Having said I don’t plan to start the blog up again, here I go posting.
Can’t keep a poster down! (it seems).
When I resurrected the website from the backups I kept from its former host, I realised that all the links to the segements I use to do on 95bFM’s morning shows (“The Dentith Files” and then “Conspiracy Corner”) were dead as bFM no longer has those files up on its webserver.
Luckily, I saved most of those segments and thus had them on my own local archive. Thus, with a lot of uploading and then going through and replacing links post-by-post, I’ve managed to bring the “magic” of those pre-podcast/radio days back. There are a few missing episodes (six in total) that were never either posted online or I failed to download back in the day; I’ve reached out to someone who knows someone in order to see if they, too, can be salvaged.
I’m in two minds about this; on one level it’s a bit of my personal history, and thus I want it archived. On the other hand, I was a different person then and some of those segments are a little cringeworthy. Still, if you don’t own up to your past, no one else will.
Plus, resurrecting those posts has given me an idea for the podcast… Which brings me to the podcast posts themselves. I used to post links to podcast episodes on the blog, but given we’ve changed hosts, all of those links are now dead. At the moment I have no plan to relink the episodes, mostly because if you want to listen to the podcast it’s best to just go to the site itself, and also because those posts didn’t really have any additional information about the episodes. However, if I get really bored one day maybe I’ll relink them; for the time being, though, I’ve changed the status of those posts to “Draft”.
Between 2008 and 2010, Matthew Dentith first joined 95bFM’s Simon Pound, then José Barbosa, on Sunday mornings to talk about conspiracy theories. Listen, as they say, again!
So, this week we discussed the Vril-ya, Vril and touched briefly on the Vril Society. It was, as they say, a fun time had by all, and Jarred’s sexism was, although not obviously so, jocular as opposed to serious.
This is actually the first of two bFM appearances this week; I’ll be on ‘Ready, Steady, Learn’ tomorrow morning at about 8:40, talking about my research with Manu Taylor.
Tune in to tune out, or whatever the kids say. I’m off to do some work.
Between 2008 and 2010, Matthew Dentith first joined 95bFM’s Simon Pound, then José Barbosa, on Sunday mornings to talk about conspiracy theories. Listen, as they say, again!
‘The Cryptid Factor’ team and I discussed Kerry Wendel Thornley, aka Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, co-founder of Discordianism, and author of the book ‘Oswald,’ which promoted the ‘Lone Gunman Hypothesis’ in regards to Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of one John Fitzgerald Kennedy, president of the United States of America.
Now, I’m going to recommend you all listen to the full show, which can be found here and here, but I know some of you might be thinking ‘I don’t want to listen to all that cryptozoological claptrap. Just give me a link to damn segment, hippy!’
Now, I think it’s very unfair to Rhys and David to say that their show is claptrap. I mean, really, how can you be so judgmental, especially when I don’t think you’ve even bothered to listen to a single episode.
Secondly (and I know I didn’t say ‘Firstly’), I’m not a hippy. Socialist, yes. Communist; almost certainly, but hippy? No. A thousand times no.
Still, perhaps you’re a busy go-getter without an iPod (or equivalent) which allows you to listen to stuff on the go. So, for you business-types, with your gray suits and neckties, here’s the segment on its own:
You might also like to join ‘The Cryptid Files’ fanpage. You could put in a good word for me.
In fact, you better…
Threats don’t translate well over the internet, do they?
Between 2008 and 2010, Matthew Dentith first joined 95bFM’s Simon Pound, then José Barbosa, on Sunday mornings to talk about conspiracy theories. Listen, as they say, again!
‘The Dentith Files’ is back on the air; this week we talked about a sports conspiracy centring around Rugby, Nelson Mandela and Clint Eastwood.
We also didn’t really talk about the Gardasil controversy. We meant to, but time, precious time; it was against us.
Between 2008 and 2010, Matthew Dentith first joined 95bFM’s Simon Pound, then José Barbosa, on Sunday mornings to talk about conspiracy theories. Listen, as they say, again!
Well, the podcast of “The Dentith Files” segment on Richard Gage can be listened to below:
Given that we had a mere twenty minutes (and we went over) this is not as fulsome a discussion on Gage as I’d like, but it covers what José and I felt were the interesting issues we could meaningfully get into given the ,imitation of our time slot.
Also, apparently some calls came in; I had to dash off to catch a ferry.
Anyway, that really is probably the last thing I’ll writing/saying about Gage and his particular version of the ‘Inside Job’ hypothesis for a while; I’m off on Monday for fives days at a conference and when I get back it’ll be time to start work on the final chapter proper of the thesis. December and January will be long months.
I’d just like to advise poiential commenters on this and the other 9/11 posts that:
a) I won’t have much internet access over the next week, so don’t expect prompt or long replies, and
b) the comments policy here is that I have to approve the first comment you make in any given post, so don’t think I’m censoring you or unable to respond to your comments (or anything similar) if it takes a while for your comment to appear publicly.
Between 2008 and 2010, Matthew Dentith first joined 95bFM’s Simon Pound, then José Barbosa, on Sunday mornings to talk about conspiracy theories. Listen, as they say, again!
This week, a Satanic sign-off and some discussion of the (various) P2 Conspiracy Theories.
I actually wrote up some notes for this one, which I’m pasting below for the sake of the future historians.
The P2 Conspiracy
Questions we could deal with:
The Freemason murder theory; how viable was that?
Do organisations like the Catholic Church, really know what their subsidiaries (the Vatican Bank and Banco Ambrosiano) are up to? How culpable are they? Are involved in the Conspiracy are they?
Was P2 up to no good?
Is ‘Spaghetti Hoops’ worth watching?
The notion of a Secret Lodge (P2) within a quasi-secret society (Grand Orient Freemasonry).
Background:
Propaganda Due was one of the Masonic lodges of the Grand Orient of Italy. Founded in 1877, it became famous in the latter part of the 20th Century for its involvement in a potential Conspiracy to overthrow the Italian Government and for its role in the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, which was affiliated with the Vatican bank of the Roman Catholic Church.
Prominent members: Slivio Berlusconi (prior to his involvement in politics)
Victor Emmanual, grandson of the last Italian King.
Propaganda Due become a prominent lodge under the leadership of Licio Gelli. He took a moribund lodge and used it to create a network of Establishment figures, already Masons, who could not be actively involved in rituals due to the scrutiny of the reigning Christian Democrat party. In this respect, Propaganda Due was a secret lodge (as opposed to the public lodges of Grand Orient Freemasonry), which were illegal in Italy.
Between 1981 and 1982 the lodge become public when a series of documents were found during the investigation of the collapse of the banks of Michelle Sindona. Along with a list of members, including Slivio Berlusconi (prior to his involvement in politics) and Victor Emmanual (grandson of the last Italian King), two documents were found. They were the “Memorandum on the Italian situation” and the “Plan of Democratic Rebirth,’ which advocated the goal of transforming Italy into a permanent right-wing, anti-communist authoritarian democracy in the case that the Communists ever got into power, using bribery and corruption as the means to the end.
The most interest part of P2, at least to me, is its involvement with the Vatican.
The Banco Ambrosiano, founded in 1896, was a deliberately Catholic bank that would serve moral and pious works. In the early 1970s Roberto Calvi became its general manager and then its chairman. He brought in the Vatican Bank, the Institute for Works of Religion, as he expanded Ambrosiano’s sphere of influence.
Calvi was a member of P2 and he used the bank as a platform for getting P2 control over media interests. He also used the bank to launder monies and inflate share prices for the benefit of himself, friends the and the Mafia.
In 1978, when Pope John Paul I became Pope he ordered an investigation into wrongdoing at the Institute of Religious Works. He died 33 days later and some have argued that he was murdered because he discovered a scandal.
When the list of P2 members was revealed in 1981, Calvi was outed. Calvi had warned the current Pontiff, Pope John Paul II, that if Ambrosiano collapsed the Church would suffer the most, hinting that the Church’s involvement in money-laundering would impact its reputation. It is interesting to note that the Roman Catholic Church never accepted legal responsibility for the associated actions of Ambrosiano, it has admittedly some degree of moral responsibility.
Although initially imprisoned, Calvi was released pending an appeal and went back to work. In 1982 US$1.287 billion dollars was discovered to be unaccounted for and Calvi fled Italy, via Venice, to London. Eight days later he was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge.
Calvi’s death was initially ruled a suicide but recent investigation has suggested it was murder. The bricks in his pockets had none of his finger prints upon them and there was no rust from the metalwork on the soles of his shoes. Whilst some have fingered the Mafia, to whom he owed large sums of money, others have finger the Masons of P2. It is said that P2 members referred to one another as the “frati neri,’ or ‘black friars’ so the bridge from which he was hung has a certain significance.
(The ‘Comic Strip Presents…’ troupe made a half-hour TV episode about Calvi’s death, called ‘Spaghetti Hoops,’ which is rather excellent.)