Monthly Archives: January 2017

THE NYCTALOPE: NEGLECTED PULP HERO

nyctalope-1Balladeer’s Blog examines another Pulp Hero who doesn’t get as much love as he deserves. Science Fiction pioneer Jean de la Hire from France created the Nyctalope (“Nightwalker”) in 1908 but since many of de la Hire’s works were not translated into English for decades this fascinating cyborg Pulp Hero and proto-superhero languished in obscurity.

nyctalope-2This French figure survived a violent incident with the help of scientists who “had the technology” to give him yellow bionic eyes which could see in the dark and for long distances. In addition his saviors replaced his damaged heart with a cybernetic one, endowing him with superhuman stamina since that artificial organ slowed the buildup of fatigue toxins in his system. 

The Nyctalope’s serialized adventures were collected into novel form after each story ended.

man-who-could-live-underwaterTHE MAN WHO COULD LIVE UNDERWATER (1908) In the story which introduced the Nyctalope he was a supporting character to one of Jean de la Hire’s other fictional figures, in this case Charles Severac. That man invented and captained the Torpedo, a super-scientific submarine that would make Captain Nemo AND Mighty Jack green with envy.

The Nyctalope helped Severac battle a mad scientist named Oxus and his associates Fulbert the monk and Balsan the surgeon. The villains had created a hybrid shark-man called the Ichtaner, meant to be the start of an amphibious army. Needless to say our heroes emerged triumphant and the Ichtaner was returned to normal.

In this debut appearance the Nyctalope’s secret identity was given as Jean de Sainte Clair, but de la Hire would absent-mindedly alternate between that and Leo Saint-Clair in future adventures before finally settling on the latter name.

(NOTE: Various fan-created histories of the Nyctalope resolve the difference by claiming that Jean de Sainte Clair was the father of Leo Saint-Clair. As fun as those fan works are they are not always official.)

nyctalope-on-marsTHE MYSTERY OF THE FIFTEEN (1911) aka THE NYCTALOPE ON MARS – Oxus the Mad returned as a villain in this first solo adventure of the Nyctalope. Oxus (renamed Arkhus in some later translations) was a member of a group called The Fifteen – a secret organization of megalomaniacal madmen.

The Fifteen had formed an alliance with a race on Mars, and through that alliance they had access to interplanetary spacecraft and additional advanced technology. Oxus, Koynos and their co-conspirators were spiriting women away to the Red Planet to marry some of them. They were planning to use the rest on a project cross-breeding Martians and humans to create perfect beings and an unstoppable warrior race in order to conquer both worlds. Continue reading

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KIKOMIHCI: MUSCOGEE CREEK GOD

human chartKIKOMIHCI – The god who created human beings and animal life after the supreme deity Ibofanaga was finished creating the Earth, the heavens and the underground world. Kikomihci animated people and other animals with their “ghosts” which could leave their bodies at night in dreams and wander around, returning to their host body by morning to avoid causing illness.

Ibofanaga was solely responsible for the actual “souls” of the beings Kikomihci created. Like the Inuit and other peoples the Muscogee Creek distinguished between an animating force and an actual “eternal” soul.

Kikomihci created humans in the underground world and it was from there that the ancient Creek people eventually emerged from caves near what we call the Rocky Mountains. The Muscogee called those mountains “the spine of the world”  (although in some versions it is instead the Appalachian Mountains that are given that designation). The realm of the gods was on the other side of those mountains. Continue reading

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MARIKAS (421 B.C.) – ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

EupolisBalladeer’s Blog presents another look at an ancient Greek Comedy. This time around it’s one written by Eupolis who – along with Aristophanes and Cratinus – was one of the Big Three of Attic Old Comedy.

MARIKAS (c 421 B.C.) – This was the second comedy to emerge in the new subgenre of Attic Old Comedy called “the Demagogue Comedy”. Aristophanes led the way a few years earlier with The Knights, his comedy attacking the politician Cleon. The play Marikas finds Eupolis attacking the demagogue Hyperbolus, whose reputation for character assassination by way of overstatement lives on in our language by way of the word “hyperbole”.  

As with most ancient Greek comedies Marikas has survived only in fragmentary form. Those fragments, along with contemporary references in surviving works, provide what is known about the play. Marikas, the title character, was used by Eupolis to represent the politician Hyperbolus the same way Aristophanes had used the Paphlagonian to represent Cleon in The Knights.

The ancient Greek comedies made a point of breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis (despite the way so many people have convinced themselves that that is a “postmodern” development) and Marikas opened up with a character assuring the audience that the play they were about to see was NOT just a rehashing of The Knights. Continue reading

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A REMINDER FROM PAT CONDELL ABOUT HOW LUCKY WE ARE HILLARY WAS DEFEATED

Pat Condell always manages to put things perfectly. Today, as we mark how fortunate we are that Hillary “Couldn’t Even Win Twenty States” Clinton is not our next president, enjoy Condell’s masterpiece video from election day back in November.

Soak it in again and remember ALL the reasons why Hillary was rejected. 

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Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, Presidential Rap Sheets

OBAMA FLUSHED DOWN THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

Obama fail

The confused, uncomprehending face of utter incompetence.

Hopefully once Inauguration Day is over the hysterical fools of what passes for the American Left these days will calm down a little and leave the rest of us alone for awhile.

I’m going to be 100% sincere in this blog post. It’s rare that I do that, and regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know I’m almost always being tongue-in-cheek or just plain sarcastic.  

Barack Obama has been a disaster. He lived up to his crooked pre-presidential existence with an administration so corrupt that even the corporate media finally imploded. They abandoned any and all pretense of objectivity and openly considered themselves part of the Obama administration in their desperation to cover up for the weak, inept and crooked little man.

Hit the road barack

So say we all.

The most recent example was the way the DemoKKKrats’ media outlets allowed Obama to get away with his outright lie that his administration was “scandal-free.” That utterly ridiculous piece of fantasy and propaganda is all the proof any rational person needs regarding the extreme bias of our corporate media.

ALL presidents have had scandals in their administrations. I don’t have a “favorite” president but the one I feel had the longest-lasting positive impact was Franklin Roosevelt, yet you’ll never hear me try to claim his administration was “scandal-free.” Such talk is for fiction, not rational, adult conversation.

The media’s sycophantic willingness to go along with Obama’s lies and distortions for eight years shows why they are now so despised and distrusted and why the man they clearly hated was elected president. Barack Obama was a menace because he didn’t understand how little he actually knew and how meager his talents were.

Obama was the worst president the United States has ever had and I don’t say that lightly. I won’t rehash all the reasons why, because I’ve written about all of those reasons over the past few years. People who try to present Obama as anything but a failure tend to be people whose own comments make it clear they have no knowledge of history and no grasp of how the U.S. government works.

Before ObamacareObama embodied the shallowness and immaturity of his supporters, most of whom were such petty, celebrity-obsessed fools that they fixated on their president because his name and office were the only things they seemed to comprehend about the country. Future African American presidents will no doubt be much more capable than the Hollow Man named Barack Obama.

His childish refusal to work with Congress while having no problem working with dictatorships and mad Muslim Mullahs left him with no true legacy. Instead of negotiating with the opposition party Barack petulantly resorted to a series of inept and often ineffective Executive Orders, more than all previous presidents combined.

Many of those spiteful, poorly thought-out Executive Orders were eventually struck down by the Supreme Court and rightfully so. The rest can be undone with the stroke of a pen by our incoming president.

Barack Obama has left the United States and the world far worse off than when he took office. We are all better off for being rid of him. There is nothing good to be said about him. The best description of him came from the other world leaders at the G20 summit when they called Obama “an irrelevant child.” May this vain and pathetic creature suffer at least a fraction of the pain he inflicted on so many innocent people.    

ALSO SEE: National Association of Police Organizations’ Executive Director William J Johnson on Obama: “NO ONE IS SORRY TO SEE THIS GUY GO.” Click    Continue reading

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PRESIDENTIAL ACTION AND HORROR FILMS

George WashingtonGEORGE WASHINGTON BATTLES THE BERSERKERS – During the brutal winter at Valley Forge General George Washington must contend with more than just the elements and the distant British army. The Hessian troops the Redcoats have imported from the German- speaking world have unleashed a master plan to overrun the Continental Army once and for all.

Their ranks boast a dabbler in Nordic magic and he’s concocted a mushroom-heavy formula to transform all the Hessians into furious berserkers like those of the Viking age! George is having none of it of course, and plans to turn the Pennsylvania snow red with the blood of these latter-day berserkers of the ancient Germanic god Woden.

All this plus a gay love affair between Washington and Alexander Hamilton just to guarantee lots of free publicity! 

John AdamsJOHN ADAMS: WITCHSLAYER – Remember the tale of young John Adams defending a 1700s Wiccan priestess when he was a lawyer? This movie would proceed from the notion that the young witch went on to involve Adams in a battle royal with an evil coven of dark witches who were giving paganism a bad name!

Using an aresenal of mystic weapons provided by the priestess he defended John goes on to lay the thirteen witches and warlocks of the dark coven in their graves! Throw in an Continue reading

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TRUMP AND HIS FOES: THE LATEST

Mascot with demo and repub heads

We’re all sick of talking about the election but unfortunately DemoKKKrats and Illiberals are still throwing their childish fits every waking moment. They are unable to deal with the reality that de facto Third Party Candidate Donald Trump defeated the career criminal Hillary Clinton, who didn’t even win twenty states. (We have 50 states, not 57 like Obama foolishly thought.) 

mason-weaverFORMER BLACK PANTHER Mason Weaver joined the countless African Americans speaking out on Trump’s behalf to counter the absurd and frantic screeching of DemoKKKrats and clueless, uninformed celebrities.

In reply to Democrat Congressman John “Do you know who I AM” Lewis irrationally pretending Trump is an illegitimate president, Weaver called Lewis an “illegitimate Congressman” who, alongside other Democrats “presided over the destruction of black people.”   

He joined the oppressors (Democrats) and became a stooge for them,” Weaver said of Lewis, who is “now sitting and presiding over the destruction of the black community; the destruction of black men; the destruction of black women, with drugs and gangs.” 

Weaver called on Congressman Lewis to “apologize” to the American people for joining the Democratic “party of abuse,” which has “always been the party of the Klan; the party that went to war to keep slaves; the party that’s always been the destruction of black people.”

Congressman Lewis “has gotten rich and his people have gotten poorer,” Weaver said. “The black (Congressional) caucus has gotten more power and influence, and the black people they preside over have gotten poorer — more drugs, more gangs, less businesses, less home ownership, less education, more jails.”

marco-rubioMARCO RUBIO, ONE OF THE FAILED REPUBLICANS that Trump scraped off the bottom of his shoe during the primaries, displayed far less backbone than Mason Weaver, however.

Demonstrating the cringing, crawling cravenness that marks all Republicans except Trump (who isn’t even really a Republican, thankfully) Rubio added his own prepubescent whining to the DemoKKKrat chorus criticizing Trump for clashing with John “Please say you remember me” Lewis. They don’t call Marco Rubio “the Pipsqueak” for nothing! Continue reading

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TITLES FOR A HILLARY CLINTON BIOPIC

hillary-clinton-singing

. … … “Hey, big SPEN-DERRRRRR!” … … .

You have got to love the HILARIOUS news about the way bribes funneled to career criminal Hillary Clinton via her fake charity are drying up completely now that she was defeated in her attempt to steal the presidency.

What better time to ponder possible titles for the inevitable exercise in hagiography that Hillary’s clueless and uninformed Hollywood worshippers will no doubt concoct?

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

NO WAYS HONEST: THE LIFE OF HILLARY CLINTON

HAVE PANTSUIT, WILL PANDER

HILLARY CLINTON: THE PRESIDENT OF CALIFORNIA (… WELL, AT LEAST THE PRESIDENT OF CALIFORNIA’S ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT VOTERS)

WEALTHY WHITE WOMAN: HILLARY CLINTON’S STRUGGLE TO OVERCOME OPPRESSION
Continue reading

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BAYBAYAN: EPIC MYTH OF THE PHILIPPINES

Philippines Map 3Here’s another piece in the tradition of Balladeer’s Blog’s guides to my examinations of the epic myths about Nayanazgeni, the Navajo War God and Pele & Hi’iaka, the Hawaiian volcano goddess and her sister.

I. PART ONE – After Baybayan’s miraculous birth and rapid growth the demigod travels the Philippines performing miracles and gathering a huge band of followers around him. Soon, the day of apocalyptic danger arrives. CLICK HERE   

II. PART TWO – As Baybayan performs a multitude of wedding ceremonies for his disciples all the merriment ends with the arrival of the gigantic, world-destroying monster called the Makadingding. CLICK HERE   Continue reading

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MORE AFRICAN AMERICAN TRUMP SUPPORTERS SPEAKING OUT

map

… … OBAMA BUILT THAT AND HILLARY PAID THE PRICE … …

I had hoped to stop even writing about politics for awhile after the election but America’s increasingly deranged and violent political left has made that impossible. Ever since Donald Trump defeated Hillary “Couldn’t Even Win Twenty States” Clinton the Democrats and their media outlets have been shrieking thoroughly over-the-top nonsense 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with no let-up.

Though some Trump supporters are speaking out to counter the bizarre and impossible claims that American Liberals are making about the President-Elect TOO MANY Trump supporters are still too meek to openly admit they voted for him. TIME  TO GROW A BACKBONE, PEOPLE. Democrats are encouraging violence against your candidate and against anyone who refuses to express the same foaming at the mouth hatred that they express toward him.

jim-brownTo name just a few who have spoken out publicly on Trump’s behalf in the past few days:

JIM BROWN made the truthful observation that “Trump won fair and square and I’m going to support him.”

stephen-a-smithSTEPHEN A SMITH called for support for Trump from the black community.

STEVE HARVEY was one of the many African American leaders who met with Trump about working closely with his cabinet member Dr Ben Carson (also an African American) to improve job situations for AA youth. He was attacked by Democrats for meeting with Trump, prompting Stephen A Smith’s own remark.

THE COALITION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PASTORS condemned the way that the left is STILL encouraging violence and unrest toward Trump. Continue reading

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