| Summary: Beware of TV shows that seek out
sensational angles on history. They may treat an event with
the same sensational exploitation that has falsely created
belief in the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot—neither
of which exist. |
Dennis Rawlins and junior college
librarian Mr. Bryce team up to discredit
Peary. If Peary is a fake, then there is no need to even mention
Henson. And they didn't mention him, except to slur Henson
as an unreliable witness!
The History
channel's "This Week in History"
declared that Amundsen, not
Peary, was the first to reach the North Pole when he flew over it in
an Italian blimp (ok, technically it was an airship). This bizarre conclusion was claimed by the "obnoxious,
glory-starved show boater" Dennis
Rawlins [see sidebar] who once made a front page blunder that still confuses
The
Encyclopedia Concise encyclopedia that spread
polar misinformation on Yahoo!. The only thing worse is the
Scotsman who claims he is first to reach the Pole!
Rawlins sat shoulder to shoulder with junior college librarian Bryce,
each vying for camera attention. And of course, they got
in the key racist line; "Peary didn't take any credible
witnesses with him." OH! A Negro is not a credible witness?
Oh, really? They asserted that "...Peary's speeds sledding to the Pole were impossible..."
Oh, really?! Obviously they have not heard about Paul
Landry & Paul Crowley's dog sledge trip to the North Pole?
They matched Peary & Henson's sledging speeds to the
Pole!
It is "no problem" if you have the skill Henson
& Peary's team demonstrated in 1909; or Landry & Crowley do today.
So the message I heard from The History Channel
was that Negroes
can't be trusted to tell the truth...and that even though
other people can travel as fast as Henson did with a dog
sledge—we can't believe Henson did. Uh, huh. I see. We just
have to believe Rawlins & Bryce, right?
Who
really reached the North Pole?
It was a man of pure Arian blood—Roald
Amundsen! Rawlins thinks he was "probably"
the first to cruise over the Pole in a blimp (ok, technically it
was an airship). Roald is now credited (by Rawlins)
as the first man to reach both the South Pole and the North Pole.
The North Pole? What the...? He flew over it in Alberto Nobile's
blimp
(ok, technically it was an airship) after Byrd "faked" flying to the Pole.
Byrd faked it? What
the...? Astrologer Rawlins says Byrd didn't have enough oil for
his airplane engine. What the...? Bryce said it is because they forgot to drop a box
full of little American flags.
What the...? Then Rawlins said it is because the copilot told a friend.. who told someone...
that they didn't go all the way. What the...? This sort of
"hearsay evidence" would never
be considered as evidence to real historians, but
The History
Channel calls it "recent scholarship." I call it sensational
nonsense.
The "Me, too!" junior college librarian
Community college librarian Bryce and astrologer Rawlins were seen
examining Peary's Diary on a magnifying view machine at the National
Archives. On camera they took turns pointing to the view screen
with their cotton gloved hands showing how the diary was a fake
because it was "too clean" and didn't have greasy smears. What
the...?
 |
| (above) Is this what Bryce calls a "too
clean" page in Peary's Diary? You decide! |
|
The pages
were not filled in the way the librarian thought they should be
filled in. (He'll hit your knuckles with a ruler if your
penmanship is sloppy?) But I own an official National Archives microfilm
copy of the diary and I can assure you it is not neat! It is a mess. There are
stains as well as expedition notes, personal notes, pages
inserted, pages used for notes to others that were torn out, and other items that
make it plain, even to an idiot, that it is really Peary's
field diary.
The Jr. college
librarian, who has what we used to call an "affected voice", bubbled with enthusiasm like a
little school girl, talking over
Rawlins to show how "this page is blank, SEE?! probably so Peary
could later write in there anything he wanted to make up." [Well...then why didn't he? DUH!] |
Clever racism. Destroy Peary and you discredit Henson. This was on the History
Channel, no less. A sad moment, this week, in our history.
Bradley Robinson |
| Consider
the sources, The History Channel sure didn't! |
 Rawlins – "...an obnoxious, glory-starved
show boater...
caught with his academic pants down."
(Kevin
McManus, Baltimore Magazine)
Bryce
– "...in absence of complete content he deserves brickbats.
There is a fatal flaw in this sort of scholarship-by-girth-and numbers."
More...
(Russell
W. Gibbons) |
Does the History Channel know or care who they put on their programs? Apparently
not! Here is factual background information about amateur Peary basher,
Rawlins. It is no joke, this is absolutely serious.
He went to the Washington Post with the story and soon got
"egg
on his scientific face" when a group...found that what
Dennis said were compass variations at the Pole, were in reality
the serial numbers of Peary's chronometer watches.
"...Baltimore
Magazine (July 1989) writer Kevin McManus said that Dennis
Rawlins was someone "who has practically made a career...of
trashing other people's pet theories." His Peary charge, he
said, was "a smoking gun which has...blown
a hole in his foot." It turns out that the calculations
... were in fact the serial numbers of his chronometers. The
blooper prompted some in the geographic community and the
extended fraternity ... to suggest (he) was somewhat of an
"obnoxious, glory-starved show boater,"
McManus wrote.
Rawlins, a sometimes astronomer in Baltimore, ...has been a critic
of both Cook and Peary, and has consigned both to what he
feels is a historical ashcan. In a Washington radio station
on February 25, 1997, Rawlins teamed
up with newly-published author Bryce, a librarian at a community
college in Maryland,...a match was made and two would-be debunkers
joined forces...
For the
second time in seven years, the man described by Baltimore
Magazine as an "intellectual swashbuckler,
an intellectual gadfly" was caught with his academic
pants down.
Special
thanks to: Russell
W. Gibbons for the above information.
In
1988 "...Rawlins held his own "informal press conference...
in which Rawlins admitted he had
confused time readings for chronometer checks with altitudes
of the sun and had mistaken serial numbers on the
chronometers for navigational observations." Rawlins conceded, "My interpretation
has some problems, and I acknowledge that."
Special thanks to "Crybaby" author
Robert Sheaffer for the above information. |
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