The website of Associate Professor of Philosophy M R. X. Dentith
… will return on Sunday the 4th of April (back on 95bFM), at a slightly earlier time (just before 11am).
I’m expecting to get Darby-facted by Rhys, but I’ll have the ever tall David Farrier to hide behind in case I can’t cope.
Have pity on our non-existant souls.
I’m aware that some of my readers browse the site rather than rely on the RSS feed to find out what Messrs. Dentith and Ransome are up to. For that former group, the site being down the last few days must have been miserable, so I apologise to those three people profusely.
It was not, however, a fault on my end. My host’s network went bottom’s up and I was a casualty.
Anyway…
Normally, this being an ‘every second Sunday’ morning, I’d be entering the studios of bFM to do the “Dentith Files,” but with José gone and a new show in place lead by David Farrier, Rhys Darby (and produced by Buttons) I’m at home and not burning my fingers on the bFM coffee machine (that’s not a euphemism, by the way; José liked me to make him coffee ((And to do other things, but that’s another story for another time))).
I’m not sure what the future of ‘The Dentith Files’ will be; David has indicated he’s keen to bring me in to the new show, the “Cryptid Factor” but he, Rhys and Buttons will need, I suspect, some time to settle into their new bFM roles and work out how, if at all, to accommodate the old “Sunday Breakfast” regulars. I mean, how will people cope on a Sunday morning without a dose of James Coe’s patent-formula newsrage? Or the superbly titled “Games Burnett?”
Which, because I’m on a “break” ((And using too many quote-marks.)) leads me to ask “Has the slot run its course? Is it time to put the Dentith Files to bed?”
I’d like to think “No.” Whilst the quality of the slot was variable (sometimes, for example, José and I were more concerned about TV than we were about conspiracy theories, and sometimes we played it for laughs), it was never, I’d like to think ((It seems I’d like to think a lot of things…)), dull. Longwinded; yes. Pretentious; almost certainly. In-jokey? Perhaps overly.
But never, ever, dull.
I hope.
I have given thought to producing the “Dentith Files” as a podcast, should the slot not reappear on the Sunday schedule. I’m also vaguely interested in doing it as a vodcast, although the timing of it would be crucial. I think I could get away with fifteen minutes of “radio” but not fifteen minutes of “film,” for example. I mean, unless I have fancy graphics, exciting guests and exotic location filming (replete with car chases, explosions and beautiful companions), fifteen minutes of a vodcast will feel like a chore for the humble (and not-so-humble) viewer. Five minutes is probably optimum. Seven… even that is pushing the viewer’s patience.
Of course, podcasting and vodcasting takes time, which, strangely enough, the radio slot doesn’t. I just had to turn up with a topic prepared, answer José’s questions and then go home. There was no editing involved, no need to listen to it to make sure it sounded okay and no need to redo segments if they didn’t quite pan out. A podcast (or vodcast), not being a live recording, needs to be an altogether more polished affair, I think.
There’s also the direction it would take without José as the interlocutor. A solo effort would be… weird. Due to the often byzantine ways conspiracy theories develop, describing them really requires someone else to direct you in the explanation of them. I mean, imagine trying to explain Lyndon LaRouche’s theories? Where do you start? What part do you focus on? I don’t necessarily think that I need some kind of creative partner to make it work, but the “Dentith Files,” as a show, would need much more planning than it ever did on the radio should I go it alone.
So, I guess, it’s wait and see. I’m certainly going to do something with the “property.” Until then, I’m on a media holiday ((Although not much of one; I’ve been asked to create a portfolio of my media interactions last year in the vain hope of winning the media prize offered by the New Zealand branch of the Australasian Association of Philosophy.)). No off-kilter comments about the squid conspiracy this week, nor an references to my obsession with primes.
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!
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.
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.)
We didn’t talk Conspiracy Theories this week; rather, we talked about my latest experiment in sleep deprivation, Ant Timpson’s 10th 24 Hour Movie Marathon. I’ve already listed the films and my thoughts on them, so you can listen to me and Ant discuss the marathon as it happened.
I’ve been away the last month, living in ‘exile’ on the North Shore. As of yesterday I have returned to Grey Lynn. I’ve baked cookies, gone for a walk, slept in my own bed and, as is usual, presented another episode of ‘The Dentith Files.’
This week we talked about how organisations become sinister…