Correction!
I started off by correcting an error I made on last week's show. I had credited Phyllis Schlafley with writing the book Useful Idiots. She did not write that book. It was written by another conservative named Mona Charen.
Whoops. My mistake.
Veruca Salt Said What?
I next talked about a mishearing of something Veruca Salt, the nasty and selfish little girl in Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, said when she was voicing her displeasure with her father and his employees for not having found a Golden Ticket. I hadn't noticed it as a kid when watching this, a favorite film of my childhood, but when I got much older and was watching it with my son I was stunned by what I thought I heard Veruca say.
In British, some slang words can mean something totally different from what they mean in American. Still I didn't think a G rated movie would have the word 'twats' uttered by a child. But it sure seemed to be the word Veruca used when she angrily spat, "What's the matter with those twats down there?!"
Does that word mean something different in British than what it means in American? Because in American the word is slang for that most naughty of the female naughty bits: the who-who dilly.
Well, some time ago, I opened this up for discussion on Facebook and someone clued me in on what she was most likely saying. I watched the scene a few times and listened carefully. She's not saying what I thought. She's saying, "What's the matter with those twerps down there?!"
Ooohh! Well, that's different.
Never mind.
Another Correction!
I goofed again. I misspoke on this show when I started talking about how when I was a kid television networks would do a once-a-year showing of certain movies. Willie Wonka was one, as was the Wizard of Oz. But, I mentioned a third yearly tradition movie showing, which I misstated as Ben Hur. I meant to say The Ten Commandments. I'm not sure how I got it wrong. I guess I'm just getting old.
I also used the mention of Ben Hur, which I meant The Ten Commandments, to go on (goon?) a little sidetrack about how we can be very certain the Exodus of the Bible never happened. There's just no evidence for a multitude of people wandering the wilderness of the Middle East for 40 years, other than the Biblical account.
It would have been a more effective talk had I not gotten the name of the movie wrong.
Whoops. My mistake.
Now This Is Just Ridiculous
A fellow Z Talker posted a video (see below) on his Facebook page. It claims to show a huge amount of rain falling in one spot. My friend seems to believe that is exactly what the video shows. He, apparently, didn't notice how the water arcs at the top of the video image (in the hated portrait format) and how that arcing rises and falls.
To my skeptical eye, this "rainfall" looked more like a geyser. It definitely is water flowing up from the ground, not down from the sky. I shared this video with some of my fellow skeptics and they identified it as water flowing from a broken water main.
I found another use of this video on YouTube (see below) that cropped the image so as to compensate for the portrait format and, more importantly, remove the arcing water so that the hoax of it being rainfall would be more convincing.
And here is a video (see below) of what is known to be a broken water main. Note the similarities. Of course, there may be some who might think the video shows rain falling on one spot coming from a clear blue sky.
Just ridiculous.
Well, I Can't Unhear That
A member of the MN Skeptics, at the last meet-up, suggested I listen to a podcast called The Last Podcast on the Left. It's a horror-themed comedy podcast in which the hosts jokingly examine serial killers, cults, aliens, and other paranormal sorts of topics. I've listened to a few by now and I'm finding them interesting and entertaining.
I was reluctant to listen to yet another podcast, but my friend suggested I look through their podcast topics and pick one I might like and give it a listen. So, I did just that. I scrolled through and found one on 9/11. I thought that it would be timely to listen to and gave it a shot.
I had misread the topic. It wasn't a show about 9/11. The hosts were listening to and commenting on what they said were actual emergency calls to 9-1-1. Well, I continued to listen as they played three or four calls. The last call allegedly has a woman calling 9-1-1 because she was being kind of creeped out by a man to whom she was showing a rental property, I think. He was acting strangely and she thought she might not be able to get him to leave.
She sounded worried, but calm, as she was able to get to another part of the property to make the call. The operator was getting information from the woman, when the woman suddenly began screaming in absolute terror. The show hosts tell us that those screams were her death screams as the man murdered her.
I was sure to thank my friend for not giving me a bit of a warning about the 9-1-1 shows (they do a few of them). He apologized and said he'd make sure he'd warn other people when recommending that podcast. That doesn't help me. I can't unhear those screams.
I also talked about an early show they did on cults. They talked about Jim Jones on that show and played some of the audio from the last moments of his life and the lives of more than 900 of his followers. In November 1978, Jones had his followers living in his cult compound called Jonestown commit suicide rather than befall what ever paranoid fate he thought was coming their way.
The audio is chilling and I do want to talk a little more about it on the next show.
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| Twentieth Century Fox |
This is a World War II spy (sort of) thriller. Marlin Brando, not a spy exactly, plays a German pacifist who is avoiding the war by living in India, but he is pressed into action by the British. He is to travel, posing as an SS agent, aboard a German freighter ship, captained by Yul Brenner. His job is to keep the captain from scuttling the ship when it is apprehended by the British Navy. The freighter is carrying a large shipment of rubber that the British want to keep from the Germans and use for themselves. Rubber is precious to both sides.
Brando is very good as he attempts to complete his mission by recruiting sympathetic members of the crew. Brenner is also very good as a patriotic captain in the German navy, but he is no fan of the Nazis. Janet Margolin also appears as a hardened young Jewish woman forced into the mix.
Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: 'Town Called Malice' by The Jam & 'Waiting' by The Suburbs
First ad break bumpers: 'Town Called Malice' by The Jam & 'Waiting' by The Suburbs
Second ad break bumpers: 'Age of Consent' by New Order & 'Twilight Zone' by Golden Earring
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle
That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
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