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I'm trying to delete some kinks in the bog, and that's lead to deleting some things that would have stayed otherwise, including the letter folowing, which I now repost for your enjoyment. I believe one might have to copy and paste the url to go to David's site. Regardles, the comment, as are all, is much appreciated here.
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I have been desultorily following your site for some time. Though I am opposed--not diametrically--to many of your positions, I still find what you have to say is engaging. Your documentation is above average for Blog Sites--most do not even give attribution to quotations one may find on these sites.
A question about this entry: What do the killings at Salem have to do with the rest of the article? Seems to me to be a non sequitur.
Your voice at times is shrill, so much so that I need to turn down my speakers while reading your site. Still, as I said, I find it thought provoking and interesting, even revelatory.
I have reviewed your site on mine at: www.angelfire.com/art3/dwhiting3/Erato/
My site is far less rigorous, more eclectic than yours. Perhaps a reflection of the measure of organization in my thoughts.
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Posted by David Whiting to
no dhimmitude
at 1/13/2006 10:47:24 AM
2 comments:
This is posted on my site as well but I wanted to be sure you saw it. Again, Thank You.
Oh, another thought: sarcasm and irony are so much harder to convey on the Internet than in writing on paper for some reason beyond my ken.
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What a detailed response. How refreshing. Your response was more lengthy and not without meaning than all other responses I have thus received--combined. First, let me offer an apology then, I will make my own response.
I missed the lump in your cheek when you referred to yourself as a ‘Right wing religious bigot’; I apologize for my oversight. I will stand by the ‘shrill’ growls notwithstanding.
Gnostics. I find that a person or organization speaking from a ‘privileged’ position often is more gnomic than Gnostic. That is indeed a backhanded way of defining a group: by its style of utterance—though, I admit, it is not far fetched—than what it is uttering. In this case, I find it to be a libel upon the Gnostics of the 1st century CE. At best, it is a ‘marketplace’ definition (as J. Joyce would say), not one grounded in history. Then you do say you have no abiding interest in the Gnostics as it were. By the way, I DO have a hard time separating the Parfaits from Pat Robertson.
I look forward to your entry on J. Campbell a sham academic who was prone to perpetuating howlers via his books and poor, sweet Moyers. One of his more infamous ones: The winning team being sacrificed. What was that about? Soon a society would be fielding teams of mediocrity and there would be no game (has this happened in modern baseball?). I am convinced that he was a crypto-fascist: Follow your bliss. What a recipe for disaster.
The Nazis and the Occult. I refer you to the following bibliography :
http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/arcana/nazi.html
Smallpox and the American Indians. As you suggest, this is more controversial than most would credit. Again, another reference for you:
http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/Bioterrorism/00intro02.htm
I have never heard of the Hudson Bay Company engaging in this practice. As you say, this may be an urban, or rather frontier, myth based upon real or imagined events in the colonies further south during the French and Indian Wars. These myths get perpetuated by someone writing something, based on shaky documentation, and then being repeated by someone else using the first author as documentation. The process continues ad nauseum. What happened to source materials, to primary research? Too hard for most.
Francis Bacon (the thinker/writer, not the painter) and David Hume? Fantastic. Let Descartes and his progeny sink in the ooze of their making (I would include Mary Baker Eddy in that viscous group). But Pagels?!! I assume you Elaine? What an academic tramp! There are some worthy things to attend to in her blathering but there is so much dreck one needs to wade through to get there.
My legion of readers? Well there are about 30 regulars but I average 100 hits a day. Far short of a legion. Thank you though.
David, I am becoming a legion of your fans all by myself.
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