silly things we say, do, and believe in.
In January, we had an announcement from the scientists at the Minnesota Planetarium Society that according to their research, the standard zodiac isn't correct. So even if, for some reason, you think astrology actually works, that the position of the Sun relative to arbitrary patterns of stars has something to do with your personality, daily life, and destiny, you haven't been using the right constellation for your "sun sign" because the plane of the ecliptic has moved since the time of the Greeks. There's now a thirteenth zodiac constellation (Ophiucus) and all of the dates have shifted. (Link)
February brought the announcement that former Baywatch star Donna D'Errico was looking for Noah's Ark on the side of Mount Ararat. Despite her plans to bring along a camera crew, she was quoted as saying, "I am not doing a reality show." I have to agree with her there. Reality is the last thing this is about. (Link)
March was a contentious month, and saw two examples of mystics hurling abuse at other mystics for being mystics. In Bulgaria, a monk named Brother Visarion wrote a book, and has been preaching sermons, denouncing two folk religious figures, the healers and prophets Peter Danov and Mother Vanga. And in yet another example of the pot cursing the kettle, we had the Raelians, who believe (amongst other things) that Jesus' resurrection will be accomplished by cloning, criticizing the Christians for having wacky beliefs. (Link)
In April, I wrote the post that has generated the greatest number of hits to date -- a piece about the claim that Rebecca Black's song "Friday" was really about the JFK assassination. That this song could have anything going for it, other than being the most terrible song ever recorded, is hard to believe; but apparently enough people at least wondered to (1) generate the claim in the first place, and (2) send over 1,500 people to my blog to find out what I thought. So I owe a rather reluctant debt of gratitude to Rebecca Black, even though I still would rather have both ears removed with a SkilSaw than have to listen to that song again. (Link)
In May, we found out that (gasp!) Harold Camping was wrong again about the world ending, resulting in disappointment both from his followers, and from us godless heathens who thought we were finally going to be rid of them for good. Camping, of course, was undaunted, and merely revised his date to October. (Link)
June brought the startling announcement that the Smurfs were communists, and were indoctrinating children into Marxist ideology. A Parisian lecturer named Antoine Buéno wrote a vicious treatise about the Red Menace of "Les Schtroumpfs" (as the French call the Smurfs), which was notable as making even less sense than the Muslim imam's claim that Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan. (Link)
In July, we had the announcement that the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship from the Star Wars trilogy, had been found crashed on the floor of the Baltic Sea. Or, if not Solo's ship, at least a crashed UFO of some kind. The Swedish treasure-hunting outfit Ocean Explorers were the ones who made the discovery, and the subsequent claim, and no one was more shocked than I was when it turned out to be... a bunch of rocks that were vaguely shaped like a spaceship. (Link)
August often turns folks' minds onto vacations, and for the woo-woo minded we have a post about a variety of opportunities for mystical travel. (Link)
In September my blog set another record, for the highest number of hits in a single day -- after I inadvertently pissed off a bunch of British ghost-hunters with this post, and they got wind of it, and a battle of cross-posting ensued. (Link)
October was notable for the world not ending again, and also because the Russians began their big push to prove that the Yeti was real. Some Russian scientists sponsored an expedition to Kemerovo, the site of many alleged Yeti sightings, and actually got a bunch of interested researchers from other countries to attend. Unfortunately for any scientists who were interested in trying to find actual evidence, the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and included "Bigfoot nests" that had apparently been made using hand saws, a technology that most credible researchers believe Yetis don't have. But the expedition did have one thing going for it -- the participation of heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuyev, the "Beast from the East," who might have a personal interest in proving the existence of Bigfoot -- if you get my drift. If you don't, you will when you look at his photograph. (Link)
November brought a story about the organization PETA losing what little credibility it had left by attacking the video game character Mario for wearing a fur coat, and retaliating by creating a game of its own that had a crazed Mario carrying around a bleeding dog's head. Evidently the word "fictional" isn't really part of these people's vocabulary. (Link)
And most recently, in December we had the claim that a highly advanced alien species, possibly the Romulans, had a huge cloaked spacecraft parked near Mercury. In fact, the spacecraft was exactly the size and shape of Mercury. And, of course, it turned out that the spacecraft was Mercury, to the dismay of UFO aficionados and Trekkies alike. (Link)
It's been a long year's journey through the world of the woo-woo, and for those of you who are regular readers, thanks for sharing it with me. I wish you all a Happy New Year. Myself, I'm looking forward to 2012, which will undoubtedly bring us all new examples of wingnuttery, and a brand new date for the End of the World. So, let's boldly plunge forward into the New Year, with the fervent hope for peace, happiness, and love, and a quick wish that we'll find out that the Mayans were wrong, after all.
In January, we had an announcement from the scientists at the Minnesota Planetarium Society that according to their research, the standard zodiac isn't correct. So even if, for some reason, you think astrology actually works, that the position of the Sun relative to arbitrary patterns of stars has something to do with your personality, daily life, and destiny, you haven't been using the right constellation for your "sun sign" because the plane of the ecliptic has moved since the time of the Greeks. There's now a thirteenth zodiac constellation (Ophiucus) and all of the dates have shifted. (Link)
February brought the announcement that former Baywatch star Donna D'Errico was looking for Noah's Ark on the side of Mount Ararat. Despite her plans to bring along a camera crew, she was quoted as saying, "I am not doing a reality show." I have to agree with her there. Reality is the last thing this is about. (Link)
March was a contentious month, and saw two examples of mystics hurling abuse at other mystics for being mystics. In Bulgaria, a monk named Brother Visarion wrote a book, and has been preaching sermons, denouncing two folk religious figures, the healers and prophets Peter Danov and Mother Vanga. And in yet another example of the pot cursing the kettle, we had the Raelians, who believe (amongst other things) that Jesus' resurrection will be accomplished by cloning, criticizing the Christians for having wacky beliefs. (Link)
In April, I wrote the post that has generated the greatest number of hits to date -- a piece about the claim that Rebecca Black's song "Friday" was really about the JFK assassination. That this song could have anything going for it, other than being the most terrible song ever recorded, is hard to believe; but apparently enough people at least wondered to (1) generate the claim in the first place, and (2) send over 1,500 people to my blog to find out what I thought. So I owe a rather reluctant debt of gratitude to Rebecca Black, even though I still would rather have both ears removed with a SkilSaw than have to listen to that song again. (Link)
In May, we found out that (gasp!) Harold Camping was wrong again about the world ending, resulting in disappointment both from his followers, and from us godless heathens who thought we were finally going to be rid of them for good. Camping, of course, was undaunted, and merely revised his date to October. (Link)
June brought the startling announcement that the Smurfs were communists, and were indoctrinating children into Marxist ideology. A Parisian lecturer named Antoine Buéno wrote a vicious treatise about the Red Menace of "Les Schtroumpfs" (as the French call the Smurfs), which was notable as making even less sense than the Muslim imam's claim that Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan. (Link)
In July, we had the announcement that the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship from the Star Wars trilogy, had been found crashed on the floor of the Baltic Sea. Or, if not Solo's ship, at least a crashed UFO of some kind. The Swedish treasure-hunting outfit Ocean Explorers were the ones who made the discovery, and the subsequent claim, and no one was more shocked than I was when it turned out to be... a bunch of rocks that were vaguely shaped like a spaceship. (Link)
August often turns folks' minds onto vacations, and for the woo-woo minded we have a post about a variety of opportunities for mystical travel. (Link)
In September my blog set another record, for the highest number of hits in a single day -- after I inadvertently pissed off a bunch of British ghost-hunters with this post, and they got wind of it, and a battle of cross-posting ensued. (Link)
October was notable for the world not ending again, and also because the Russians began their big push to prove that the Yeti was real. Some Russian scientists sponsored an expedition to Kemerovo, the site of many alleged Yeti sightings, and actually got a bunch of interested researchers from other countries to attend. Unfortunately for any scientists who were interested in trying to find actual evidence, the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and included "Bigfoot nests" that had apparently been made using hand saws, a technology that most credible researchers believe Yetis don't have. But the expedition did have one thing going for it -- the participation of heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuyev, the "Beast from the East," who might have a personal interest in proving the existence of Bigfoot -- if you get my drift. If you don't, you will when you look at his photograph. (Link)
November brought a story about the organization PETA losing what little credibility it had left by attacking the video game character Mario for wearing a fur coat, and retaliating by creating a game of its own that had a crazed Mario carrying around a bleeding dog's head. Evidently the word "fictional" isn't really part of these people's vocabulary. (Link)
And most recently, in December we had the claim that a highly advanced alien species, possibly the Romulans, had a huge cloaked spacecraft parked near Mercury. In fact, the spacecraft was exactly the size and shape of Mercury. And, of course, it turned out that the spacecraft was Mercury, to the dismay of UFO aficionados and Trekkies alike. (Link)
It's been a long year's journey through the world of the woo-woo, and for those of you who are regular readers, thanks for sharing it with me. I wish you all a Happy New Year. Myself, I'm looking forward to 2012, which will undoubtedly bring us all new examples of wingnuttery, and a brand new date for the End of the World. So, let's boldly plunge forward into the New Year, with the fervent hope for peace, happiness, and love, and a quick wish that we'll find out that the Mayans were wrong, after all.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Female yeti captured?
Attention Yeti aficionados; some folks in Russia have captured a female Yeti, and are holding it in a cage.
At least that's what the video clip (here) seems to imply. It shows a video taken, apparently with a hand-held recorder, of a television showing a news broadcast. First, we see the broadcaster, and then it cuts to some scenes outdoors, and finally to a guy speaking Russian -- and in the background is a cage containing what appears to be a Yeti.
The problem for me is that I don't speak Russian, so I have no idea what any of them are saying. For all I know, they could be saying, "Hey, y'all, take a look at this wingnut we caught walking around in the woods with a gorilla suit! We threw him into a cage at the zoo to teach him a lesson." I'm reminded of the story from 2009 that left a lot of news agencies (including some big ones like Fox) red-faced -- the "ghost city" story from Huanshan City, China, that claimed that there was the mirage of a phantom city that appeared in the fog, and was photographed and videotaped from a bridge over the Xa'nan River. In the video, several Chinese folks were questioned by reporters, and their comments were translated as being amazed, perplexed, mystified -- where did this city come from? What is it?
Then the woo-woos got involved, as they are wont to do, and it was linked to everything from HAARP to Project Blue Beam, the alleged conspiracy by which NASA is going to create a New World Order with the Antichrist at its head. (I'm not making any of this up.) How creating a phantom city in the middle of a Chinese river would further that aim, I have no idea, but rationality is not these people's forte.
In any case, the explanation is far simpler, as you might have guessed. The buildings and spires and trees in the "ghost city" are actually part of the real city of Huanshan; there is an island in the middle of the Xa'nan River that has an amusement park, and there'd recently been a flood, and there was a lot of mist and fog, and the people on the bridge were saying how surreal it looked. "Hey, look at the island and amusement park," they were basically saying. "With all this fog, it looks like a ghost city, or something." But it was mistranslated, and the whole woo-woo contingent took off at a run.
Here, with the Yeti video -- I don't know. My general thought is, if they'd really captured a Yeti, it would have been all over the news, not just on an obscure video clip that popped up on Cryptomundo. Especially considering how hard the Russians have been working lately to prove to everyone that the Yeti exists -- if they had a live one, you can bet that they wouldn't just hush it up.
But I could be wrong, of course. If any of my readers speak Russian, I'd be curious to find out what they're really saying, rather than just speculating. Given how far off the beam the Chinese ghost city story went, I'd rather base what I think on firmer knowledge than what we've got. In any case, keep your eye in this direction, cryptozoology buffs -- it could be that the Russians are about to produce the evidence we've all been waiting for.
At least that's what the video clip (here) seems to imply. It shows a video taken, apparently with a hand-held recorder, of a television showing a news broadcast. First, we see the broadcaster, and then it cuts to some scenes outdoors, and finally to a guy speaking Russian -- and in the background is a cage containing what appears to be a Yeti.
The problem for me is that I don't speak Russian, so I have no idea what any of them are saying. For all I know, they could be saying, "Hey, y'all, take a look at this wingnut we caught walking around in the woods with a gorilla suit! We threw him into a cage at the zoo to teach him a lesson." I'm reminded of the story from 2009 that left a lot of news agencies (including some big ones like Fox) red-faced -- the "ghost city" story from Huanshan City, China, that claimed that there was the mirage of a phantom city that appeared in the fog, and was photographed and videotaped from a bridge over the Xa'nan River. In the video, several Chinese folks were questioned by reporters, and their comments were translated as being amazed, perplexed, mystified -- where did this city come from? What is it?
Then the woo-woos got involved, as they are wont to do, and it was linked to everything from HAARP to Project Blue Beam, the alleged conspiracy by which NASA is going to create a New World Order with the Antichrist at its head. (I'm not making any of this up.) How creating a phantom city in the middle of a Chinese river would further that aim, I have no idea, but rationality is not these people's forte.
In any case, the explanation is far simpler, as you might have guessed. The buildings and spires and trees in the "ghost city" are actually part of the real city of Huanshan; there is an island in the middle of the Xa'nan River that has an amusement park, and there'd recently been a flood, and there was a lot of mist and fog, and the people on the bridge were saying how surreal it looked. "Hey, look at the island and amusement park," they were basically saying. "With all this fog, it looks like a ghost city, or something." But it was mistranslated, and the whole woo-woo contingent took off at a run.
Here, with the Yeti video -- I don't know. My general thought is, if they'd really captured a Yeti, it would have been all over the news, not just on an obscure video clip that popped up on Cryptomundo. Especially considering how hard the Russians have been working lately to prove to everyone that the Yeti exists -- if they had a live one, you can bet that they wouldn't just hush it up.
But I could be wrong, of course. If any of my readers speak Russian, I'd be curious to find out what they're really saying, rather than just speculating. Given how far off the beam the Chinese ghost city story went, I'd rather base what I think on firmer knowledge than what we've got. In any case, keep your eye in this direction, cryptozoology buffs -- it could be that the Russians are about to produce the evidence we've all been waiting for.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
"Gotcha" proselytizing
A frequent reader and commenter on Skeptophilia sent me a note a few days ago, with a link and the cryptic comment, "Gordon, I think you need to take a look at this." At first, I thought the link was to my own website -- but underneath the link was an explanation that the individual had discovered the link by accidentally mistyping the website address as skeptophilia.blogpsot.com. (Bet it took you a while to notice the misspelling, didn't it? It did me.)
So, anyway, I clicked on the link, and was brought here.
To say that I found this a little alarming was an understatement. Had someone gone to the lengths of purchasing a website name one letter off from mine, to catch off guard the unwary (and possibly uneasy) skeptics and agnostics who thought they were going to visit a site devoted to rationalism? I've been the target of negative comments before, from angry believers in everything from homeopathy to hauntings, and certainly have gotten my share of hate mail from the vehemently religious contingent who are bothered by the fact that I am an atheist who is completely, and confidently, "out," and am unapologetic about teaching evolution in my biology classroom. But this seemed kind of out there even for those folks.
Fortunately, my wife, who is blessed with a better-than-her-fair-share amount of common sense and a good grounding in technology, suggested that I try to type in SomethingElse.blogpsot.com. So I did. I first tried the address for my fiction blog, but put in the deliberate misspelling for "blogspot." It brought me to the same place. Then I tried "CreationismIsNonsense.blogpsot.com." Same thing.
So apparently, the owner of this ultra-fundamentalist website, with its babble about the Rapture and Armageddon and the literal truth of the bible, had just bought the domain name "blogpsot.com," so that any time anyone makes that particular misspelling in heading to their favorite blog, it takes them to that site. I was relieved, actually; the thought that someone would go to all that trouble to target me in particular was a little alarming. (And evidently the fact that on the homepage of the "blogpsot" site, there is a link for "The World's Biggest Skeptic" is just a coincidence.)
However, you have to wonder if the person who owns the site really is laboring under the mistaken impression that this is an effective proselytizing tool. Can you really imagine someone who is trying to check out the latest post on his/her favorite blog on, say, sewing, and lands here -- and then suddenly goes all glassy-eyed, and says, "Good heavens. I get it now. The bible is true, the Rapture is coming, and I'd better repent right now."
No, neither can I.
And when you think about it, the door-to-door religion salesmen that periodically show up in our neighborhoods are the same kind of thing, aren't they? A little less covert and sneaky, that's all. But they're trying to accomplish the same thing -- catching you off guard, getting a foot in the door, spreading the message.
And my previous comment about its being an ineffective tool is probably irrelevant, really. It's like spam emails. If you send out a million emails, and your success rate is 0.1%, you've still made money, because of the extremely low overhead. Same here; you get volunteers (in the case of the door-to-door folks) or unsuspecting drop-ins (in the case of the website). Most of the target individuals say no, or hit the "Back" button -- but the fraction of a percent that don't are your payoff.
The whole thing pisses me off, frankly, because it's so sneaky. Even if it wasn't targeted at me specifically, it just seems like a skeevy way to get converts. But to a lot of these folks, how you convert people is unimportant -- the essential thing is to convert them in the first place. If you can grab people when their rational faculties are not expecting it, all the better -- because, after all, rationality is the last thing they want to engage.
So, anyway, I clicked on the link, and was brought here.
To say that I found this a little alarming was an understatement. Had someone gone to the lengths of purchasing a website name one letter off from mine, to catch off guard the unwary (and possibly uneasy) skeptics and agnostics who thought they were going to visit a site devoted to rationalism? I've been the target of negative comments before, from angry believers in everything from homeopathy to hauntings, and certainly have gotten my share of hate mail from the vehemently religious contingent who are bothered by the fact that I am an atheist who is completely, and confidently, "out," and am unapologetic about teaching evolution in my biology classroom. But this seemed kind of out there even for those folks.
Fortunately, my wife, who is blessed with a better-than-her-fair-share amount of common sense and a good grounding in technology, suggested that I try to type in SomethingElse.blogpsot.com. So I did. I first tried the address for my fiction blog, but put in the deliberate misspelling for "blogspot." It brought me to the same place. Then I tried "CreationismIsNonsense.blogpsot.com." Same thing.
So apparently, the owner of this ultra-fundamentalist website, with its babble about the Rapture and Armageddon and the literal truth of the bible, had just bought the domain name "blogpsot.com," so that any time anyone makes that particular misspelling in heading to their favorite blog, it takes them to that site. I was relieved, actually; the thought that someone would go to all that trouble to target me in particular was a little alarming. (And evidently the fact that on the homepage of the "blogpsot" site, there is a link for "The World's Biggest Skeptic" is just a coincidence.)
However, you have to wonder if the person who owns the site really is laboring under the mistaken impression that this is an effective proselytizing tool. Can you really imagine someone who is trying to check out the latest post on his/her favorite blog on, say, sewing, and lands here -- and then suddenly goes all glassy-eyed, and says, "Good heavens. I get it now. The bible is true, the Rapture is coming, and I'd better repent right now."
No, neither can I.
And when you think about it, the door-to-door religion salesmen that periodically show up in our neighborhoods are the same kind of thing, aren't they? A little less covert and sneaky, that's all. But they're trying to accomplish the same thing -- catching you off guard, getting a foot in the door, spreading the message.
And my previous comment about its being an ineffective tool is probably irrelevant, really. It's like spam emails. If you send out a million emails, and your success rate is 0.1%, you've still made money, because of the extremely low overhead. Same here; you get volunteers (in the case of the door-to-door folks) or unsuspecting drop-ins (in the case of the website). Most of the target individuals say no, or hit the "Back" button -- but the fraction of a percent that don't are your payoff.
The whole thing pisses me off, frankly, because it's so sneaky. Even if it wasn't targeted at me specifically, it just seems like a skeevy way to get converts. But to a lot of these folks, how you convert people is unimportant -- the essential thing is to convert them in the first place. If you can grab people when their rational faculties are not expecting it, all the better -- because, after all, rationality is the last thing they want to engage.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
End of the year woo-woo shorts
The year is rapidly drawing to a close, and here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're entering the lead-up to New Year's Eve by following a few breaking stories.
First, an Ottawa woman who identifies herself only as "Kayla" has reported seeing the ghost of her pet hamster.
In the story, reported in Paranormal Phenomena, Kayla states, "I've had my dwarf hamster for almost two years. I went up to my room to put food into his little dish. All of a sudden I saw a brown blurry 'thing' float upwards out of the cage opening. I thought I should probably make sure he was okay. I checked under the shavings, where he usually sleeps, and found him motionless in the wheel. I'm devastated, but this was the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."
Of course, we here at WWW want to be the first to offer our condolences to Kayla on the loss of her beloved pet. But it does bring up an interesting question. If hamsters have immortal souls, do goldfish? How about house flies? How about tapeworms? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time imagine there being a "gray blurry 'thing'" floating up off my arm every time I slap a mosquito. But maybe I'm just being narrow-minded.
But speaking of dead stuff, check out this story, wherein we find that researchers at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland have just completed DNA testing of a "Yeti finger" from Pangboche Monastery, Nepal. You may recall the story of the finger; it had resided in the monastery since who-knows-when, but was procured for science when the aptly-named Tom Slick convinced the monks to allow him to take it. It ended up in the Hunterian Museum in London, but a few months ago a sliver of it was sent to the RZS for analysis. The conclusion?
The finger is human. No doubt about it. So as far as hard evidence of the Yeti goes, we're still waiting.
On the topic of the absence of hard evidence, we have the devastating prediction by noted wingnut Dan Green (no relation, so far as I know, to Dan Brown -- although Dan Green's ideas make The DaVinci Code seem simplistic by comparison). The whole thing, outlined here, involves Lincoln Cathedral and the prophecy in Matthew 24 15-26: "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." We have the following pieces of evidence:
C'mon, you knew the Templars had to show up, somehow. They always do. Every time you think they're safely tucked away, never to be seen again, they're back. They're kind of the Britney Spears of secret societies.
And last, apropos of not much, we have a wonderful post called "Proving Atheists Wrong With Science." Given that I'm sure that you want to preserve a few brain cells to kill with your favorite libation on New Year's Eve, let me just summarize this stunning argument:
If the average person drinks two liters of water a day, that's about 14 billion liters of water, give or take, consumed per day. If, as the evolutionists claim, the Earth has hosted life for about three billion years, "we would have drunk about 9.5 times the amount of water on the planet." Since the oceans aren't empty, this proves that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old.
The post ends with the statement, "Now what, atheists?" (You'll have to imagine the threatening arm movements that go along with this.) And we have to admit, the logic of this leaves us speechless, largely because it's hard to talk when you're face down on your keyboard.
So, that's a wrap, here at Worldwide Wacko Watch. Hamster ghosts, Yeti finger disproved, Templar treasure in Lincoln Cathedral, and the presence of the oceans proves Young Earth Creationism. We're always on the job, bringing the stories to your doorstep, even if occasionally we have to take a pause for a collective *facepalm.*
First, an Ottawa woman who identifies herself only as "Kayla" has reported seeing the ghost of her pet hamster.
In the story, reported in Paranormal Phenomena, Kayla states, "I've had my dwarf hamster for almost two years. I went up to my room to put food into his little dish. All of a sudden I saw a brown blurry 'thing' float upwards out of the cage opening. I thought I should probably make sure he was okay. I checked under the shavings, where he usually sleeps, and found him motionless in the wheel. I'm devastated, but this was the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."
Of course, we here at WWW want to be the first to offer our condolences to Kayla on the loss of her beloved pet. But it does bring up an interesting question. If hamsters have immortal souls, do goldfish? How about house flies? How about tapeworms? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time imagine there being a "gray blurry 'thing'" floating up off my arm every time I slap a mosquito. But maybe I'm just being narrow-minded.
But speaking of dead stuff, check out this story, wherein we find that researchers at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland have just completed DNA testing of a "Yeti finger" from Pangboche Monastery, Nepal. You may recall the story of the finger; it had resided in the monastery since who-knows-when, but was procured for science when the aptly-named Tom Slick convinced the monks to allow him to take it. It ended up in the Hunterian Museum in London, but a few months ago a sliver of it was sent to the RZS for analysis. The conclusion?
The finger is human. No doubt about it. So as far as hard evidence of the Yeti goes, we're still waiting.
On the topic of the absence of hard evidence, we have the devastating prediction by noted wingnut Dan Green (no relation, so far as I know, to Dan Brown -- although Dan Green's ideas make The DaVinci Code seem simplistic by comparison). The whole thing, outlined here, involves Lincoln Cathedral and the prophecy in Matthew 24 15-26: "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." We have the following pieces of evidence:
- The cathedral close houses the famous Lincoln Imp statue, a marble statue of a demon.
- When the Brits won the World Cup in March 2010, the trophy was brought to nearby Sincil Bank Football Ground for a celebration. The cup is like the Holy Grail, the blades of the helicopter are like a sword, and "Sincil" sounds a little like "sign, seal." Like the signs and seals in the Book of Revelation. Get it?
- There's a mystical link between Lincoln Cathedral and Chartres Cathedral.
- If you scramble the letters of "Chartres," you get "ratchets," which are gears that only turn one direction.
C'mon, you knew the Templars had to show up, somehow. They always do. Every time you think they're safely tucked away, never to be seen again, they're back. They're kind of the Britney Spears of secret societies.
And last, apropos of not much, we have a wonderful post called "Proving Atheists Wrong With Science." Given that I'm sure that you want to preserve a few brain cells to kill with your favorite libation on New Year's Eve, let me just summarize this stunning argument:
If the average person drinks two liters of water a day, that's about 14 billion liters of water, give or take, consumed per day. If, as the evolutionists claim, the Earth has hosted life for about three billion years, "we would have drunk about 9.5 times the amount of water on the planet." Since the oceans aren't empty, this proves that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old.
The post ends with the statement, "Now what, atheists?" (You'll have to imagine the threatening arm movements that go along with this.) And we have to admit, the logic of this leaves us speechless, largely because it's hard to talk when you're face down on your keyboard.
So, that's a wrap, here at Worldwide Wacko Watch. Hamster ghosts, Yeti finger disproved, Templar treasure in Lincoln Cathedral, and the presence of the oceans proves Young Earth Creationism. We're always on the job, bringing the stories to your doorstep, even if occasionally we have to take a pause for a collective *facepalm.*
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