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Friday, December 16, 2016
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Reverend Zombie of New Orleans
I visited New Orleans last year and stayed in the French Quarter for four days. It is incredible. The locals still believe in Voodoo and Zombies. There is a legend about the so-called Reverend Zombie, a reverend who was turned into a Zombie. Today, you can see a store that celebrates his legend, called Reverend Zombie's House of Voodoo. And now, the legend ... in a quaint English that I edited a bit to make it more readable.
The Reverend Zombie of New Orleans
Many locals, perhaps hundreds, of all classes and races (even in antebellum days) knew of grand Voodoo Zombie rituals often held at the so-called "Wishing Spot" on the St. John bayou. This is where the blood of roosters was poured into the black Bayou to feed the spirits. And many so-called witnesses said real Zombies were made.
The many dreaded Zombies danced as commanded by their masters. In honor of the great snake Zombi, the symbol of the Voodoo god, the Zombies slithered at their masters' feet, and locals fervently believed in Voodoo-cursed zombies and the ability to capture a spirit in a Zombie Bottle.
Who Is The Real Reverend Zombie of New Orleans?
In 1962, according to his death certificate, the Haitian peasant Clairvius Narcisse died near his home village in the Artibonite Valley. Though physically strong and rarely ill, he had begun to have difficulty breathing after a dispute with his brother over a piece of land. Weakened and nauseated, he began to spit blood and died two days later. His body was buried in a small rural cemetery.
Eighteen years later, Narcisse strolled into the marketplace of his home village. Along with others who were found wandering near the city of Cap Haitian, he claimed that he had been dug out of the ground by men who beat him cruelly then forced him into slave labour as a Zombie. He was one of the infamous "Walking Dead," long considered to be mere figments of superstition in the island nation of Haiti where Voodoo is practiced.
In New Orleans, locals believed Zombies to be very real entities. They are not only the re-animated bodies from local cemeteries -- they can also be spirits of ghosts trapped in bottles. Many local ghost stories, urban legends, and olden-time tales do talk about real Zombies coming out of the oven-wall crypts in New Orleans cemeteries. And they also tell of cursed and hexed Zombie Bottles doing their sole masters' bidding.
This is an actual Zombie story from New Orleans, often told by many of the locals. This real Zombie Story predates the reign of Marie Laveau as Queen of the Voodoos by only a few years. The Voodoo Queen in this story is none other then Sanite Dede, the reigning Voodoo Queen just before Marie Laveau became the Voodoo Queen.
Who is Sanite Dede?
Sanite Dede was in her time the most powerful of all the Voodoo Queens. As a young woman from Santo Domingo, she brought her secret hexes and hoodoo Voodoo to New Orleans. She often would hold rituals in her brick-lined courtyard on Dumaine and Chartres Streets, just walking distance away from the St. Louis Cathedral. The rhythmic beat of the drums could be heard inside the great church during mass the day the Reverend Zombie walked the French Quarter street.
The Real Reverend Zombie
A long tall tale often told is how a white, rich, well-respected, married, and very handsome Reverend once was turned into a real Zombie because of his scorned slave girl mistress, with a little help from Sanite Dede, of course.
This young, handsome, black-bearded Reverend lived in new Orleans. With his striking blue eyes and and handsome German features, all the ladies that saw him instantly and hopelessly fell in love with him. However, for all practical purposes, he was a man of the cloth and faithful to his loving wife. Nevertheless, unknown to all, he was involved in a secret affair with the slave girl of a wealthy Bywater plantation owner.
The affair lasted more than three years and none knew of it except the slave girl and the Reverend. The slave girl fell in love with him the first time she saw him because his strikingly good looks overwhelmed her. She came to him one day and demanded that he take her as his own slave that day. The Reverend went to her owner that day and asked for her to be given to him.
However, the slave owner would not part with her. He demanded much more money than the Reverend could afford. Some say she was also the mistress to her owner and his greatest prize.
Then one day, two weeks after this event, another young slave girl from another plantation came to the Reverend and said that the one he was involved with was pregnant with someone's bastard child.
The Reverend hurried to her master and told her master that she was a Voodoo woman and she had put a spell or Hoodoo on him and his family for them to die. The Reverend went on and on, telling her owner and his wife how she had bewitched him, too, in order to try to take her as his slave.
Upon hearing the news, the master took her and brutally beat her. Her master then cut out her tongue and gouged out her eyes.
A fellow house slave who knew her secrets and affairs brought the story to the great Voodoo Queen Mama Sanite Dede, as she was called by many. And upon hearing this, the great Voodoo Queen was enraged. Dede told the slave that came to her, "I will fix him good this Reverend! This so-called good man of God will walk the French Quarter until the great Angel Gabriel sounds the last blast of his golden horn."
Three days later, the poor slave girl died from the beating. That same night the Reverend also died, for no apparent reason. Word spread quick as it always did in the old French Quarter. A congregation member donated a fresh white-washed tomb in the St. Louis Cemetery, and the Reverend lay in state, still as handsome as ever in his dark suit and white collar starched stiff and bright around his neck.
The wake began in the reverend's large parlor facing Bourbon Street, with the room draped in miles of expensive black crepe imported from France. His large congregation came to pay their last and final respects on this hot humid Friday afternoon. His wake was solemn, of course, and many shed real tears, not because he was known as a bad man but because he was actually deeply loved by his large congregation. However, the afternoon wore on and the sun began to set as the long procession continued to pass by the coffin. Then, in the midst of the crowd, a dark figure of a tall woman stopped and crouched over the Reverend's expensive black lacquered coffin, bending low as if kissing him with her hands covering and moving over his face. Many were in shock, including the Reverend's wife, sister, and the whole congregation over seeing such an act.
As the dark veiled figure moved away from the casket, a loud gasp filled the room. "The Dark Lady" had pried open the Reverend's mouth, bit off his tongue, and sucked out his eyes from their very sockets. No one moved as she turned and almost floated across the room. All were frozen in place as she headed out the door, too stunned to stop her. No one saw her face nor could identify her. However, many thought she was the Queen of the Zombies, the great Ghede, Mama Bridgett, come to exact some dark secret toll or pact that he may have made in confidence while still alive.
The dead Reverend was buried on Saturday early, long before the sun had time to rise over the Crescent City. But he did not stay in his new grave. As the Great St. Louis Cathedral bells struck noon on that very Sunday, he was seen with arms stretched out, wandering stiff-limbed behind the great Cathedral garden. Everyone in town knew he was a dead man walking, and they were very much afraid. Many slaves and creoles all ran to the Dumaine Street home of Mama Sanite Dede for help, because they knew that she alone would have a solution.
Dede listened to the pleas and cries for help of those that gathered in fear before her. "Please help us, Great Mama Dede," an old free man of color said, "you come see the dead man walk Bourbon Street to do no good!" "I seen him come out of the St. Louis Cemetery with my own two eyes," said a white woman dressed in her Sunday finery.
Dede shook her head slowly, looking at the cobble-stoned street and then at the crowd. She asked: "Does anyone here know who it is?" The crowd shouted "YES! It's the dead Reverend buried yesterday morning who has come back from the dead to kill us all!" Dede said, "This may take some time...I must prepare a Hoodoo Voodoo Veve and a strong hex so big to stop this. You good people need go lock your children and your selves behind closed double-locked and bolted doors. And tell all you see on the street to do the same." Within a few moments, the beat of the great Voodoo drums filled the French Quarter. So loud they were that they shook the statues in the great Cathedral.
The streets were emptied in minutes as word of the Reverend Zombie walking the French Quarter streets reached far and wide. Even the police stayed away, fearing that they too would become Zombies if they came in contact with him.
The pounding drums grew stronger and stronger and the beat faster than a man's heart before it burst in fear. All the French Quarter residents hid, just like when a terrible hurricane would hit the city.
The hot afternoon sweltered like it does only in New Orleans. A terrible squall blew in from the shores of Lake Ponchartrain. Some will still tell you of the the terrible great storm that lasted all that night. The thunder shook the city as the Voodoo drums did earlier. And many say they heard the drums still beating between the great rumbles and thunder claps of the storm. They pounded until the first light of day broke over the mighty Mississippi River.
No one really knows now what Mama Dede and the pounding of the Voodoo drums did that day to rid New Orleans of the Reverend Zombie. She kept her secrets well. And no one knows if she really did anything at all. As for the Reverend Zombie ... some say she had him bricked up in a wall in a building on Toulouse street, and others say on Orleans behind the Cathedral in a corner building of red new brick, because Zombies cannot cross a line of red new brick and everyone in New Orleans knew that.
The next day after that nigh's long hard rain was gone, so was the Reverend Zombie.
Three years went by and the story faded away ... until one day during Mardi Gras season someone saw him again stumbling his way down Bourbon Street in the cold morning light. Many ran once again to Mama Dede for help, knowing full well the strange figure was the Reverend come back again.
"I smelled the dead man walking" one man said. "Is it the Reverend Zombie?" Dede asked. One woman said, "Yes, Mademoiselle, I do know! Yes it's him! I recognize his clothes as a man of the cloth! And I smelled the stench of death!" "Don't be afraid," Mama Dede told the crowd, "it's just the dead Reverend Zombie looking for his eyes. He'll be gone by dawn!"
The Reverend Zombie Today In New Orleans
Many say over the years that they have seen him stumbling ... a real dead man walking through the French Quarter, and also along Bayou St. John and Uptown alike. None have seen him recently, but some say he is still haunting the city.
Some have said he was washed away in Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and others say Hurricane Katrina finally did him in. Some say he guards the tombs of Mama Dede and Marie Laveaus so that if another Voodoo Queen wants to come to pick their bones for a Hoodoo Voodoo hex and JuJu, he will kill them them on the spot.
But, when visiting New Orleans, please keep your eyes peeled! When you are in New Orleans ... Reverend Zombie might be seen. Always. Just looking for his eyes and tongue!
The Reverend Zombie of New Orleans
The many dreaded Zombies danced as commanded by their masters. In honor of the great snake Zombi, the symbol of the Voodoo god, the Zombies slithered at their masters' feet, and locals fervently believed in Voodoo-cursed zombies and the ability to capture a spirit in a Zombie Bottle.
Who Is The Real Reverend Zombie of New Orleans?
In 1962, according to his death certificate, the Haitian peasant Clairvius Narcisse died near his home village in the Artibonite Valley. Though physically strong and rarely ill, he had begun to have difficulty breathing after a dispute with his brother over a piece of land. Weakened and nauseated, he began to spit blood and died two days later. His body was buried in a small rural cemetery.
Eighteen years later, Narcisse strolled into the marketplace of his home village. Along with others who were found wandering near the city of Cap Haitian, he claimed that he had been dug out of the ground by men who beat him cruelly then forced him into slave labour as a Zombie. He was one of the infamous "Walking Dead," long considered to be mere figments of superstition in the island nation of Haiti where Voodoo is practiced.
In New Orleans, locals believed Zombies to be very real entities. They are not only the re-animated bodies from local cemeteries -- they can also be spirits of ghosts trapped in bottles. Many local ghost stories, urban legends, and olden-time tales do talk about real Zombies coming out of the oven-wall crypts in New Orleans cemeteries. And they also tell of cursed and hexed Zombie Bottles doing their sole masters' bidding.
This is an actual Zombie story from New Orleans, often told by many of the locals. This real Zombie Story predates the reign of Marie Laveau as Queen of the Voodoos by only a few years. The Voodoo Queen in this story is none other then Sanite Dede, the reigning Voodoo Queen just before Marie Laveau became the Voodoo Queen.
Who is Sanite Dede?
The Real Reverend Zombie
A long tall tale often told is how a white, rich, well-respected, married, and very handsome Reverend once was turned into a real Zombie because of his scorned slave girl mistress, with a little help from Sanite Dede, of course.
This young, handsome, black-bearded Reverend lived in new Orleans. With his striking blue eyes and and handsome German features, all the ladies that saw him instantly and hopelessly fell in love with him. However, for all practical purposes, he was a man of the cloth and faithful to his loving wife. Nevertheless, unknown to all, he was involved in a secret affair with the slave girl of a wealthy Bywater plantation owner.
The affair lasted more than three years and none knew of it except the slave girl and the Reverend. The slave girl fell in love with him the first time she saw him because his strikingly good looks overwhelmed her. She came to him one day and demanded that he take her as his own slave that day. The Reverend went to her owner that day and asked for her to be given to him.
However, the slave owner would not part with her. He demanded much more money than the Reverend could afford. Some say she was also the mistress to her owner and his greatest prize.
Then one day, two weeks after this event, another young slave girl from another plantation came to the Reverend and said that the one he was involved with was pregnant with someone's bastard child.
The Reverend hurried to her master and told her master that she was a Voodoo woman and she had put a spell or Hoodoo on him and his family for them to die. The Reverend went on and on, telling her owner and his wife how she had bewitched him, too, in order to try to take her as his slave.
Upon hearing the news, the master took her and brutally beat her. Her master then cut out her tongue and gouged out her eyes.
A fellow house slave who knew her secrets and affairs brought the story to the great Voodoo Queen Mama Sanite Dede, as she was called by many. And upon hearing this, the great Voodoo Queen was enraged. Dede told the slave that came to her, "I will fix him good this Reverend! This so-called good man of God will walk the French Quarter until the great Angel Gabriel sounds the last blast of his golden horn."
Three days later, the poor slave girl died from the beating. That same night the Reverend also died, for no apparent reason. Word spread quick as it always did in the old French Quarter. A congregation member donated a fresh white-washed tomb in the St. Louis Cemetery, and the Reverend lay in state, still as handsome as ever in his dark suit and white collar starched stiff and bright around his neck.
The wake began in the reverend's large parlor facing Bourbon Street, with the room draped in miles of expensive black crepe imported from France. His large congregation came to pay their last and final respects on this hot humid Friday afternoon. His wake was solemn, of course, and many shed real tears, not because he was known as a bad man but because he was actually deeply loved by his large congregation. However, the afternoon wore on and the sun began to set as the long procession continued to pass by the coffin. Then, in the midst of the crowd, a dark figure of a tall woman stopped and crouched over the Reverend's expensive black lacquered coffin, bending low as if kissing him with her hands covering and moving over his face. Many were in shock, including the Reverend's wife, sister, and the whole congregation over seeing such an act.
As the dark veiled figure moved away from the casket, a loud gasp filled the room. "The Dark Lady" had pried open the Reverend's mouth, bit off his tongue, and sucked out his eyes from their very sockets. No one moved as she turned and almost floated across the room. All were frozen in place as she headed out the door, too stunned to stop her. No one saw her face nor could identify her. However, many thought she was the Queen of the Zombies, the great Ghede, Mama Bridgett, come to exact some dark secret toll or pact that he may have made in confidence while still alive.
The dead Reverend was buried on Saturday early, long before the sun had time to rise over the Crescent City. But he did not stay in his new grave. As the Great St. Louis Cathedral bells struck noon on that very Sunday, he was seen with arms stretched out, wandering stiff-limbed behind the great Cathedral garden. Everyone in town knew he was a dead man walking, and they were very much afraid. Many slaves and creoles all ran to the Dumaine Street home of Mama Sanite Dede for help, because they knew that she alone would have a solution.
Dede listened to the pleas and cries for help of those that gathered in fear before her. "Please help us, Great Mama Dede," an old free man of color said, "you come see the dead man walk Bourbon Street to do no good!" "I seen him come out of the St. Louis Cemetery with my own two eyes," said a white woman dressed in her Sunday finery.
Dede shook her head slowly, looking at the cobble-stoned street and then at the crowd. She asked: "Does anyone here know who it is?" The crowd shouted "YES! It's the dead Reverend buried yesterday morning who has come back from the dead to kill us all!" Dede said, "This may take some time...I must prepare a Hoodoo Voodoo Veve and a strong hex so big to stop this. You good people need go lock your children and your selves behind closed double-locked and bolted doors. And tell all you see on the street to do the same." Within a few moments, the beat of the great Voodoo drums filled the French Quarter. So loud they were that they shook the statues in the great Cathedral.
The streets were emptied in minutes as word of the Reverend Zombie walking the French Quarter streets reached far and wide. Even the police stayed away, fearing that they too would become Zombies if they came in contact with him.
The pounding drums grew stronger and stronger and the beat faster than a man's heart before it burst in fear. All the French Quarter residents hid, just like when a terrible hurricane would hit the city.
The hot afternoon sweltered like it does only in New Orleans. A terrible squall blew in from the shores of Lake Ponchartrain. Some will still tell you of the the terrible great storm that lasted all that night. The thunder shook the city as the Voodoo drums did earlier. And many say they heard the drums still beating between the great rumbles and thunder claps of the storm. They pounded until the first light of day broke over the mighty Mississippi River.
No one really knows now what Mama Dede and the pounding of the Voodoo drums did that day to rid New Orleans of the Reverend Zombie. She kept her secrets well. And no one knows if she really did anything at all. As for the Reverend Zombie ... some say she had him bricked up in a wall in a building on Toulouse street, and others say on Orleans behind the Cathedral in a corner building of red new brick, because Zombies cannot cross a line of red new brick and everyone in New Orleans knew that.
The next day after that nigh's long hard rain was gone, so was the Reverend Zombie.
Three years went by and the story faded away ... until one day during Mardi Gras season someone saw him again stumbling his way down Bourbon Street in the cold morning light. Many ran once again to Mama Dede for help, knowing full well the strange figure was the Reverend come back again.
"I smelled the dead man walking" one man said. "Is it the Reverend Zombie?" Dede asked. One woman said, "Yes, Mademoiselle, I do know! Yes it's him! I recognize his clothes as a man of the cloth! And I smelled the stench of death!" "Don't be afraid," Mama Dede told the crowd, "it's just the dead Reverend Zombie looking for his eyes. He'll be gone by dawn!"
The Reverend Zombie Today In New Orleans
Some have said he was washed away in Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and others say Hurricane Katrina finally did him in. Some say he guards the tombs of Mama Dede and Marie Laveaus so that if another Voodoo Queen wants to come to pick their bones for a Hoodoo Voodoo hex and JuJu, he will kill them them on the spot.
But, when visiting New Orleans, please keep your eyes peeled! When you are in New Orleans ... Reverend Zombie might be seen. Always. Just looking for his eyes and tongue!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
"Become the Sun": NK Nuclear (Con)fusion
My "career" in the State Department has permitted me to become (I say modestly) a "China Hand" (diplomatic talk for a China expert...the Chinese actually have a corresponding word for it as well), a "Soviet Hand" (meaning all the Soviet and post-Soviet space), and a Korea Hand (I "watched" North Korea while in Shenyang, and went to Seoul to attend a North Korea Watchers Conference). I continue to follow these three communist/post-communist areas of the world very closely.
Here is a recent news article about North Korea that you might find interesting. Please note the iconic picture of the Father of the Korean Nation, Eternal President Kim Il-Sung, still revered (literally) to this day....Imagine Mao's status in China when China was undergoing the Cultural Revolution, and you have a sense of his position. The depiction is very communist, borrowed from the Soviet and Chinese Communist style...large heroic dramatic poses focused on a cult of personality. The way the people hold the books in their hands...revered teachings of Chairman Kim Il-Sung...is exactly the way the Red Guard Chinese held Mao's famous Red Book in Chinese depictions during the Cultural Revolution…just as exaggerated, pointing forward bravely to a glorious future.
I cannot get enough of this. It's like a drug for me. North Korea is the last authentic Stalinist state in existence. As sad as its history is, and as cruel and harsh the life of its people, when it finally collapses, we will have lost a relic of living history.
North Korean scientists have, without warning, solved the problem of nuclear fusion. So reported the official daily Rodong Sinmun the other day, prompting bafflement worldwide. The Korean Central News Agency (North Korean) has this story:
DPRK Succeeds in Nuclear Fusion
Now obviously this is nonsense, but what kind of nonsense is it?
To all appearances, it's not about actual technological progress. Nor it is a cloaked allusion to weapon capabilities. It's sheer mystical nonsense. As the BBC and Reuters point out, the Day of the Sun, observed in mid-April, is nothing less than the anniversary of Eternal President Kim Il-Sung, founder of the Kim dynasty, and “sun of our nation.” (Actually a nom de guerre, the founder's name means “Become the Sun.”)
To put this claim in context, recall that North Korea has promised to use science and technology to “open the gate to a great, prosperous and powerful country” by 2012, Kim Il-Sung's centenary.
It doesn't always pay to take North Korean statements too literally. Back in 2002, facing American accusations about uranium enrichment, senior North Korean diplomat Kang Sok Ju declared that Pyongyang was bound to produce or entitled to possess nuclear weapons and weapons even more powerful than that! (My emphasis.) Which apparently refers not to boosted weapons, a layer-cake design, or hydrogen bombs, but to the “wholehearted unity of the party, the army and the people around General Kim Jong Il.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Pack Your Bags for Creativity
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. -- Lao Tzu
So I like to think that I am flexible and adaptive ... but I'm still not willing to use a crouch toilet covered with shit ...
Pack Your Bags for Creativity
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Atlas Shrugged: The Abridged Version
AYN RAND:
Hello, I'm Ayn Rand. I wrote a novel based on my Objectivist philosophy called The Fountainhead, but I don't think 700 pages was quite enough to get my point across, so I will write the exact same novel, only it will take 1100 pages this time.
Hello, I'm Ayn Rand. I wrote a novel based on my Objectivist philosophy called The Fountainhead, but I don't think 700 pages was quite enough to get my point across, so I will write the exact same novel, only it will take 1100 pages this time.
READERS:
Hey, great.
HEROINE:
I'm Dagny Taggart. I am a railroad tycoon, woman-in-a-man's-world, stunningly beautiful heroine. I am the only person capable of running this railroad. I am the only woman in the universe worth a damn. I am also the only woman in the universe with a real job. I am basically the only woman in this novel.
LOVE INTEREST #1:
I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, from afar for my whole life.
HEROINE:
That's nice.
LOVE INTEREST #2:
I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, naked on the forest floor. Yet I will nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism, despite the fact that I love you and want you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, desperately.
HEROINE:
Okay.
LOVE INTEREST #3:
I worship you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn. Let us have creepy rape fantasy sex now. I will not ask permission to do all these kinky things to you, but luckily you want to be forced into all the kinky things, you dirty bitch.
HEROINE:
This is clearly true love! Stick it in me.
ALL:
Who is John Galt?
AYN RAND:
I am not telling. Instead, please listen to someone pontificate about my Objectivist philosophy for a while.
SOMEONE:
[Pontificates]
VILLAINS:
There are many of us, but we are all exactly the same. We are caricatures of evil socialists and embodiments of pure evil. Let us create a perfect socialist world order ruled by the inept! We all suck! Socialism sucks! Ha ha!
HEROES:
We are all exactly the same. We are noble and perfect and have very angular and insolent faces. We can read each other's minds and the minds of everyone else in this novel, leaving less room for misunderstanding and more room for pontificating. And we are all in love with Dagny Taggart, the only woman in the universe worth a damn.
ALL:
Who is John Galt?
VILLAIN:
[Threatens hero.]
HERO:
If it's heads, I will gaze apathetically. If it's tails, I will laugh heartily.
VILLAIN:
Although these are the only two things any of you heroes have done for the past 800 pages, I am shocked at this response! How could you! How dare you!?!
HERO:
I will now pontificate about Ayn Rand's philosophy. It has been at least 50 pages since you've heard it.
AYN RAND:
It is so convenient that all of my heroes are in perfect agreement about my philosophy so that their pontificating is so interchangeable.
ALL:
Who is John Galt?
JOHN GALT:
Hello. In this, the culmination of all the pontificating, I will explain Ayn Rand's philosophy for a full 57 pages. No, I am not kidding. This one monologue will last for 57 pages. Oh and also, I love Dagny.
DAGNY:
I love you too. Man, this is really going to suck for Love Interest #3.
LOVE INTEREST #3:
Despite my passionate love for you and enjoyment of our rape sex, and the fact that there is no other woman on earth worth a damn, and the fact that I sacrificed my life's passion on your behalf, and that I spent my entire fortune to get a divorce to be with you, I will now nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism.
DAGNY:
Great! I will miss our creepy rape sex. Farewell.
LOVE INTEREST #3:
Bye.
READER:
Wait, what?
ATLAS:
[Shrugs]
THE END
Sunday, February 6, 2011
America the Ignorant
[As seen in Newsweek]
Here is a small sample of some of the crazy things that Americans believe. If you're a believer, then you are in good company. In fact, a remarkably high number of Americans believe the most unusual things. Here's a sampling of the nuttiest.
Opponents of President Obama have been spreading false rumors about his religion for quite some time. Recently, however, it seems that the number of Americans who believe these untruths is on the rise. Among respondents to a Pew poll, 18 percent believed Obama was a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. A Time magazine poll last week found similar results: 24 percent believed he was a Muslim, while only 47 percent correctly identified him as a Christian.
2 Evolution
To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, Gallup thought it might be a good idea to poll Americans on their beliefs of the British naturalist's theory. But the results must have had Darwin spinning in his grave, since only 39 percent of Americans believed in the theory. The good news: only a quarter said they didn't believe it; the remaining portion either didn't have an opinion or didn't answer. (Also, only 55 percent correctly linked Darwin's name with the theory.) However, it appears that views may, um, evolve: younger people believe in evolution at far higher rates than older ones.
It seems obvious that it's not a good idea to put too much stock in witchcraft. But it turns out that 21 percent of Americans believe there are real sorcerers, conjurers, and warlocks out there. And that's just one of the several paranormal beliefs common among Americans, according to Gallup: 41 percent believe in ESP, 32 percent in ghosts, and a quarter in astrology. In fairness, the numbers in this poll are a little old—they date back to 2005. But then again, if people haven't changed their mind since the Enlightenment, it's not clear another half decade would make much difference.
From Facebook to faith: that's how a spurious rumor became part of the national dialogue. On Facebook, Sarah Palin wrote in August 2009 that Obama would institute a "death panel" as part of health-care reform. Soon pundits and politicians were demagoguing the issue into common currency. Even in August 2010, one year after the initial burst and five months after health reform was signed into law, the belief lingers. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 Americans mistakenly believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act creates a panel that makes decisions about end-of-life care.
Even years after claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or had links to the September 11 attacks had been debunked, not all Americans were convinced. In a June 2007 NEWSWEEK poll, four years after the invasion of Iraq, 41 percent believed Saddam was involved in 9/11—even though President Bush had said otherwise as early as September 2003. Wild views on 9/11 are in fact still rampant. In September 2009, Public Policy Polling found that a quarter of Democrats suspected Bush had something to do with the attacks. Meanwhile, many Americans also remain convinced that Saddam had WMDs, even though inspectors haven't found any in the seven years since the invasion. Still, as of 2006, half of Americans believed that, according to Harris. Who knows where they got that idea? (Note: Answer -- Cheney. Even now, he is still adamant that Saddam had WMD. He forced the CIA to change its intelligence analysis, and he sold us a war on this lie. Powell, who embarrassed himself in the UN showing the "proof" to the world, now regrets doing this and now knows he was set up and "used" to promote a war.)
6 Heliocentrism
Didn't we clear this one up in the 16th century? Copernicus be damned, 20 percent of Americans were still sure in 1999 that the sun revolved around the Earth. Gallup, the pollster that conducted the study, gamely tried to dress it up by celebrating the fact that "four out of five Americans know Earth revolves around the sun," but we're not buying.
7 History of Religion
If mutual understanding is the key to tolerance, we're in trouble. According to Newsweek's 2007 "What You Need to Know" poll, barely half of Americans were correctly able to state that Judaism was older than both Christianity and Islam. Another 41 percent weren't sure; in case you're in that group, here goes: Judaism is the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, followed by Christianity -- which reveres the Jewish prophets (including Moses, above) -- and then Islam, which reveres the Jewish prophets and also hails Jesus as a prophet.
8 Supreme Court vs. Seven Dwarfs
It's hard to imagine what inspired the pollsters at Zogby to ask the question, but the answer is striking: in a 2006 poll, more than three quarters of Americans could name at least two of the seven dwarfs, while not quite a quarter could name two members of the Supreme Court. Newsweek's response is a split decision, if you will: on the one hand, Disney is as much a symbol of America as the high court, and those dwarfs are adorable. On the other hand, it should be easy to name only two out of a pool of nine options. Objection sustained!
9 World Geography
Lost? Don't ask an American. Sixty-three percent of young Americans can't find Iraq on a map, despite the ongoing U.S involvement there. Nine out of 10 can't find Afghanistan -- even if you give them the advantage of a map limited to Asia. And more than a third of Americans of any age can't identify the continent that's home to the Amazon River (above), the world's largest.
What a bunch of knuckleheads: according to Zogby, the majority of Americans -- three in four -- can correctly identify Larry, Curly, and Moe as the Three Stooges. Only two out of five respondents, however, can correctly identify the executive, legislative, and judicial branches as the three wings of government.
11 Freedom of Religion
Who needs constitutional constructionism? Not one in three Americans, apparently: that's the proportion that said in a 2008 First Amendment Center poll that the constitutional right to freedom of religion was never meant to apply to groups most folks think are extreme or fringe -- a 10 percent increase from 2000. In 2007, two out of five Americans told the FAC that teachers should be allowed to lead prayers in public schools.
Here is a small sample of some of the crazy things that Americans believe. If you're a believer, then you are in good company. In fact, a remarkably high number of Americans believe the most unusual things. Here's a sampling of the nuttiest.
1 Obama and His Religion
2 Evolution
3 Witchcraft
4 Death Panels
5 Saddam's WMDs and 9/11 Involvement
6 Heliocentrism
7 History of Religion
8 Supreme Court vs. Seven Dwarfs
9 World Geography
10 Three Stooges vs. Three Branches
11 Freedom of Religion
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