The dangers of channel surfing!

Chupacabra vs. The Alamo is a 2013 made for TV movie about a pack of Chupacabra that use a tunnel to escape from Mexico to San Antonio, Texas. In their travels, however, they engage in many violent attacks. They begin to kill local residents and various drug cartel members.

The film stars Erik Estrada and Julia Benson as the protagonists. It was directed by Terry Ingram with the story [Damien's note: Story? Really? Story?] by Peter Sullivan and Jeffrey Schenck. The movie was released in the U.S. and Canada initially and then later in Brazil and Germany under the titles Chupacabra and Chupacabra - Angriff der Killerbestien.

In the climax, Carlos  [Estrada] enlists the aid of his son's gang and leads the Chupacabras to the Alamo, where a battle takes place. In the end, they kill all the Chupacabras by blowing up the Alamo.

Damien's note: The brief description on the television guide ended with the appropriate word: Horror.

So does a movie in which American drug agents and a gang of Hispanic kids blow up the Alamo to destroy  monsters who are killing drug cartel members  ... I mean, does this send mixed signals, or is it just me?

Peter Sullivan, one of the screenwriters, recently directed the Hallmark original movie Christmas Under Wraps, starring Candace Cameron Bure. Christmas Under Wraps was the highest rated telecast in Hallmark Channel history and the second highest rated cable movie in 2014. Want to talk about Horror!

If only he had signed the note Richard Hauptmann

From the incompetent criminals file: Back in 1974, 20-year-old Kenneth Lutz of Grand Terrace, California thought he had found an easy way to scam his parents. He kidnapped himself. He did this by attaching a note to his parents' front door demanding $5000 in $20 bills for his return, with instructions that the money be "put out when you go to work Wednesday," and signed the note, "the kidnaper". Then he went into hiding. 

 However, he didn't hide very well. When the police arrived a few hours later they found him sitting at a desk in a camper van behind his parents' home. He promptly confessed that he had written the note, and that no one else was involved in the scheme, explaining, "I wanted the money and it sounded like something that could be done." 

A detective said that the circumstances of the case had immediately aroused his suspicions because, "You tell me one kidnapper that signs his name 'kidnaper' at the bottom of a note." 

Source: Museum of Hoaxes January 1, 2015

Damien's note: Five thousand dollars in 1974 would be equivalent to almost twenty-five thousand dollars today. But there is something of "The Ransom of Red Chief" about this whole thing. Maybe the parents suggested the idea to him and then planned not to pay any ransom. Given that photograph, I am still unsure why they even reported anything to the police.

Mapping preferences rather than realities

Well, that didn’t go over well.

For months, publishing giant HarperCollins has been selling an atlas it says was “developed specifically for schools in the Middle East.” It trumpets the work as providing students an “in-depth coverage of the region and its issues.” Its stated goals include helping kids understand the “relationship between the social and physical environment, the region’s challenges [and] its socio-economic development.”

Nice goals. But there’s one problem: Israel is missing.

There’s Syria. There’s Jordan. There’s Gaza. But no mention of Israel. The story was first reported by a Catholic publication, the Tablet.

On Wednesday, HarperCollins was backtracking fast. “HarperCollins regrets the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas,” HarperCollins UK said on its Facebook page. “This product has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologizes for this omission and for any offense it caused.”
It apparently caused quite a bit. On Amazon, the atlas has 39 reviews. Every reviewer gave it one star.

“It’s incredibly sad and sickening how one of the world’s largest publishers has failed to recognize Israel,” one reviewer wrote, calling it a “travesty and international shame.” “Failing to recognize its existence is horrifying and it’s a shame that in 2014, such nonsense still goes on.”

How did this happen? Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins that specializes in maps, told the Tablet that it would have been “unacceptable” to include Israel in atlases intended for the Middle East. They had deleted Israel to satisfy “local preferences.” [Emphasis added by Damien]

Strangely, however, the West Bank is clearly marked on the map, but not Israel. Nobody can quite seem to grasp quite what HarperCollins was thinking. “The publication of this atlas will confirm Israel’s belief that there exists hostility toward their country from parts of the Arab world. It will not help to build up a spirit of trust leading to peaceful co-existence,” a British bishop named Declan Lang, who chairs a conference that first highlighted the omission, told the Tablet.

Others were less diplomatic. “What a piece of inaccurate garbage!” one reviewer said.

Source: The Washington Post
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Damien's note: One assumes HarperCollins had also been preparing maps of the United States that they will market in Texas and the Deep South, maps which will not show Washington, DC -- or perhaps anything north of the Mason Dixon line. Because local preferences.

More Americana: The Angel of Hadley

The day was Sunday, September 1, 1675 and King Philip's War was raging. The Wampanoag tribe was advancing upon Hadley, Massachusetts after creating a diversion, luring colonial troops away from the town. Hadley residents were in church (because they were Puritans and that's what Puritans did all day on Sunday) when an old man whom no one had ever seen burst in. The man had long white beard, white hair, and was wearing outdated English clothing. He warned the townspeople of the attack and then organized and led a successful defense against the Wampanoags. After the battle, the man disappeared and was never seen in Hadley again. The townspeople believed that God had sent an angel to rescue their town.

John Russell, the pastor in Hadley at the time, told the truth about the Angel on his deathbed. The Angel of Hadley was actually Willam Goffe, one of the judges who sentenced King Charles I to death in 1648. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Goffe fled to America and one of his hiding places was a secret room in the home of John Russell in Hadley.

The more interesting truth behind the Angel of Hadley legend is actually very surprising. It never happened. The legend was started by Ezra Stiles, former President of Yale University, in his book A History of Three Judges of King Charles I. Several authors have since used the legend in one way or another, including Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Source: Emerson College Digication 

Damien's note: In the usually (ahem!) reliable way of Wikipedia, this tale is accounted "possibly apocryphal." Ya think?

One thing I always wonder about stories such as this, in which God intervenes by sending an angel or some such to lead people into battle, is why God didn't simply stop the attack by leading the attackers in a circle and never into battle at all. But then, I'm not God, so what do I know about the divine wisdom in choosing to lead people into battle instead of leading them into peacemaking.

Fun factoid

Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States, had never voted when he was elected to the highest office of the land. As a military man, he moved around and never established residency and had never registered to vote. He did not vote for himself because he did not vote for anyone.

He served from March 4, 1849 until his death on July 9, 1850. On July 4, 1850, Taylor reportedly consumed raw fruit (probably cherries) and iced milk after attending holiday celebrations and a fund-raising event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction. Over the course of several days, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment. His doctor, according to biographer John S. D. Eisenhower, "diagnosed the illness as cholera morbus, a flexible mid–nineteenth-century term for intestinal ailments as diverse as diarrhea and dysentery but not related to Asiatic cholera," the latter being a widespread epidemic at the time of Taylor's death. Rumors spread that he had been poisoned, but tests done on the remains in 1991 indicated no evidence of poison and instead confirmed that he had died of acute gastroenteritis. These results have been questioned by those who prefer a mystery to a solution.

At any rate, he was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore who went on to make such a name for himself for obscurity that he is, alas, no longer obscure. Perhaps Fillmore's biggest claim to fame is to have been the last president affiliated with neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party, having been a Whig like his predecessor. 

Your world and mine in 2015: I am not making any of this up

Dating Naked is an American reality series shown on VH1, which debuted on July 17, 2014. The show, matches up several heterosexual couples who are routinely switched with other partners while nude most of the time with the genitals of both sexes along with the female breasts with the exception of buttocks blurred out. Amy Paffrath is host and refrains from nudity. Filming is in Panama.
On September 15, 2014, the show was renewed for a second season

Castle Hunters: Follow American couples as they travel overseas searching for the perfect home that matches their criteria. Lots of bedrooms, room for entertaining, plenty of parking, and it has to be a castle! Hundreds of castles are for sale all over the world and each episode of Castle Hunters will take viewers inside some of Europe's most incredible properties. From the South of France to the rolling hills of Ireland, our home seekers will decide if the manor lifestyle is for them and make an offer or keep searching for their fairytale ending.  One tidbit: Maintaining a medium-sized castle in France costs between $15,000 and $30,000 per year.

Married at First Sight: Six people who agree to participate in an extreme experiment: Each covenants legal marriage with a complete stranger. The good news/bad news? After the marriages take place, some of the couples -- married? divorced? -- get another reality program to share their profound reflections on the sanctity of marriage.

Meanwhile, some county clerks in Florida, uncomfortable with the possibility of having to do their job and marry gay couples, have decided to halt all courthouse marriages. Because of the American tradition of respecting the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, you know.

Happy New Year!