|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The tide has finally begun to turn folks. I'm coming at you at nearly 100% this week and we've got perhaps one of the most stacked "binnall reports" in quite some time. I feel like I've let the readership down in the last few weeks with lackluster Coast coverage, but this week we really nail it to the wall and I hope you enjoy the carnage.
As usual, we've got an in-depth look at The Week That Was, a pithy preview of The Week That Is, a look back at 4 classic episodes in This Week in C2C History, binnall report mailbag, and an update on the status of BoA : Audio. Plus, Noory and Hoagland have an adventure at a St. Patrick's Day Parade only in Hot Newz.
So sit back, grab a coffee, tea, or beer, smoke em if you got em and let's get down to it.
The Week That Was
Finally, for the first time in what seemed like weeks, I was back in my normal swing of C2C episodes this week. We left off last week with Friday into Saturday Open Lines with, who else, George Noory. The Noor had Porchet Taylor and Richard Rives on to talk about Noah's Ark. I was still all messed up from the dental work, so this was one I did skip.
Saturday's Ian featured Andrew Colarik, talking about cyber terrorism. Of course I missed this one. As I've mentioned before I can't ever seem to catch the early Ian. Thankfully, my annoyance has been allayed this week when C2C announced that they'll finally be releasing MP3s of Ian episodes starting with this Saturday's Coast. And not a moment too soon. Ian will return to the binnall report shortly. Those previous episodes will have to be referred to as the "lost episodes of Ian".
Saturday night in the Bell Zone, C2C mainstay Peter Davenport made his long awaited return to Coast. This was a fantastic episode. I was a tad put off by the lengthy Phoenix Lights witnesses, but it did add a historical element to the show. Peter's impressions of that night and the subsequent furor were fascinating. Also fascinating, but barely discussed, was Peter's brief foray into the painful aspects of running the UFO reporting center and his recent spate of crank calls from kids. I wish they'd gone into that more. Also interesting was Peter's revelation that he was moving to an old missile bunker. That was cool as hell also.
Sunday night's Bell Zone saw the return of another C2C big name guest with the wicked witch of Coast, Evelyn Paglini. Good to see you back, Pags. I only caught bits and pieces of this episode, so I can barely comment, but I do enjoy the Pags / Bell give-and-take.
On Monday, The Noor returned with Catherine Lanigan to talk about angelic encounters. I went in with reservations, but I ended up being pretty entertained. The first half hour or so, discussing Romancing the Stone and Catherine's work with abused women was enlightening. The angelic stuff was good as well. Catherine's weaving it in with her own personal anecdotes was intriguing, as she's had a pretty remarkable life. A fun and entertaining new look at an oft over discussed Coast topic.
Tuesday, Nick Redfern joined the show to talk about government monitoring of those in the UFO community. I enjoyed this episode a lot, perhaps not as much as some of the denizens of theusofe, who deemed it "best C2C UFO episode in a long time." I would have liked to have heard more modern stuff, but the Greg Bishop discussion was intriguing as all hell. Greg discussed some of what happened with his interactions with "shadowy forces" on BoA : Audio last Fall, so this was a nice "fill in the blanks" on some of the other stuff that may have been going on at the time.
Good general perspective discussion of the UFO field, though I'm growing more weary by the week with Noory's pushing of the Serpo story. BoA's Lesley has done an excellent job of covering Serpo in her Grey Matters columns and she's revealed stuff never heard before on Coast. I wish Noory would do the research and find out about the dubious Serpo "pictures" that made the rounds at the beginning of the year. Perhaps then he'd let this dog die.
Also annoying was Noory's question of where all the big UFO incidents are nowadays. I forget Redfern's answer, but it really wasn't satisfying. As someone who has more than a fair knowledge of Ufology, allow me to answer the question, Mr.Noor. We must remember that it was like 30 to 35 years after Roswell that it was first "discovered". Ditto for the MJ-12 documents. It takes time for a UFO story to grow into a "big incident" type of landmark story. Look at the "Flatwoods Monster" case. That's just getting some rub nowadays and it happened a long time ago. Another example is the Rendelsham Forest incident of 25 years ago. Only in the past 5 or 10 years has it been really looked at as a seminal event in Ufology. If you are looking for contemporary stories that will resonate as "big incidents" in the future, let's talk about the Phoenix Lights, obviously, also the Mexican UFO footage that was released in 2004 by the Mexican Air Force and the Paul Hellyer story out of Canada which may turn out to be bigger than many "crashed saucer" stories in the long run. So there's my answer, Noory. Thanks for playing the game.
Back to the point of Nick Redfern's appearance, I thought it was good, not great, but trending upwards. I think it was a tad too "watered down" or mainstreamed for the general audience. A more, ahem, hardcore discussion could yield some serious gold. But still, a worthy episode and it should be in contention come Coastie season.
On Wednesday, my favorite hater of government tracking, Katherine Albrecht was the guest, along with Pat Showalter and Celeste Bishop for a quasi-roundtable to talk about some newfangled government mandate for insane tracking of farms. I usually scoff at Albrecht's stuff, thinking it over-the-line paranoia, but this one resonated in a big way. The other two folks with Albrecht were really just folks affected by this new rule who were pretty peeved about it. But they added in getting me all riled up about this new law. It really was a classic sign of the slow cooking loss of control and freedom that is going on across America today and it was actually scary as hell. Great episode.
And, finally, on Thursday, we had Neal Adams, comic book legend, talking about expanding planets. And that was the problem. The first hour of stuff talking about the evolution of the comic industry was fascinating. Great, great stuff. The expanding planets stuff that followed for the remainder of the show was decent, but too esoteric to be that compelling. I ended up listening and taking in the theory, but at the end of the episode I felt more interested in the comic stuff than this new theory. Yeah, it has some legs, but I've already got a bucket of theories with legs hanging around my neck from this show. I'll toss it in the bucket, but that is really as far as it gets. More comic stuff, less odd science stuff. For what it's worth, Hoagland showed up mid-show to toss his two cents into the mix. I hear he gushed about comics, which is typical for the celebrity whore that Hoagland tends to be on Coast.
Good to great week. Perhaps it's because I heard almost all the episodes, but this week had a great mix of topics and guests. Some soared, some sank, but all had elements of entertainment throughout.
The Week That Is
We start out TWTI with Friday into Saturday Open Lines and a pop-in from C2C's investigative reporter extraordinaire, Linda Moulton Howe. I wish LMH would appear more than once a month, but I savor the ones we get at this point. Standard Open Lines foolishness shall follow. Prediction on theme : "luck".
Ian has Robert Bowie Johnson on the early show to talk about Greek mythology. I'll be listening to Ian for the first time in a long time, so let's hope he steps it up. Should be interesting.
The Bell Zone on Saturday features Nick Pope talking about UFOs in the UK. Excellent. Shockingly, Pope is not listed as having appeared on C2C in over 4 years. A quick perusal of the artbell.com cd rom says that Pope was last on C2C on 7.22.1999, six and a half years ago ! Wow. Pope should be killer as he has tons of material and Bell should really enjoy this one.
Sunday's Bell Zone features James McCanney talking about Project Stardust and his work with comet theory. McCanney is usually hit-or-miss, but with Bell he's likely to do well. If he were on with The Noor, I'd expect a Hoagland pop-in, but it seems like Hoags is persona non grata with Art.
Monday, The Noor kicks off the week with Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby, talking about "subtle energy". This sounds like a nebulous nightmare. Scott-Mumby will also talk about "his friendship with Cleve Baxter", which sounds odd and could be interesting.
Tuesday, Robert Temple is the guest to discuss Ancient Oracles. Temple has done some serious research on ancient monuments and early esoterica so this could be a killer episode. I suspect Noory will make the obvious joke about Temple's last name at some point within the first half hour.
Wednesday we have the dreaded TBA. Consider this my umpteenth call for a Jordan Maxwell appearance. Someday, I will get what I want.
And, finally, on Thursday we have Howard Ruff as the guest. He'll be on to talk about business and geopolitics. It seems like Coast hasn't done much geopolitical stuff in a while, after beating it to death last year. This should be interesting. Hopefully it will compel someone with some sac to get Webster Tarpley on the show finally.
binnall of america : audio, Season One
As of this writing, our guest for this week fell through. It's probably for the best as, after much consideration, we have decided to take a 3 week hiatus to recharge our batteries and collect the final cycle of interviews for the season. BoA : Audio, Season One will resume on 4.8.6 and continue until the Season Finale in June.
The gist of it is that my dental crisis of the last few weeks set us back some and we don't want to go "week to week" with tenative guests and what-have-you. We'd rather step back, take a breath, collect the next cycle of interviews and roll along unencumbered for the rest of the show's duration.
We have a bevy of folks lined up to talk to us, but it takes time to do the research that we pride ourselves on and to set up the interview and actually tape it. The three week hiatus allows us to take care of the business at hand and not try and make it work on the fly and disappoint our audience.
Thanks for sticking with us and being patient. I'm sure BoA : Audio, Season One will go out with a bang when we resume on 4.8.6.
binnall report mailbag
Letter #1
Tim,
Do you plan on adding any other counters like Quayle Watch or Hoags to Hoags to binnallofamerica any time soon ?
Peter in Newark, NJ
Hmm. Good question, Peter. Hoags to Hoags has been in existence for a long time and Quayle Watch actually came about as a surprise for one of our original BoA founders, Joe Vee, who is a certified Steve Quayle superfan. We've considered adding an additional counter (or two) to the present two counters, but are not sure yet who we will track. Possible candidates include Jon Rappaport, Douglas Haggman, and/or Alex Jones, who all make fairly frequent pop-in appearances on C2C.
I'm sure we'll eventually add someone else to track, perhaps a Skolnick Tracker for my beloved Sherman Skolnick appearances on Rense, although it looks like The Sherminator hasn't been on Rense in a while, if at all this year.
Letter #2
binnal,
Any future plans for more After Dark articles ?
Adam in West Palm Beach, Florida
As a matter of fact, Adam, I just wrote a new piece for them recently. I'm fairly certain it is okay to plug it, but I'll wait until next week to announce it. That said, if you've heard Noory push this month's After Dark, you've heard him mention my article. How's that for a teaser ?
Questions ? Comments ? Send them to tbinnall@hotmail.com
This Week in C2C History
3.17.2005 : It was St. Patrick's Day and Noory was all a tither. He had Randall Fitzgerald on to talk about luck and essentially beat St. Patty's Day to death as far as a topic goes. He also was amused by Fitzgerald suggesting that there was a 2nd brain in the stomache : "The experiences of intuition, he said, strikes people in different physical ways—a prickly sensation, a feeling in the gut or heart, or an adrenaline shot. In fact, he noted that some researchers contend that we have "a second brain in our digestive system." And in the nerves and tissues running through that area, learning and memory occurs and this "brain" may be the source of many of our unconscious decisions." (C2C website archive)
3.18.2004 : The Sister Lucia Debacle. I'll never forget where I was when I heard of this infamous episode. Wayne Green and David Booth appeared a scant three weeks since their previous appearance, claiming to have some inside information from Sister Lucia of Fatima fame. When they showed up, they refused to divulge anything and Noory flipped out and booted them off the show in classic Noory dramatic fashion. An instant classic and a legendary episode of Coast. Here's C2C's explanation for the incident from their archive : "Because Booth had been booked on the show to discuss his meeting with Lucia, and refused to elaborate further upon it, the interview was cut short, and the last 90 minutes of the program was reserved for Open Lines. "
3.19.2003 : Noory the war reporter helped kick of Gulf War II by hosting a marathon 6 hour episode of C2C. The first two hours were tagged on at the beginning of the show, a trend that would continue for the next three nights. Steve Quayle was the very first guest for this marathon night. Ever the worrisome esotericist, Quayle was happy to report "last week, the FBI successfully defused two "suitcase nukes" that had been planted in two major midwestern cities in the US." (C2C Archive) Wow, I'm surprised I never heard of that story ... ever again. Noory, true to form, hosted a regular show of Open Lines after the 2 hour pre-show dedicated to the war.
3.17.1999 : Only on the old show with Art Bell : "A listener writes about Ed Dames and the things he talked about on the show recently and his experience with a toad in his basement. " (artbell.com cd rom) and "Marijuana has medical benefits for those suffering with cancer or AIDS according to a new report. Art says finally the government has come around. Though Art is not in favor of marijuana, he is in favor for the truth. " (also artbell.com cd rom)
End Notes
That does it for this week's edition of the binnall report. Thanks for reading. I hope our entry this week lived up to our standard of excellence. I'd put this week's edition up against any previous edition, paragraph-for-paragraph and I think it would hold its own quite well.
Plugs : Tomorrow @ binnallofamerica.com. General housekeeping and updates. Maybe some surprises. Sunday, smoker dave. Monday, more surprises. Tuesday, Grey Matters. Wednesday, The K-Files. Thursday, Hot Newz. Friday, more binnall report. binnallofamerica.com ... the calm before the storm is now.
Ah, the weekend is upon us and the weather is getting better. The sun is setting later in the day and it is almost my favorite time of year. Things can't get much better than this. I hope y'all have an excellent weekend and a stellar week. This is binnall, signing off.