archy

Carnival of Bad History #10
We have a short carnival for you this month, but it's one that highlights the broad range of places in which bad history can be found.

Tim Abbott of Walking the Berkshires finds a little bad history in the glorification of the "Lost Cause" as he reminices about the misadventures of a peacnik Yankee, travelling with his mom to Wild West City in New Jersey for his first reenactment as a Confederate cavalryman, on the same day that his father and sister marched in the largest peace protest in American history.

Over at Neural Gourmet we are all happy to see a bit of bad history finally corrected while the subject is still alive to enjoy his vindication.

A good friend of Archy's, Marty Langeland, submits this essay on beans and the truth about those cattle drive chuck wagons, featured in so many old Western movies. As an added treat, he adds his own recipe for camping beans.

Former CoBH host, Hiram Hover, discovers the power of controlling definitions in "So THAT’S What You Mean by 'Civil War.'"

Future CoBH host, The Axis of Evel Knievel, tells us about today, October 22, and two example of how religious blinders can lead to bad history.

Perhaps we didn't get a lot of bad history submission this month because everyone is wrapped up in the suspense of watching the election approach. Fortunataely, I can only stand the suspense about three days out of the week. On the other days, I take refuge in exploring unconventional belief systems (that's what I'll call them today).

My own exploration produced one explicitly political bit of bad history. Pat Buchanan beleives the radical gay agenda was an influential force to be dealt with in Washington DC before World War One. I found one bit of completely traditional bad history in yet another highly hyped Atlantis theory. Finally, I found one bit of completely beyond-the-fringe bad history in the story of how the Nazi-Yeti alliance was aborted. Somehow, I feel that that brings us full circle back to Pat Buchanan, but maybe that's just me.

Next month will be a great month for bad history. No matter how the election goes, one group of pundits will tell us that there has never been an election like this one while another group of pundits tells us this election was just like any other. The persecuted religious right will start complaining about how America's long tradition of goverment sponsored Christmas is being undermined. Everyone knows that whatever they believe is endorsed by the ages; we will hear from them all. If no bad history can be found in the election post mortems or in holiday rhetoric, there will surely be bad history in the holiday movies. We have but to look and we will find it.

Update: Natalie Bennett of Philobiblon will host the November Carnival of Bad History. The Axis of Evel Knievel will host the December edition.