Monday, June 11, 2012
I have said this on a number of occasions and pissed off quite a few people in doing so. But I never considered that a professed belief in Creationism is equally a cultural signifier. Read this article carefully; it opens a whole slew of cans of worms. And by the way, yes I do believe in God, and no I am not a Creationist.
...THE fact is that belief in evolution has virtually no real-life impact on anything. That's why 46% of the country can safely choose not to believe it: their lack of belief has precisely zero effect on their lives. Sure, it's a handy way of saying that they're God-fearing Christians — a "cultural signifier," as Andrew puts it — but our lives are jam-packed with cultural signifiers. This is just one of thousands, one whose importance probably barely cracks America's top 100 list.
It takes a long time to do and is a fairly tedious task so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD
Like many commentators, I sincerely doubt whether these recent predations, which newspapers have attributed to 'The Beast of Bont, have anything to do with mystery cats at all..
News from the Edge Mystery Cats Back in the UK unknowncountry
The Big Cats are back, stalking the fields of England and mutilating sheep. Locals have reported sighting a mysterious, unknown creature they call the " Beast of ...
On this day in 1939 shooting began on 'Dr Cyclops', the first horror film to be shot in colour.
And now the news:
- Pretty flamingo
- Shelling out for a divorce
- 50,000 bees worry Orlando neighborhood
- Engineered Robot Interacts With Live Fish
- Ants in 3D: project begins to image every known sp...
- Parasitic Plants Steal Genes from Their Hosts
- Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin
- 10,000 rare bird eggs seized in Finland
The trailer for Dr Cyclops:
So Tuesday dawns, and it is a glorious summer day. So how do I celebrate this unbelievable mnexus of the majesty of Creation? I am stuck in a dingy converted potato shed with a load of fish. Together (me and the fish) we are writing a whole slew of blog postings starting with...
...I am always impressed how many classic clices of rock and roll history can be found on YouTube, like this classic film of Rick Wakeman:
Even after his death the peculiar world of Captain Beefheart is so full of smoke and mirrors that one cannot help but be confused:
Across Britain the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' slogan has become a little bit of a cult. Now, Hawkwind have joined up:
A fine specimen of Vulpes vulpes together with a Genesis LP. Now what is weird about that?http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/06/hey-reynard-suppers-ready.html
The publicity machine for the forthcoming Gonzo Byrds DVD rumbles into action:
As regular readers will know, I sometimes augment my writings about Gonzostuff with things that I find interesting. Today I review the classic Johnny Rogan biography of The Smiths, which has been updated and reissued:
And that's about it for today. Tomorrow I teach Graham how to do the Gonzo Daily, thursday I go away for a few days. What will await me on my return?
From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:
- The Foot of Bigfoot — Continuing controversy over the Patterson Film...
- Bigfoot's Brain — A rather different debate on Bigfoot anatomy...
- A Werewolf Podcast — The latest from the Mysterious Universe guys...
- The Cryptid Fest: Sept. 1 — An Oklahoma-based event on Saturday, September 1st...
- Monstrous Origins — Neil Arnold's origins in the worlds of Cryptozoology...
If anyone wants to get hold of me by e-mail between thursday and monday/tuesday next week, please cc the email to email@example.com. He will pass the information on to me....
Here are a selection of mystery cat stories from around the world:
This animal has eluded Jon Downes and my attempts to identify it. Remember c. 1910 was only 12 years after the New Territories came under British control. Remember too that there are absolutely no kangaroos in south China, unless a vessel was shipwrecked on the coast near Hong Kong in the 15th Century belonging to the explorer Zheng He,who some say reached Australia and may have brought kangaroos back, who then bred. . Nor is it very likely that it was a bear, though one web site I looked at said there was a population of Asiatic brown bears in southern China today. The long nose aspect demolishes all the proposed animals.
Here is the story in full with my own annotations. Thanks to Bob Skinner for passing on the story.
WHAT WAS IT ?
Weird Animal Seen at Night –
Correct Time for Such Things
Great consternation was caused in Kowloon City one night recently when many excited people claimed to have seen a strange and mysterious animal variously described as a bear, a kangaroo, and an orang outang. The animal is said to have seated (1) itself on the hillside in full view of Hokyuen village , near Bailey`s Shipyard on the Kowloon City Road . One witness , says the “ China Mail” (2) thinks that the animal was a full grown man-eating tiger, but is not sure owing to the distance. He could see no stripes and the animal`s coat was of a dark brown. He estimates the mysterious animal to have been about seven feet long and 3 ½ feet high. Armed police were at once sent out but on arrival at the village, behold the beast had vanished! Excited villagers stated that it had sat for a long while on its haunches like a man, with its fore legs hanging down by its side. It had,they said, a particularly long nose. All the nooise they had been able to make with gongs had failed to scare it away. It was, they averred, in full view for a long time before it eventually strolled away and disappeared into the gathering gloom. No one was able to decide the exact nature of the animal but all were agreed that it was a huge thing of a very brutal appearance. If it was not a tiger, what was it the villagers asked themselves. Some replied that it was an extraordinarily huge bear, others that it was an orang outang, and yet others that it was a kangaroo. Hundreds saw it. What was it.
1. No animal just “sits” itself down alone on a hill and does nothing as far as I know. Despite this if it wasn`t a tiger was it an orang-utan as I was told by an America, Don Ady, a POW of the Japanese in Hong Kong (1941-1945) that there were reports of this mammal in the Hong Kong area in the 1930s?
2. Hopefully I`ll be able to find the China Mail for July 1921