Behind the Bastards

there. She found hundreds of decaying books by the 16th and 17th century Masters of alchemy and hermetic philosophy such as Paracelsus Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Heinrich Kunrath

I read a book when I was a lot younger...the show Band of Brothers was about an actual like military unit in the U.S., Easy Company, I think in the 82nd Airborne...And there was like a point in it, a line in it where he was like, because I think he wrote it in like the 80s or 90s, where he was like, I keep seeing people comparing like business to war and like using military metaphors to talk about how companies should be run. And I find it really, really off putting because like war is just like unhinged savagery and people shouldn't people shouldn't seek to emulate it in the other spheres of existence.

This is very similar to something that me and Mia talked about right as Trump got elected in terms of the state becoming more removed but hostile.

He was constantly in trouble for minor things but he also had a good heart as this story from American terrorist, the fantastic biography of McFay makes clear.

From American terrorists quote, "The brother and sister's discussion sprawled in myriad directions from the Bible to the pyramid and its crowning all-seeing eye on the back of the dollar bill."

While he swore he never embraced racism McFay actively explored the racist point of view he had already begun selling copies of the Turner Diaries at gun shows and because of the racist content of the book McFay wound up on a mailing list for the Ku Klux Klan.

According to American terrorist Quote, Clinton R. Van Zant, the former FBI agent who had tried without success to negotiate a peaceful end to the Waco standoff three years earlier agreed with McVeigh at least on that point.

one of the people who's been most responsible for sort of making it a big deal in the Internet age is a health grifter. He would call himself a health blogger named Mark Sisson.

as a set of rules to let you, quote, control how your genes express themselves in order to build the strongest, leanest, healthiest body possible.

Taking clues from evolutionary biology.

And I've been people have been constantly like, oh, you should read Camp of the Saints. You should read Siege. And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want to first of all, I don't even know if I want those things on my hard drive.

Over the course of Bread and Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer highlights the reciprocal relationship with the earth that many indigenous groups, including her Potawatomi culture, have cultivated over generations.

I knew the name of Dr. Laura's first book without even having to research it because I heard it a million times on the air.

If you ever heard the show, you heard this title.

Yeah, I mean, that book has endured.

I'm going to read you the first five chapters. And each chapter comes with like a little sentence that I guess is supposed to be a descriptor.

Number one, and these are again, the 10 stupid things women do to mess up their lives.

And it was in this book that Dr. Laura publicly espoused her belief that women have an ethical objection to have sex with their husbands even if they don't want to have sex.

And they don't say this, but like they advise her book. And what she is saying is you are not respecting your husband if you don't let him fuck you, right? It is that direct.

And she is the author of Dr. Laura, The Unauthorized Biography, a revealing look at the hidden life of radio phenomenon Dr. Laura Schlesinger, which for reasons I cannot explain has an anarchist flag as its background.

Look at this book cover. It's a series of choices here.

She was also the author of two. She's the author of two unauthorized biographies, one being the Dr. Laura biography, which I've read and the second, which I have not read is the Lives of Danielle Steel and appears to be an unauthorized biography of Danielle Steel.

I will say while this book is invaluable because we just really don't have a lot of other good sources about her early life that talk to a lot of people who know her.

This is a really hateful book in a way that even as someone who doesn't like Dr. Laura, I had to go. This is a little ethically questionable, particularly because a decent chunk of it, not most of it, but a major source is a guy who leaked nude photos of Dr. Laura to the news.

Dr. Laura's book, which we hear from this episode is 10 Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives.

Old seller.

She's the author of two unauthorized biographies, one being the Dr. Laura biography, which I've read and the second, which I have not read is The Lives of Danielle Steel and appears to be an unauthorized biography of Danielle Steel.

If you're more interested in this, read Rhythms of the Pachacuti or get a doctorate, I guess.

It's called Operation Night Watch and it's a very racist pseudo self insert fiction story about the Navy Seals going to war with drug dealers in Dallas

Look at this cover. Hell yeah, the Invisible War I love that he probably hired Here's his face He was about 20 years older than that in looks by the time I met him

Again, I'm pretty sure he's gotta be dead. I had this job 17 something years ago It's kind of giving knock off dollar store Richard Gere Yeah, he does kinda look like dollar store Richard Gere I love that he hired someone to design that cover

That is the level of competency that you get when you hire someone who doesn't know what they're doing The publisher is NAJ Publishing Group Which I think is just a vanity press. I haven't heard of them What year was it published?

Let's see if this has a proper title page. 1997 It had a second printing in 99 It was edited by Victoria Lynn Scott Who, if I remember this book Was not very good at her job. My money is on vanity press

A part of this book has resulted from my fascination with special forces military tactics, especially Navy SEAL teams. The evolution of Navy SEAL teams from the forerunner underwater demolitions teams resulted in the creation of some of the most capable special warfare troops in the world. The only other special forces story that even comes close to the Navy SEALs is the special Israeli commando unit Sarek Maktal, simply known as the Chief of Staff's boys. That's what Netanyahu did as a young man, which unsurprisingly shows up in my second novel. I bet they do. Oh boy Al, I bet they do. Ooh, he's got a second novel. Yeah, I chose to use Navy SEALs in Operation Night Watch because their tactics fit perfectly into the chain of events. The other force in this book, gang violence, has become an ever increasing problem not only in the United States but in other parts of the world as well. While the book is fiction, many of the violent activities were based on similar events taken from stories in several large city newspapers. So while the book is fiction, the violence is very real. I've been asked what motivated me to write this book. Was it trying to hold some lofty moral standard to have a major impact on society, etc.? Truthfully, my main motivation, being an avid reader myself, was to have a book end the way I wanted it to. Aww. I want to thank my- oh yeah, anyway. And then it goes on to some personal stuff which I'm not gonna get into. But yeah. Oh, and he thanks God for helping him make his lifelong dream a reality. Thank God and the publisher you paid, Al. Yep. Which might also be you. The publisher, not God. He's a- and again, just since I- from knowing this guy somewhat, like, he's a pretty normal middle-aged, you know, at this point elderly Dallas dude, like obsessed with the Navy SEALs but not based on any point of knowledge but just because he sat up through a lot of, like, documentaries and read a couple of the books that Navy SEALs publish. I wonder how he would have- Was he, like, in Vietnam or anything? No, definitely not. No, Al Jones never heard a shot fired in anger in his life. This man did not go to Dallas. He lived in the north- he lived out kinda near Oklahoma and he drove to the Dallas suburbs in order to do his work. But he, like, avoided anything that looked like the inner city, like the plague. I am sure he kept a 1911 with a bullet in the chamber in the center console of his car at all times. Yeah. That's that kinda guy. Oh, and he wrote- he signed it. Margaret? To Billy, I enjoyed meeting you. Uh, that's nice. So, he may have handed this- Who'd you steal this book from? I bought it from Amazon. So, Billy- Oh, I was like- I don't know what names Robert's gone by. There were crates of this book in the office. I like that theory better. That back when you were a finance man's secretary, you went by- I was secretly living as Billy. I was really in the Syrett Moktal and I was- this was a deep cover Israeli intelligence operation to make sure that this middling financial advisor in suburban Texas wasn't interfering with our nefarious plans.

The long, battered, black 1970 Cadillac sedan slowly turned the corner onto Hickory Street. The sun momentarily reflected from the shiny chrome-plated .357 Magnum pistol. Like a shark stalking its prey, the car slowed as it neared the school playground, pulled close to the curb and stopped inside of the cracked and crumbling asphalt basketball court. Eight young men were in the middle of a spirited game of basketball on the old court. The street was quiet except for the sounds of the game. Mick McCord was deep in thought as he walked down Hickory Street towards the old schoolyard. He didn't notice the flash from the chrome pistol or the black sedan. Mick had planned the surprise visit for months. With a smile, his mind wandered back to the first time his cousin Timmy had visited the small farm north of Dallas near the Oklahoma State line. That's definitely where he lived. That's definitely a little early for a flashback, but he's a master. He can break the rules. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Much like Faulkner, for example. Writer Joyce. This book has a lot of Joyce-ian echoes in it. I'm imagining that Mick is masturbating through a hole in his pants pocket as he walks towards this basketball court.

The black car was partially hidden behind a tall oak tree. The driver reached across and nudged the young Hispanic holding the big gun. Not Hispanic man, not Hispanic boy, just the young Hispanic holding the big gun. The three passengers in the back scooted down in their seats. The boy seemed hesitant and reached up to wipe the glistening beads of sweat from his face. The driver turned to nudge him once again. The son glistened Is this the second time he said glisten in this part? Maybe not. The son glistened from a peculiar silver cross hanging from his left earlobe. You're gonna do it or not, the driver said softly. Oh yes, yes. He's Church of Christ so he does believe that Papist conspiracies include all of the gangs. The Pope is secretly running MS-13. Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute, okay? Give you a minute my ass. What's the matter? You not chicken or something? You wanna be a scorpion or not man? Oh my god, it's a gang initiation. Oh great. And they're the scorpions. And then immediately after that paragraph, next paragraph starts, although Timmy was only 8, he seemed older. Now we're getting more of Timmy's backstory. His mom fell for a drunken cab driver who worked at a fair. So this is his nightmare story of a family like your mom falls in love with a drunken cab driver she meets at Fair Park, she works as a convenience store clerk her husband's an alcoholic. Great stuff. Before finally abandoning the family altogether, the stepdad had often beaten Tim with a belt buckle during his drunken fits while Gertrude was at work. The beatings hadn't stopped with just Tim. Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Man, we just keep... Tim spends the summer with Mick, they become great friends. What a fucking like... what happens with the fucking gun? What happens with the gun? Why are we looping back like this now? Oh wait, no, here we go, here we go. So Mick goes to Navy boot camp and keeps writing with Timmy. We're now learning about Mick's backstory again. Oh, wait, they write each other? How do they... They're friends. They become friends when Timmy goes to the farm for a while to get away from his alcoholic, abusive dad. And Mick joins the Navy and he has a big special assignment in the Middle East. But the neighborhood declines while he's away doing his special assignment. The opportunity... he gets... he has an assignment in Iraq so we're not in Iraq at this point. This is the late 90s so I'm guessing it's either illegal or this is desert storm.

I'm on the edge of my seat. What could possibly happen? I hope that Mick is able to save the day and get justice for paralyzed Timmy Presumably paralyzed Timmy and the unnamed black boy who died No one cares about him. Why do you bring him up?

I hope that the president and his friends who all have are introduced as an indistinguishable storm of names win or lose re-election unclear to me if they're supposed to be worse than Storm at this point. I hope they do one or the other. I hope everyone has fun.

Storm the sick boy with cancer who skits to pretend to be in the Senate.

I hope that the gangs win and bring about peace on earth. That's what I hope happens.

I love that like the person who was like what if we get all the gangs together to talk and be like fuck that that'll never happen you fucking piece of shit liberal like I have actually been in places where the gangs have called truces and worked together. It's when cops murder people and they have to temporarily put aside their differences to like shut Baltimore down Yeah. Well Magpie Speaking of Baltimore, you have a podcast.

Not like Baltimore in any particular way Other than that Baltimore I presume has cool people doing cool stuff in it Yeah, the people who later invented the paramedics they did it in Pittsburgh but the guy started in Baltimore he started in Eastern Europe but he was in Baltimore for a while and sometimes I wear a Baltimore shirt while I record but people don't know it because my podcast cool people who did cool stuff is not available on video so if you're watching this on YouTube you're going to have to be like how am I going to listen to Margaret and the answer is that you have to use a podcast app but you can do it by listening to me every Monday and Wednesday with cool people doing cool stuff. You can do that and I don't have a shirt that says Baltimore but I'm often thinking about that song that I heard in The Wire What You Know About Baltimore Whenever someone says the word Baltimore that song comes into my head so there's some lore for Robert. Anyway, I have a novel it's called After the Revolution. You know it's a debut novel there's some things I would have written differently if I were writing it today but I can tell you one thing you generally know who is saying what because it's easy to include that in your book. But how many times did you use the word glisten?

I think at least a couple. Great. Probably glisten or two in there. Yeah. I'd imagine And Magpie, you have a book called The Sapling Cage which I can confirm is much better than Al Jones' Operation Nightwatch. Also, like an actual writer you were paid to publish it.

It's true It comes out in September from Feminist Press. If you are listening to this in the middle of June 2024 it is available for Kickstarter right now and if you're listening after that then it is either available for pre-order or regular order and it is about a young trans girl who becomes a witch and saves the world from people destroying magic and trying to institute a bad government. There's a lot of good spear porn in it too Not in the way that you are currently thinking No, like in the way of people using... because spears are cool weapons. God damn it.

You're right. I do have to qualify that I like spears. Me too. The podcast is fucking done because Robert's gonna say some shit See y'all soon. Bye.

Now I learned he was a piece of shit from the book Berlin Games by Guy Walters.

Brundage knew that if he wanted to succeed him, Jahnke, he would have to do exactly as the president and the vice president wished.

With the two men looking benevolently on Germany, Brundage decided that he would change his opinion to coincide with theirs.

It was nothing more than toadying. From this moment on, Brundage would do everything in his power to ensure that his masters were satisfied.

He met Jewish sports leaders who, under the watchful eyes of Nazi handlers, assured Brundage that conditions were not as the foreign newspapers were suggesting.

Brundage was further handicapped by his inability to speak German. So any inferences that the Jewish sportsmen may have made would have been blocked out by the Nazis.

By the time Hitler reached his seat at four or five p.m., there was no doubt that he was already the star of the Olympics.

These were his games now, not Ballet Latour's and most certainly not Kubertins as if to reinforce the not suffocation of the games.

The United States was one of the last teams to enter the stadium.

We were a total disgrace, recalled Joanna de Tuscan.

About 30 or 40 nonmembers of the team, fat with cigarette ashes on their clothes, marched at the head of the team.

Marty Glickman felt that the word marching was inappropriate to describe how the Americans proceeded.

American athletes don't march very well, he wrote.

We kind of moved in our usual loose gated walk.

At the team's head was Avery Brundage, who was neither fat nor a smoker and was one of the few who really did march.

As the Americans marched past Hitler, they removed their boaters and clutched them to their hearts, whereas other flags were dipped in honor of the Fuhrer, the Stars and Stripes remained resolutely aloft.

Marty Glickman recalled the moment when the team passed Hitler.

We looked up at the box where he was flanked by Gehring and Goebbels and Hess and Himmler and all the rest of the Nazi hierarchy.

And you could hear the comment run through our crowd as we were walking in.

Hey, he looks like Charlie Chaplin.

I want to actually first read you a summary of the whole trip by Oliver Helms and his book Berlin 1936, which I like less than Guy's book.

Brundage stayed in the capital of the Third Reich for six days, inspecting construction on the Olympic Stadium and other facilities, visiting a number of museums and generally enjoying life.

He had little time left over for meeting representatives of Jewish athletics when they told him that Jews were no longer allowed to join German sports clubs.

In Berlin, 1936, Oliver Helms writes of him, quote, His main qualification for this task was something completely different.

A conspicuous personal fascination with Adolf Hitler.

And his conversation with Cheryl, Hitler made no concessions.

Jews were not being discriminated against.

He lied. They were merely being treated as separate from the German people and thus could not be members of the German Olympic team.

Cheryl pressed the Fuhrer on the issue.

It was Germany's friend, he said, and wanted only the best for the country.

But if the Fuhrer insisted on this position, the IOC would take the games away from Berlin.

Hitler snarled that in that case, the Third Reich would stage a purely German Olympic Games.

So Rita told author David Vine in an interview for his book, Island of Shame, life there paid little money, very little, but it was the sweet life.

Rita gives his cause of death as sagrin, which is another Chagossian word and it means deep sadness.

She told David Vine, my life has been buried. It is as if I was pulled from my paradise to put me in hell. Everything here you need to buy. I don't have the means to buy them. My children go without eating.

According to Molini, he first tried to shoot the dogs with the help of CBs armed with M16 rifles. When this failed as an expeditious extermination method, he attempted to poison the dogs with strychnine. This too failed. Sitting in his home, overlooking a secluded beach in the Seychelles 33 years later, Molini explained to me how he finally used raw meat to lure the dogs into a sealed copra drying shed, the Calora fire. Locking them in the shed, he gassed the howling dogs with exhaust piped in from US military vehicles. Setting the coconut husks ablaze, he burnt the dog's carcasses in the shed.

I'm gonna quote from the book Island of Shame, a very appropriate title.

And I'm reading from Mark Curtis's web of deceit here.

A foreign office minute from 1965 recognizes policy as to certify the Chagossians more or less fraudulently as belonging somewhere else.

Another Whitehall document was entitled, maintaining the fiction.

The foreign office legal advisor wrote in January, 1970, that it was important to maintain the fiction that the inhabitants of Chagos are not a permanent or semi-permanent population.