Freemasons and the City

I have to admit, I enjoy reading conspiracy theories and New Age mumbo jumbo ... well, maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word. It's actually saddening to see people sling assumptions and accusations around, with so little basis in reality. But it's what passes for mythology in our mixed-up culture. (Hmm ... that's even sadder.) Still, there are occasionally a few concrete things to talk about.

Like the theory that the Freemasons designed the street plan for the city of Washington, D.C., and included a pentagram in the design to demonstrate their occult powers. If this doesn't qualify for a blog about unlikely things, I don't know what does. The theory itself uses the "grasping at straws" method, where the authors take a few facts, like George Washington being a Freemason (true), and pentagrams being associated with Freemasonry (iffy), and come up with a weird scenario that sounds cool but demonstrates nothing.

The best site I've found for debunking this urban legend is a huge archive called "Anti-masonic claims refuted," at the Grand (Masonic) Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. Yes, the Masons have a right to defend themselves. After all, they get smeared all the time, and no wrongdoing has ever been proven. These articles are very well written, with proper supporting facts. A really fascinating collection.

For the Washington, D.C. case, see this article, which goes into detail on the flaws in the "theory," including who created the city plans, and who didn't. It includes links to the actual plan. What I like is the breakdown of all the unspoken assumptions that go into the theory. This is where the fringe stuff usually breaks down; by talking fast and being unaware of just how many pieces are missing.

So, was ANY city EVER designed to include Masonic symbols? For fun, the Grand Lodge site also has an article about the one city that is known to have a Masonic layout ... Sandusky, Ohio.

King Kong is Burning

Right now there's a major fire burning in the back lot of Universal Studios. The set from "Back to the Future" is reported as being destroyed, as well as the King Kong exhibit that's part of the regular tour, plus the set from Clint Eastwood's recent film, "The Changelings", the New York Street exhibit, a few other sets and a major film & video archive. Up to 50,000 videos and reels in the video vault may have been destroyed, but duplicates of these exist elsewhere, according to the report [1]. Ten firefighters are reported injured [2]. The fire started just before 5 A.M. and the cause is under investigation.

LINK 1: MSNBC 01 June 2008.
LINK 2: CNN 01 June 2008.
LINK 3: FirstShowing.net 01 June 2008 - good photos.

Like almost everything else, this has actually happened before. In November, 1990, another fire on these same back lots caused $25 million in damage, and destroyed the "Back to the Future" set. That fire was set by a security guard, who was convicted and sent to prison for four years.

Fish farts?

Every now & then, a headline is irresistible. Here's an odd piece about herring releasing bubbles from their tail eed, possibly as a form of communication.

LINK: New Scientist (05 Nov 2003)

I'm not sure this needs a polite scientific term, but it's called "Fast Repetitive Tick." They're not farts as we know them here in the air-breathing world, since "the number of sounds does not change when the fish are fed." Evidence as a form of communication includes, "when more herring are in a tank, the researchers record more FRTs per fish" and more activity after dark, when the fish can't see each other.

It's not the latest news, but it shows that sometimes the unexpected can be right under our noses.

The Wilhelm Scream

There was a famous movie scream recorded way back when (earliest known use in "Distant Drums" - 1951) which made its way into stock sound f/x libraries and has become something of a Hollywood gag. It has been reused in almost every Star Wars film, Indiana Jones film, even in Disney cartoons. It supposedly showed up in the new Indiana Jones film, too, when Indy and Mutt were sliding under those tables in the library on the motorcycle -- a startled student shrieked it out. After you hear it once, you'll hear it everywhere.

LINK - a more detailed history of it over at DamnInteresting.com.
and
LINK - a hysterical compilation of Wilhelm screams from many of your favorite movies, over on YouTube.

So, if you're watching a movie or cartoon and some of the laughs or screams or miscellaneous sounds seem hauntingly familiar, don't be surprised if you really have heard them all before.

Lions, Lions Everywhere!

Our four house cats are enough of a handful. I couldn't imagine trying to keep a wild cat as a pet. And certainly not a lion. However, there are a lot of wild pets out there, laws or no laws, and we tend to only hear about them when they get loose. I wondered how many pet lion incidents there could possibly be ...

Lambert the Lion (550 pounds) attacking cars on U.S. Highway 23 in Ohio. (LINK - Herald Times Online (AP) - 27 Nov 2007) "Agency investigates owner of escaped lion" (LINK - Vindy.com (AP) - 25 Nov 2007) Ohio currently has no laws against keeping exotic pets but (not surprisingly): "City may review wild animal issue." (LINK - Norwalk Reflector - 24 Dec 2007) From link #2: "It's difficult to estimate how many lions and tigers are privately owned in Ohio because so few are licensed."

Kitty the Lion has to move, Appalachian family fights to keep their 400-pound lion, but it can't stay in their neighborhood. (LINK - Living in the Wine Country - 18 May 2006)

Boomer the Lion loose around Ottawa. A young lion, only 150 pounds. (LINK - The Raw Story (AP) - 30 Apr 2008)

It's not as easy as you might think to identify which exotic pets might be a hazard, but lions clearly have the potential to be dangerous. "Ever since a woman wearing a leopard skin coat was attacked by a pet lion, there have been tight controls on keeping wild animals at home." New law in Britain tries to sort them out: (LINK - London Daily Telegraph - 10 Jul 2007) (LINK - The Times Online - 5 Oct 2007) The leopard skin incident was from 1976.

For an old classic, how about Christian the Lion, who was bought from a Harrods department store in 1969, grew too big for its owner, and its transition back to Africa was made into a documentary film?
(LINK - London Daily Mail - 4 May 2007 with good photos)

While I love animals, the power of a lion and how volatile they can be as pets is shown on this video of a pet lion in Pakistan having a bad moment and almost ripping a boy's arm off.

I don't have a big statement to make about this. Just collecting some links on an odd topic. Protect the animals, and you will protect people from themselves.

Lost & Found extremes

For some reason, stories of people losing and finding things always catch my eye. What makes the following stories "odd" is that the finders returned the goods. Nice to know there's still some honesty in the world.

Boy scout returns wallet with $800, after losing his own wallet not long before. (LINK from Associated Press - 30 Apr 2008).

A wallet with $2,500 in it, lost at sea? Found and returned by four teenagers in Florida. (LINK from the Post Chronicle - 29 Apr 2008).

How about a wallet with $20,000 in it? Would it ever be seen again? Yes. (LINK from Free Republic - 27 Jul 2004). Original article on (Omaha.com) no longer available.

And my favorite: I know it has been splashed around a bit, but you don't hear of a lost $4 million violin everyday. It was left behind in a New Jersey cab ... and returned! (LINK from Associated Press - 23 Apr 2008)

But the oddest loss in recent news? Pink Floyd was playing a gig at the Coachella Music Festival here in California. They lost a giant inflatable pig balloon that says "Obama" on it. It's bigger than a bus. It wasn't stolen or anything, it just floated away. If you see it, they would like it returned. There's a $10,000 reward! (LINK from Fox 5 Las Vegas - 30 Apr 2008).

Plagues of spiders, and spiders plagued

Sometimes a headline just stands out from the monotony. Like this one: "Spider plague closes Australian hospital" (LINK, Apr 22, 2008). The ABC version is "Redback plague closes hospital" (LINK, Apr 23, 2008) which has a link to the audio version, beginning with "It sounds like the stuff of a B-grade horror movie ...". My kind of story. "Poisonous spiders and patients ..." are apparently a bad combination.

We usually only see a few spiders in a day, but nature has a way of taking advantage of just the right conditions and producing surprising biomass. There are millions of eggs and seeds of bugs, creatures and plants for every acre of land on earth, waiting for just the right conditions.

Spiders in Australia again: "Warning of deadly spider plague" (LINK, news.com.au, Jan 20, 2006). Early rains produce a regular annual plague earlier than usual, this time funnel-web spiders.

Every few years, here we go. "SPIDER INVASION" (LINK, extraOnline.com.au, Oct 30, 2002) -- "Queensland is in the grip of the worst spider plague ever - with the hot and dry conditions creating the perfect breeding ground." At least 20 people bitten. Though brief, this article offers some tips on destroying spiders and the ominous conclusion, "If you're persistent the spider will eventually get the message and move on." As opposed to the spiders coming back with their own cans of poison and zapping you while you sleep.

Oddly, here's a lesson in the consumer economics, using an example of battling -- you guessed it -- a plague of red-back spiders in Australia: "$100 is cheaper than $20!" by John Stanley (LINK, johnstanley.cc).

I don't know how many spiders it takes to qualify for a "plague". Plenty of people think one spider is too many, but if we killed all the spiders we'd be swarming with an even bigger plague of smaller pests the spiders help to control.

Being twisted, I wondered if anything plagued spiders. Sure enough, in an interesting long article about social spider colonies ("Spider Solidarity Forever"), I found this: "A mysterious spider plague swept through Panama in 1983, killing entire nests of cooperative spiders." (LINK from Science News - May 8, 1999).

The downside to living in huge colonies is the easy spread of disease and the reduction of genetic diversity. So, if we lived in smaller, more scattered colonies, the spiders would be free to plague across the countryside, and never bother us at all?